Spring Meeting 2018 Report

The 2018 SEA Spring Meeting in Louisville theme was Training Professional, Humanistic Anesthesiologists and provided an excellent opportunity to explore concepts related to professionalism and humanistic aspects of patient care as well as our work/learning environment. On behalf of our collaborative team from the University of Louisville and University of Kentucky, as well as the Educational Meetings Committee/Program Planning Committee, we would all like to thank the attendees, presenters and workshop teams for making the meeting such a success! Our kickoff general session speaker on Friday was Dr. Thomas Nasca, MD, MACP, and CEO of the ACGME who delivered an outstanding, thought provoking presentation entitled Professionalism: The Foundation of the Profession which generated a huge amount of discussion and was a perfect setup for the rest of the day’s workshops. Next, bookending the business luncheon in the general session room, were moderated oral abstract presentations on curriculum and research which were very well received. After the second round of workshops for the day, the dine around was preceded by an offering to go on a private tour at Evan Williams Bourbon Distillery.

Saturday’s general session speaker was Dr. David Chestnut, MD, Professor and Chair of Obstetric Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and senior editor of Chestnut’s Obstetric Anesthesia: Principles and Practice. His presentation, entitled Reflections on Professionalism, once again was simply outstanding, thought provoking, and another perfect setup for the rest of the day’s general session panels and workshops. Also, on Saturday, during the general session, the award presentations included the Phillip Liu Innovations in Anesthesia Education Award, SEAd Grant recipients and HVO Scholars. The Leadership Program for Chief and Senior Residents was also going on all day and was quite well attended and received by the attendees. After the workshops, the flagship social event was the President’s Reception and SEA member Celebration in the Spire Restaurant, the 19th floor of the Hyatt where we got to watch one of the nation’s top air shows and largest fireworks displays. A silent auction held during this time raised money for our SEAd Grants and was quite successful! While the backdrop was truly stunning with the airshow and fireworks display, the networking and discussions reflecting on the meeting up to that point were clearly riveting as small groups formed and mingled for many hours.

Sunday’s general session was a new, innovative offering called “A Strategic Dialog with SEA Leadership.” The SEA President, Mike Sandison, led off the session with a very brief discussion of the history of the SEA to help provide perspective of where we are now and where we are headed in the future. The dialog that followed between the attendees and our society leadership was quite rich and we received a great deal of positive feedback related to the session. The day and meeting ended with a final set of workshops.

Finally, some observations from our perspective about the meeting. The SEA is awesome! The meeting was very well attended this year with 235 attendees, making it the second best attended meeting ever. Income exceeded expenses which we should all be proud of. This year, we had 29 workshops for the meeting and while this is a sizeable number, we felt the quality of the workshop submissions were so high we wanted to get as many in to the program as possible, which we did. High quality workshops along with outstanding general sessions are hallmarks of our society and we should always celebrate that fact. UofL and UK have collaborated on multiple projects together before and we found the collaboration for this meeting very rewarding and was another fantastic opportunity to get our departments more deeply involved with the SEA, especially junior faculty. Thanks, one more time to the attendees, presenters and workshop teams for truly making the meeting informative, meaningful and entertaining! It was our great honor and privilege to be part of the 2018 Spring Meeting! We look forward to seeing everyone in San Francisco in the fall, Winter Park for the Workshop on Teaching in January 2019 and Denver in the spring of 2019.