Moving Forward With SOAP

he Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) is an organization whose mission is to promote excellence in research and the practice of obstetric anesthesiology and perinatology. Founded in 1968 by six obstetric anesthesiologists who held an organizational meeting at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, it has grown today to an international membership of more than 1,000 members. The membership reads like a “who’s who” of obstetric anesthesiology but also includes obstetricians, pediatricians and basic scientists, all of whom share an interest in the care of the pregnant patient and newborn.

SOAP members are active in ASA, and several of our members helped to organize the obstetric anesthesia learning track at the ASA 2004 Annual Meeting. Those sessions, the Sol Shnider Breakfast Panel hosted by SOAP and the traditional obstetric anesthesiology sessions were well-attended in 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

SOAP provides financial support to the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER), and SOAP members have been recipients of FAER-sponsored research funding. David J. Birnbach, M.D., Chair of the ASA Committee on Obstetrical Anesthesia, is a SOAP member, and he sits on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Committee on Obstetric Practice; this is an important role, as many recent ACOG opinions have had a direct impact on the practice of obstetric anesthesiology. SOAP members also are active in seeking tort reform in individual states, with Andrew P. Harris, M.D., SOAP’s representative in the ASA House of Delegates, urging ASA and SOAP members to become involved. Dr. Harris, one of SOAP’s most prominent and politically active members, also is a state senator in the Maryland legislature.

Last year SOAP formed stronger ties with other organizations such as ACOG and the North American Society of Obstetric Medicine (NASOM). This February SOAP members and NASOM members presented a “High-Risk Workshop” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. At our Annual Meeting on May 4-7, 2005, in Palm Desert, California, Raymond Powrie, M.D., NASOM President, will give a lecture titled “What’s New in Obstetric Medicine.”

Our own Annual Meeting is held in April or May of each year. Highlights of the SOAP Annual Meeting include the Gertie Marx Symposium for research by residents and fellows, with the best six abstracts presented orally. There is the Zuspan Award for the best presentation, where one of the authors is an obstetrician, and the Best Paper of the Meeting Award. There also are two eponymous memorial lectures, the Fred Hehre Lecture and the Gerard W. Ostheimer What’s New in Obstetric Anesthesiology Lecture. Other educational opportunities abound at the Annual Meeting, including a neonatal advanced life support course that immediately precedes the main meeting.

SOAP has a number of exciting projects under way that are detailed in separate articles in this NEWSLETTER. In 2004, SOAP formed an International Outreach Committee to oversee the education and dissemination of modern-day obstetric anesthesiology principles to a variety of underserved areas of the world. In 2004, eight obstetric anesthesiologists from SOAP and the Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association from the United Kingdom went to Turkey to discuss obstetric anesthesiology with Turkish anesthesiologists. Future outreach is planned to the Republic of Georgia (formerly part of the U.S.S.R.), Croatia, Ghana and possibly Mongolia.

Another exciting endeavor is the SOAP Serious Complications Repository, or SCORE project. All of us know that there is a need for more information regarding the incidence of rare complications, particularly in obstetric anesthesiology. Under the leadership of Robert D’Angelo, M.D., a database has been established to collect not only these rare complications but the denominator data to make them meaningful. I urge you to read about this project on page 7 of this NEWSLETTER and to consider participating.

I also invite you to check out SOAP’s Web site <www.soap.org>. Questions on obstetric anesthesiology submitted to our headquarters are answered by Lawrence C. Tsen, M.D., the secretary of our Society, on the basis of his practice.

Finally I urge all of you to consider becoming SOAP members. Our membership benefits include a reduced rate for our Annual Meeting, access to the “Members Only” section of our Web site and subscription to our newsletter. I look forward to meeting you at our Annual Meeting in May.

M. Joanne Douglas, M.D., is Clinical Professor, University of British Columbia, British Columbia’s Women’s Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.