ABEA COUNCIL MEETING

Westin Boston Waterfront

Boston, Massachusetts

Grand Ballroom C

September 25, 2010

4:00pm

 

Drs. Milan Amin, Peter Belafsky, Andrew Blitzer, James Burns, Ellen Deutsch, David Eibling, Gregory Grillone,  J. Scott McMurray, Gregory Postma, Marc Remacle, Gresham Richter, Michael Rothschild, Dana Thompson, Paul Willging, Karen Zur, Jeffrey Chang, Resident member

 

NEW COUNCIL MEMBERS

Dr. Rothschild welcomed new council members:

1.     Seth Daily - Chair, Research & Education Committee

2.     Gresham Richter – Chair, Foreign Body Committee

3.     Karen Zur – Chair, Difficult Airway Committee

4.     Paul Willging – Chair, New Technology Committee

5.     Marc Remacle – Chair, newly formed International Committee

6.     Reza Rahbar, Council Member at Large

 

So as not to turn over all of the committee chairs at once, two chairs who have served their three year terms were held over for another three years, as allowed by the Bylaws in “special circumstances”.

7.     Milan Amin, Pharyngoesophageal Committee (appointed in 2007)

8.     James Burns, Oncology Committee (appointed in 2006)

 

CURRENT COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS

1.     Nominating Committee:

a.     Chair: Immediate Past President

                                               i.     3 additional members to be elected.

2.     Awards and Thesis Committee:

a.     Chair: Immediate Past President

                                               i.     Members, Current President and Current Program Chair

3.     Research and Education Committee:

a.     Chair: Seth Dailey

                                               i.     Members: Nicole Maronian and Adam Klein

4.     Foreign Body and Accidents Committee:

a.     Chair: Gresham Richter

                                               i.     Members: Sukgi Choi ans Alessandro de Alarcon

5.     Pharyngeal and Esophageal Committee:

a.     Chair: Milan R. Amin

                                               i.     Catherine Rees and Albert Merati

6.     Oncology Committee:

a.     Chair: James A. Burns

                                               i.     Members: Bruce Haughey, Greg Weinstein

7.     New Technology Committee:

a.     Chair: J. Paul WIllging

                                               i.     Andy Ingliss,  Libby Smith, Mike Rutter

8.     Difficult Airway Committee:

a.     Chair: Karen Zur

                                               i.     Members:  Ellen Deutsch, Julie Wei

9.     International Relations Committee:

a.     Chair: Marc Remacle

                                               i.     Guillermo Campos (being proposed for membership), Antonio Mazzei (Buenos Aires) and Shigeru Hirano (Japan)

 

READING OF MINUTES

  • Minutes from April 27, 2010 Council Meeting were approved and seconded as written.

 

PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Michael Rothschild, MD

 

  1. Joint ABEA/ALA/ELS Meeting
    1. A discussion had previously been held with Greg Grillone, Stanley Shapshay and Gaelyn Garrett after the Secretaries meeting at COSM in Las Vegas.  The ELS Committee just met recently and Dr. Remacle will discuss that later.  We hope to be able to put together a nice transatlantic meeting. 
  2. Karen Zur was introduced as Program Chair for 2011. 
    1. The Chevalier Jackson Award will be given to Peak Woo
    2. Guest of Honor will be Robin Cotton
    3. Chevalier Jackson Lecturer will be Jeffrey Laitman

                                               i.     Chair of the Biology and Anatomy Department at Sinai

    1. Presidential Citation will be given to John Tucker

                                               i.     They have done a video history of Dr. Tucker, who along with his father and brother is past presidents of ABEA.  His father worked directly under Chevalier Jackson. 

 

