SA did not suffer from a lack of media attention in 2006. For much of the year, stories following the developing issue of physician nonparticipation in lethal injection prominently featured ASA and its immediate past president, Orin F. Guidry, M.D. Sedation — and who should be giving it — also was a topic that was given substantial ink and air time. Several articles from ASA’s journal Anesthesiology also received attention. But as always, the Annual Meeting provided ASA’s communications team with our yearly opportunity to highlight myriad other newsworthy happenings in the world of anesthesiology.

Director of Communications Gina A. Steiner, left, with Cathy Singer, an NBC “Dateline” producer who accepted the Philip S. Weintraub Media Award on behalf of fellow “Dateline” producers Matthew Fields, Karen McKinley and Maia Samuel.

Communicating about topics to reporters and getting coverage of those topics are not necessarily the same thing. Today’s public relataions professional must navigate the pitfalls of increasingly Web-based reporting. We must stand out among hundreds of organizations who are sending news to the same reporters we are — possibly even on the same day — thanks to electronic press release distribution services. And we must deal with ever-changing journalistic standards that make the old stand-bys, such as ironclad embargo dates, apparently passé. Media outlets — particularly major daily newspapers — want to talk about a new research study only on the day it is released (or sooner if they can wangle an exclusive); if they can’t fit the story in on that day, it passes into the proverbial ether.

So to garner millions of readers, viewers and listeners for our topics is indeed an achievement, and one that we were able to deliver this year. More than 15 million consumers accessed stories generated by media coverage of ASA Annual Meeting topics.

Each year ASA staff and physicians from the Section on Annual Meeting select a handful of presentations from among the hundreds of scientific abstracts submitted for the meeting, and we produce a media kit featuring those topics. Our goals are to interest reporters with information that is new, to give the public information that is useful to them as patients and consumers, and to illustrate to the world the breadth and variety of research in which anesthesiologists are involved.

This year’s media kit featured the following stories:

• Hurricane Katrina’s personal and professional impact on the practicing anesthesiologist and training in New Orleans (various presentations).

• New Study Finds Magnets Don’t “Pull Their Weight” in Relieving Acute Pain: This study demonstrates that magnetic therapy does not reduce acute postoperative pain or analgesic requirement and should not be recommended for acute pain relief.

• Study Assesses Preop Screening Tools for Obstructive Sleep Apnea: If left undetected, obstructive sleep apnea can cause serious health problems and result in surgical complications, highlighting the need for patients to be screened for OSA through polysomnography or alternative questionnaire and checklist tools prior to surgery.

• Thorough Review of All Available Blood Pressure Readings May Prevent Surgical Complications: To prevent complications during surgery, all available blood pressure readings should be reviewed when determining a patient’s normal blood pressure range regardless of when the reading was taken preoperatively, according to data collected in a new study.

• Prescription Pain Medication Abuse on Surprising Increase, With Unexpected Geographic Distribution: According to survey data used to estimate the prevalence of drug abuse across the United States, prescription pain medication (PPM) abuse is a rapidly growing problem with surprising and unpredictable distribution patterns that vary greatly and differ from other seemingly similar drug trends.

• Normalized, Pre-Surgical Blood Glucose Levels May Prevent Thrombosis or Pulmonary Embolism in Diabetic Patients: Patients with high preoperative glucose levels face an increased risk of developing blood clots, deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism following surgery, according to recent study findings.

• Almost a Third of Pediatric Surgical Patients Are Overweight or Obese: Approximately 30 percent of pediatric surgical patients are overweight or obese, and nearly 5 percent are morbidly obese even by adult standards, according to new study data, indicating the need for more studies on the perioperative risks facing this growing population.

• Older Patients at Risk for Mental Decline Following Both Major Illness or Surgery: Following either major surgery or illness, elderly patients were found to have similar increased risks of mental or cognitive decline — often lasting for more than two years.

• Light-Sleeping Mutant Fruit Fly Causes Buzz in Study on Anesthesia Requirements: This study of light-sleeping mutant fruit flies may provide means to predict anesthetic requirements in humans and improve the understanding of the mechanisms of anesthesia.

After disseminating the media kit to more than 2,000 health and science reporters, including wire services, syndicated columnists and television and radio stations, ASA utilizes its public relations agency, Newell & Matthews, to assist in securing the widest possible coverage of these stories. The agency’s focus is primarily on national print, TV and radio coverage as well as the local media in the city in which the Annual Meeting is held. After ASA staff distributes the press kit and a “pitch letter” to local media in the host city, the agency sends e-mails and conducts phone follow-up with more than 100 reporters from all of the major media outlets, from the New York Times to NBC News to WebMD.

Once on site in the Annual Meeting Press Room, ASA public relations staff and public relations counsel work with reporters who are physically at the meeting, as well as those contacting us by telephone or e-mail, to secure interviews on topics from the media kit or other presentations.

