After much discussion and deliberation, the Society for Education in Anesthesia (SEA) Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to cancel the SEA 2020 Spring Meeting originally scheduled for May 8-10, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Our SEA team, like many of you, have been eagerly anticipating and preparing for the SEA 2020 Spring Meeting. We are proud of the educational and professional growth opportunity our meetings give to all who attend. Due to the recent developments and many unknowns surrounding the ongoing spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) we feel our priority must focus on the safety of those who attend and the communities they serve. We have received cancellations from numerous speakers and workshop hosts who live in New York, California and Pennsylvania (to name a few) due to policies in their home institutions. Some of the policies are precluding them from gathering in groups of even 10-30 people (obviously much smaller than anticipated attendance at SEA). These unprecedented travel restrictions would most certainly compromise the quality of the education and training that SEA is known for. While these meetings are important, they simply cannot take precedence over the health and wellbeing of our members and their communities.
Our highest priority is the health, safety and well-being of our SEA members and the health communities they serve. As a Board we have been diligent to review the daily recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, waiting until the time was appropriate to make this decision. With the most recent report from the World Health Organization categorizing COVID-19 as a Pandemic and numerous government organizations recommending meetings of our size not meet, we feel it is imperative that we do our part to minimize the risk for all our members and with heavy hearts, announce the cancellation of our 2020 Spring Meeting. It is very disappointing for our society to have to do this, especially after all the work that has gone into the meeting preparation. However we stand behind our decision for the safety of our members, their families and communities.
We will continue to update our members, participating faculty and registrants on our website in the weeks to come. We are grateful to all those who have already spent countless hours in preparation of the 2020 Spring Meeting, and to those who registered in anticipation of attending.