  1. Jeffrey Cheng, Resident Liaison
    1. He is a chief resident in NY and will be a pediatric fellow at CHOP next year. 
    2. The Resident Liaison is currently an ad hoc position.  If it is successful, then it could be incorporated into the next revision of the Bylaws as a standing, non-voting member of the council.  The liaison could serve as a conduit for interested residents and fellows.  They could also serve as the ABEA representative on the AAO-HNS Section for Residents and Fellows.  Jeffrey will attend this meeting on Monday.  This section already has liaisons for the AMA, ABOto, ENTPAC, ACS and SUO (none for the other specialty societies).
    3. Some promotional materials have been sketched out for this since it doesn’t really require the same level of certification and sponsorship to be an Active member.  This is available on the ABEA web site, www.abea.net/resident. Dr. Cheng has worked out some promotional materials and posters that can be distributed.   
    4. We would like to get started by sending a mailing to the Program Directors and let them know that we will have a new category of resident/fellowship membership and ask them to encourage their residents to apply.  We will collect e-mail addresses.  They will need a letter certifying their residency.
    5. We will have a letter so when they graduate they can automatically go into candidate status and will have the opportunity to opt out if they don’t want to apply for active membership.
    6. They wouldn’t receive preferential consideration for submission of abstracts, etc. 
    7. We hope that this will encourage them to become active members when eligible and move up into leadership positions once they graduate.
    8. Once they graduate, they could become candidate members until they are eligible for full membership.

 

  1. Hoarseness Guidelines
    1. Dr. Eibling spent many hours preparing a response on the process.  While it wasn’t accepted it wasn’t rejected for the white journal.  The August white journal did have an article by Mike Johns did address a great number of our points but there still needs to be more focus on the process whereby evidence leads to guidelines and how those guidelines are to be interpreted.  He also sent it to Jonas Johnson at Laryngoscope but it came back with lots of red marks.  Dr. Eibling still thinks it is worth proceeding.  Dr. Blitzer said that we should go ahead with it and come up with a really good document that should be published on the process.  The more we hit them on the head, the better.   This will cover the process of guideline development and the value of guidelines.  What are guidelines?  How do we get them?  What do we do when we have insufficient evidence? 
    2. Dr. Sulicia is preparing a scientific response for the Laryngoscope.  They have discussed the possibility of integrating the Laryngoscope review process into our external review. 
    3. The guidelines as prepared are working under the premise that hoarseness is a disease; hoarseness is a symptom, which means that everyone with that symptom probably should be examined because otherwise you don’t know what is wrong with them.
    4. Dr. Deutsch said that the guideline committee she was a member of and included a lot of people outside of ENT.  The committee felt that although it was a symptom it needed to be taken seriously.  The guidelines didn’t go far enough in making some recommendations; she felt the guidelines did let people outside the specialty know there is something. 
    5. Those that were given pages to review were under the impression that it would be a peer reviewed process.   They were given nearly 100 pages to review and five days to do it with complete references.  The responses they received in return essentially ignored 80% of their comments.  They were not told it was a modified peer review. 
    6. Dr. Blitzer is afraid that insurance companies and others looking at these guidelines will not take it seriously and may consider treatment for hoarseness unnecessary.  We could be giving them a rope to hang us.  Dr. Deutsch felt it was given the appropriate process and that the process is evolving.  The White journal did publish the commentary. 
    7. Dr. Rothschild said that when it comes to someone challenging management of hoarseness there is balance in the literature. 
    8. Dr. Deutsch said that one of the guidelines being developed now is about the use of nerve monitoring during thyroid surgery.  She has concerns that there will be the same lack of documentation for it.  Once it is in the literature the process stops.  The literature has to represent the evolution. 
    9. The overall message to the Academy is that if they are going to have a guideline they really needed to go to the leading experts in the field and include them. This guideline was submitted for publication one day and accepted the next day.  We believe that future development of guidelines will go through routine peer review process. 
    10. Dr. Blitzer said that on Monday at 9:30 there will be a mini seminar on hoarseness being run jointly by the ABEA and ALA.  Marvin Fried and Dr. Blitzer are going to run it.   There will be a panel which includes Jamie Koufman, Lucian Sulica, Mark Courey.   It will only last one hour.   
    11. Dr. Deutsch is the current representative of ABEA on the Guidelines Development Taskforce.  They will meet in a few months and she asked for other than asking for clarification of the process is there anything constructive she can present?  Dr. Amin suggested that if a guideline is chosen to be done within our specialties that the senior societies have input up front as to the appropriateness. 
    12. There are forms you can complete with suggestions for guidelines.  The guidelines should speak to the broadness of impact, what has been done before, who it impacts.  The Guideline Development Task Force ranks them as to what is doable and what is not.
  2. ABOto Participation
    1. We were asked to submit some names to assist in developing materials and curriculum for the ABOto; Dr. Grillone, Dr. Burns and Dr. McMurray were asked to do this.
  3. Chevalier Jackson Stamp
    1. It has been suggested that we submit Dr. Jackson for a US Postage stamp honoring the 150th anniversary of his birth.  There is a citizen stamp advisory committee you submit a letter proposing suggestions.  Dr. Rothschild has drafted a letter and asked for comments or further suggestions.

