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An article written by Steven Kirshblum, MD from the first issue of The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine in 2013 is now available for free! Click on the link below to access this great article.
The Adacemy of SCI Professionals: Multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary?
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It is truly a privilege to start the second year of my term as President of ASCIP.
For those of you who attended the ASCIP meeting (September 3-5, 2012) – it was great seeing you. It was a great turnout (over 600 attendees) and a great forum for learning and meeting people in the field of SCI. There were so many highlights, with great response to the named lecture presentations; the new state of the art research presentations; the workshops on intrathecal baclofen, ultrasound for injections and motivational interviewing; and the sponsored noontime lectures. But of course the high point for all was the lecture by Denny with his guitar playing and singing finale.
ASCIP is truly a dynamic organization. We are an 860 member strong and growing organization. We are a spinal cord professional organization but we are unique as we are truly interdisciplinary; in governance, leadership and education.
We have had a great year and have accomplished much. For those of you who attended the meeting, I believe you were able to see it, hear it, and feel it. Some examples of our progress this year include that we have exceeded our expectations for membership, placed in new programs for trainees, for Model System nursing members, SCI fellowship directors, developed webinars and are now offering CME and CEU’s, expanded our journal editorial board, have increased manuscript submission to our journal, and our Journal (Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine) now has the highest Impact Factor of spinal cord related journals.
I would like to thank the hard working Program Committee led by Joan McMahon. The job of the Program Committee is tireless; but not thankless; as many of the attendees thanked the committee members for their great work. They are already hard at work on next year’s conference.
Our hard working committees and Sections continue to do a great job throughout the year to advance our programs and goals. At the conference we had a chance to honor some of our outgoing board and committee members and welcome in some new ones. We had the chance to show our respect to our award winners including Margaret Hammond MD for the ASCIP Leadership Award.
As we start on our new year, I would like to thank Amy Cheatham and the FIRM for their wonderful management and Denny O’Malley our Executive Director. Denny once again was a highlight with his talk (Thinking Outside the Box) but it is his counsel that is most appreciated.
Lastly, I want to thank each and every one of you for being a member of this organization. If I did not get a chance to meet and talk with you this year, hopefully we can next year. I look forward to continuing to share our successes, as well as our vision and goals for the future of your organization.
I have one request as we move forward with some of our new initiatives this year, (e.g. greater involvement in advocacy issues). I ask that you get involved. Be active. Speak up. Share your ideas. And be part of the future of this organization as well as for our field of spinal cord injury to move forward.
Steven Kirshblum, MD
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