From the President

Dear Colleagues,

An important meeting takes place each year in January: the Program Directors Assembly Winter Meeting, cosponsored by the AAAAI and the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI). I had the privilege of attending the 2018 Winter Meeting, which was held this past weekend in Atlanta.

The Winter Meeting provides the program directors with an invaluable opportunity to tackle, as a group, important issues facing our allergy/immunology (A/I) training programs. These include current and emerging Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirements and initiatives, as well as innovative ways to educate our fellows-in-training (FITs). It also offers the program directors a forum to network with colleagues along with national leaders and representatives from the AAAAI, ACAAI, the American Board of Allergy and Immunology (ABAI) and ACGME.

Allow me to pause for a moment and acknowledge that we should all be extremely appreciative of the work the program directors do. They are responsible for overseeing our pipeline of trainees who will become the A/I professionals of the future. Our program directors are dedicated to teaching our FITs the skills and competencies necessary for them to become well-equipped allergist/immunologists, able to diagnose, treat and manage allergies, asthma and immunologic disorders. The outlook for our specialty would be bleak if we did not have competent FITs graduating from our programs each year and entering the field—whether in practice or the research setting—to become the next generation of allergist/immunologists.

As an aside concerning the future of our specialty, we continue to move forward on outcomes from the Summit for the Future of Allergy and Immunology, held back in October as part of my presidential initiatives. You can expect a series of commentaries detailing the results of the Summit to come out in the AAAAI’s journals and other publications. I look forward to this next step in the ongoing evaluation of the role of A/I in the healthcare system and development of a strategy to ensure we have a seat at the table.

Focusing back on the Winter Meeting, it also provides an opportunity for the Regional, State and Local Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Societies (RSLAAIS) Assembly leadership to gather and participate in strategic discussions. Some of the hot topics they discussed include the AAAAI clinical rotation curriculum and the emerging trend of telemedicine, and what roles they can play in advancing these initiatives. Another highlight was the Friday evening networking reception that brought our RSL leaders and program directors together. Since the RSLs and program directors had their respective meetings simultaneously taking place for the extent of Saturday, the Friday evening reception was a convenient way for these groups to have dedicated time to interact with each other.

Wrapping up the Saturday afternoon of the Winter Meeting was an AAAA/ACAAI leadership retreat. This allowed our respective leaders to discuss key topics that are best addressed jointly, such as practice parameters and our ongoing advocacy efforts concerning proposed changes to policies and procedures regarding sterile compounding. Given the progress made on a number of fronts, we find that our ongoing collaboration with the ACAAI continues to be very fruitful.

Before closing this message, I want to share that Cezmi A. Akdis, MD, FAAAAI, has stepped down from his role as Co-Editor-in-Chief for The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. We thank him for his service.

As we begin a new year, I look forward to seeing what it will bring for the AAAAI, our specialty and the patients we serve.

Sincerely,

David B. Peden, MD, FAAAAI

AAAAI President

Last updated: January 15, 2018