 

  1. President Elect Report – Gregory Postma, MD
    1.  Dr. Postma had no formal report.  He is looking forward to working with Dr. Rothschild this year; working with Dr. Zur on the program committee and Dr. Remacle on the International business and collaboration with the ELS.

 

  1. Vice President’s Report – Ellen Deutsch, MD
    1.  She asked the Academy who looks at the guidelines and they have numbers but not who.  The guideline on hoarseness was among the top articles in Science Direct from April when it was listed.   Through June there were over 2000 hits.  The National Guidelines Clearing House from April through June had more than 4000 hits. 
    2. She will be happy to submit topics for future discussion. 
    3. Dr. Grillone is going to talk about the Bylaws but we continue to work toward compliance.
    4. She did attend ASPO leadership today.  This was a meeting where they reach out to Presidents or other officials of every society.  She told them about the Bylaw changes we are considering including residents. 
    5. Peter Koltai was dropped from the progression grid and it has been suggested that he be nominated as the President Elect next time.  He has made many contributions to the organization in the time he was on the council.  If we do that, several of the people who are potentially in the grid for advancement would be out of compliance with the Bylaws by one year.  We would need to ask the membership for permission to be out of compliance until we get in compliance.  Once we do get in compliance we will have a nice progression of officers. 
    6. Dr. Rothschild thanked Dr. Deutsch for the phenomenal amount of work done on the Bylaws and getting us into compliance. 
    7. The third member of the At-Large was added without a vote by the electorate which would be the standard process.  This will be presented as an exemption.
    8. She will present these two items to the membership at COSM for the Bylaws exemption as pertains to Dr. Koltai.

 

 

  1. Program Committee – Karen Zur, MD
    1. The Call for Abstracts were sent out the end of the summer.  A second call was sent out on September 24th.  The deadline for abstract submission is October 17.  It was sent by e-mail to the ABEA membership.  A lot of the e-mail addresses are no longer good and came back. 
    2. The Call for Abstracts has been posted on the ABEA web site and through the Annals on their on-line version as well print version.
    3. We have two panels:

                                               i.     Evaluation and Management of Chronic Cough which will be moderated by Dr. Milan Amin and will be a multidisciplinary panel with input from an adult laryngologist, aq pediatric otolaryngologist, a speech pathologist, a gastroenterologist and a pulmonologist.

                                              ii.     Management of Complex Pediatric Airway Pathology

1.     Dana Thompson, Ian Jacobs, Gresham Richter and Michael Rutter will be panelists. 

a.     They will talk about open airway cases, laryngomalacia and endoscopic approaches to complex pediatric airways and management of the distal trachea and open laryngotracheal reconstruction.

 

  1. Treasurer’s Report – Dana Thompson, MD
    1.   The transition of the Treasurer responsibilities from Dr. Greg Postma to Dr. Dana Thompson has taken place.
    2. Dr. Thompson has opened a checking account at Wells Fargo with a transfer from the Wachovia account in Augusta.  They anticipate the transfer will be complete in October.

                                               i.     There is a $20,000.00 balance at Wells Fargo in Rochester and $42,578.91 will be transferred from Wachovia.

                                              ii.     There is $20,750 in the President Circle account.

    1. There has been interest in being able to take credit card payments for dues.  This will be set up through Wells Fargo at 1-3% charge, dependent on the volume. Dr. Thompson is working on this.  This could also be linked to the ABEA website.
    2. Annual Audit –

                                               i.     The Bylaws state that the Treasurers accounts shall be audited annually by a nonmember certified public accountant approved by the council.  The current practice has been that one council member and one non-council member of ABEA conduct the audit.  The options are:

1.     Amend the Bylaws.

2.     Hire an accountant to do the audit.

    1. The financial report has been prepared by Dr. Postma.

                                               i.     Total cash receipts                               62,478.91

                                              ii.     Cash disbursements                             33,937.33

                                             iii.     Wachovia Money Market                     247,185.94

                                            iv.     Mellon Assets                                     174,185.94

                                             v.     President’s Circle Account                    20,750.00

Total net assets as of 7/31/10                      $505,491.00                 

 

  1.  Editor’s Report – Scott McMurray, MD
    1. Dr. McMurray said the 2008 Annals should be at the printers now.  Leora sent them the labels they use to send it out. 
    2. They will now start working on the 2009 Annals. 
    3. Dr. McMurray will give us an update on his discussions with the Annals at the spring meeting.

 

  1. Secretary’s Report – Gregory Grillone, MD
    1. International Committee – at the last council meeting Dr Blitzer proposed the formation of an International Committee (rather than simply a liaison position) to expand representation and participations from outside the US. This was discussed and in general everyone agreed to the formation of such a committee (ad hoc initially and to having Marc Remacle serve as the first chair. This requires a vote of the council.
    2. Bylaws – proposed changes (a copy of the proposed changes will be distributed at the council meeting)
    3. Secretary’s Liaison Committee (SLC) – Update from the Las Vegas SLC meeting April 29, 2010
    4. ABEA/ALA/ELS Combined Meeting in 2013 – Gaelyn Garrett and I discussed the tentative proposal for the combined meeting. I also discussed having a single registration fee for ELS members rather than individual registration fees. The SLC was very agreeable to the idea of the combined meeting. The SLC asked for an estimate of number registrants from ELS which we could not give them at the time. The committee also asked if the ALA and ABEA would then be out of COSM as a result of the combined meeting but neither I nor Gaelyn thought that would be the case.
    5. Dr. Goldstein requested that SLC consider a complimentary registration fee for Emeritus members that would like to attend COSM. The SLC agreed to bring this before their respective councils. We will need to discuss and take a vote on this proposal. 
    6. The SLC is looking into having the AAOA and AAFPRS rejoin COSM
    7. COSM – Las Vegas 2010 registration history- the number of people registered was 2658 (6% no-show) which represents a significant increase over 2009 (1538, 8% no-show rate) and overall is the highest in the past 5 years. ABEA had 226 registrants which represented 7% of all COSM attendees.
    8. Financial Update

                                               i.     Projected revenue for 2010 COSM meeting in Las Vegas was $892,100 and the projected expense was 844,200 with a projected net profit of $47,900.00. I will have the official numbers after the September SLC meeting.

                                              ii.     The SLC felt that the current COSM investment strategy was not aggressive enough. The ACS will present a range of options for COSM investments at the SLC meeting in September and I will report back to the council on this at the Spring 2011 meeting. 

                                             iii.     The SLC voted to cap the COSM Reserve Fund at $500,000 and distribute any excess beyond $500K.

                                            iv.     Future meetings

                                             v.     2015 - San Diego or San Francisco will be considered

                                            vi.     2014 – Las Vegas is being considered

                                           vii.     The 2011-2013 meeting dates/venues are as follows:

1.     2011 – April 27-May 1 in Chicago

2.     2012 – April 18-22 in San Diego

3.     2013 – April 10-14 in Orlando

 

    1. Social security numbers on the membership applications – one of our member candidates was concerned that the social security number (required on our application is available for all to see when the applications are out for review prior to the business meetings. Options are to remove from the application or at least black out the information.
    2. Request for ABEA mailing list for survey – Drs Blumin and Bock have requested the ABEA mailing list to distribute a survey The last time such a request was made we asked the appropriate committee to review the proposal for appropriateness and the survey was sent out by the committee. The concerns are related to potential “data spill”, i.e. once the mailing list is released, there is no control over what happens to the mailing list. The other issue is related to the survey itself, i.e. should we have a policy regarding distribution of surveys to the membership. On one hand surveys are an excellent research tool and the ABEA membership can provide very valuable information on certain topics. On the other hand surveys are now relatively easy to send out and everyone is suffering a bit from survey overload.

 

  1. Development – Clarence Sasaki, MD
    1. No report.

 

  1. Committee Reports

 

    1. Awards and Thesis Committee – Andrew Blitzer, MD, DDS

                                               i.     No report.

 

    1. Pharyngeal – Esophageal Committee  - Milan Amin, MD

                                               i.     The committee, together with some graduate students with Dr. Amin and Al Merati and Gregory Postma are working on a paper on the use of endoscopic surgery. They are in the manuscript preparation now.   

                                              ii.     This would tie in with Drs. Joel Blumin and Jonathan Bock’s request to survey the ABEA members on the state of management of Zenker’s Diverticulum complications. 

                                             iii.     Dr. Amin will discuss this with Dr. Blumin and determine if they want to hold off on their paper until the results of their survey are in.

 

    1. New Technology –  Paul Willging, MD

                                               i.     We are hoping that one of the things the New Technology Committee will look into in the next few years using information that comes from some of our panels such as on-line communication with patients.

 

    1. Research and Education – Seth Dailey, MD

                                               i.     There was a discussion about the current members of the committee.  Dr. Jonathan Avis is listed as a member but Dr. Rothschild doesn’t believe he is interested in being on a committee.  Dr. Dailey can request another member.

                                              ii.     We can include residents in the membership database and if there were material that ABEA developed the web site would be a good place to deposit the information for research.

 

    1. International Committee – Marc Remacle, MD

                                               i.     During the meeting in Vienna went quite well.  Dr. Amin was part of the meeting.

                                              ii.     They are looking at making ABEA members permanent members of ELS but they have to look at revising their Bylaws to include American members.

                                             iii.     They are looking at dates for the ABEA-ELS liaison for 2014, probably the end of May.  That should not overlap with any other society meetings.

 

    1. BOG – Gregory Grillone, MD

                                               i.     Nothing to report.

 

    1. Representative to ACS – Ian Jacobs, MD
    2. BOG – PR

                                               i.     Dr. Jacobs wasn’t in attendance but he submitted a report indicating that he attended the Joint Surgical Advocacy Group and the ELS meeting.

                                              ii.     They discussed:        

1.      Repeal of the flawed physician reimbursement system (Medicare);

2.     Non-support of the independent Payment Advisory Board;

3.     Ensuring children’s access to reconstructive surgery;

4.     Ensuring an adequate work force;

5.     Medical liability reform.

                                             iii.     These issues are being debated by congress as mid-elections are likely to influence outcome and there is still a lot of open-ended issues with health-care reform.

                                            iv.     Dr. Jacobs is on a Round Table Discussion at the ELS in Vienna on September 3rd.

                                             v.     Drs. Jacobs, Karen Zur and Ellen Deutsch ran the 4th Annual Pediatric Airway FB course.  Dr. Dana Thompson delivered a keynote lecture on laryngomalacia.

    1. Specialty Society Advisory Council (SSAC)

                                               i.     Dr. Jacobs continues to represent ABEA at the Specialty Society Advisory Council.

                                              ii.     One of the issues that was discussed the rotation of the SSCA leadership; the chair position would subsequently rotate all ten specialties so that all will have equal opportunity to serve.  ABEA is scheduled to be chair in 2012.

                                             iii.     He will discuss ABEA involvement to Otolaryngology residents at an AAO resident informational breakout session on the 27th which Dr. Jeffrey Cheng.

 

    1. Web Master – Michael Rothschild, MD

                                               i.     Dr. Rothschild continues to host this web site with Marc Steele running the abstract database. 

                                              ii.     The PDF of the newsletter and transactions will be included. 

                                             iii.     They have some endoscopic video clips they are accumulating and hopefully will have those going forward as well as the full audio from the panels from the last two years.

                                            iv.     They are developing a member database so everyone will have a log on and a password.  Ideally we can encourage members to maintain their contact information.  The advantage of this would be the email address could be circulated without exposing private or academic e-mail addresses.   This would also eliminate the need to constantly change the contact address on promotional material.

 

    1. Difficult Airway – Karen Zur, MD

                                               i.     The panel was discussed in her report as Program Chair. 

 

    1. Foreign Body Accidents – Gresham Richter, MD

                                               i.     They have received one submission already.

 

    1. Oncology – James Burns, MD

                                               i.     The ABEA will sponsor a mini-seminar “State of the Art Endoscopic Management of Larynx and Pharynx Cancer on Tuesday, the 28th.  Moderator will be Dr. Burns with panelists, Drs. Bruce Haughey, Steven Zeitels and Greg Weinstein.

 

    1. Council at Large – Peter Belafsky, MD / David Eibling, MD / Reza Rabar, MD

                                               i.     No report

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

Gregory A Grillone, MD, FACS

Secretary, ABEA