Ms. Singer, left, with Sally Weintraub (wife of the late Mr. Weintraub) and Committee on Communications Chair Michael H. Entrup, M.D.

Making News
There have never been more news outlets that cover medical stories, but there have also never been more news sources (companies, associations, special interest groups, even individuals) attempting to gain coverage. A good example of this concerned a recent conference call sponsored by PR Newswire, a news distribution service, with the intention of educating public relations people on how best to get their news covered by health reporters; there were 900 public relations people on the call.

Because of this highly competitive environment, ASA and its agency utilize two principal strategies. First, the best way to achieve coverage for your story is to tie it to existing story themes that are of interest to people. At this year’s Annual Meeting, those themes included childhood obesity, abuse of prescription pain medication, pain management and important information to consider before surgery. Trying to interest the media in an unknown topic is challenging because the reporter has difficulty convincing his/her editor that an unfamiliar news story will resonate with their readers, viewers or listeners. But within that framework, some new twist or “hook” is needed so that reporters feel they are covering news.

Interest Emerges
At this year’s Annual Meeting, we had initial interest from both the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal in the story on unusual geographic patterns of prescription pain medication abuse. Reporters, however, are constantly drawn in different directions, and things change quickly. Fortunately the Chicago Sun-Times and WMAQ-TV in Chicago, as well as Science Daily, picked up the story.

The study on magnetic therapy also had good consumer appeal because pain management is an “evergreen” story — a perennial topic of interest to readers/viewers/listeners if there is a new approach to that topic. As a result, WebMD, CBS Radio Network and six television stations in Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas, Syracuse, New York, Reno, Nevada, Portland, Maine, and Moline, Illinois, covered this story. (Public relations professionals at other medical specialty societies report that pain stories are always among the first to get media attention at their meetings as well.)

The story picked up by the single outlet reaching the largest audience was the study on preoperative hyperglyclemia, which U.S. News & World Report carried in its October 16 issue (circulation 2,022,383.) This study also was covered by HealthDay News, which has more than 51,000 visitors to its Web site each month. The take-home message of this story was that all patients should get their blood sugar under control before undergoing elective surgery. This study also was covered by:

The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado, circulation 29,866)

Forbes.com (circulation 342,933)

WIS-TV (Columbia, South Carolina)

KWWL-TV (Waterloo, Iowa)

Science Daily, October 16, 2006 (43,000 daily Web site visits)

Orthopedics Today (circulation 25,000)

iVillage.com (50,000 daily Web site visits)

The Times (London) (circulation 300,000)

U.S. States News (circulation unknown)

More Highlights
Following are more highlights of Annual Meeting media coverage. Please note that most magazines work on at least a three-month lead time, so it is quite possible that these and other stories will see further placements in the months to come.

• Revised Consensus Guidelines: Management of Postoperative Vomiting in Pediatric Patients [Abstract A971].^*

• Revised PONV Consensus Panel Guidelines [Abstract A566].^*

Resulting Article: “Reducing Post-Surgery Queasiness,” Lee Bowman, Scripps Howard News Service, October 16, 2006 (circulation 20,000).

Article covers both studies, which issued new guidelines for both children and adults that are intended to help prevent postoperative illness or reduce its severity. ASA member Tong J. Gan, M.D., was lead author of both studies and is quoted in the article on the importance of this health care issue. Dr. Gan also comments that the new guidelines provide physicians with the most up-to-date strategies for preventing and treating postoperative nausea and vomiting, including the best information on a number of new antinausea drugs.

This wire service article also appeared in:

Detroit News (circulation 241,184)

Tri-Valley Herald (Pleasonton, California, circulation 43,702)

Merrillville Post-Tribune (Merrillville, Indiana, circulation 65,621)

Times Record News (Wichita Falls, Texas, circulation 35,000)

KSHB-TV (Kansas City, Missouri)

Abilene Reporter-News (circulation 32,627)

San Mateo County Times (circulation 35,300)

Ventura County Star (circulation 98,550)

Science Daily (43,000 daily Web site visits).

The Web site DG Dispatch also covered the following:

• Role of Preemptive Local Analgesia With Bupivacaine for Chronic Pain After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy [Abstract A348].

• What Children Want to Know About Their Surgery [Abstract A553].

• Intraoperative TEE Significantly Influences Surgical Decision Making — A Large Prospective Study [Abstract A1546].

• Effect of Routing Intraoperative TEE of Surgical Management in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery [Abstract A1547].

• Effects of Continuous Lumbar Plexus Nerve Block on Functional Outcome After Total Knee Arthroplasty [Abstract A1132].

• Evaluate Efficacy of Trans-Dermal Scopolamine in Prevention of PONV in Ambulatory Cosmetic Surgery [Abstract A1592].

AudioLine Makes Air Waves
The AudioLine radio interview program distributed by News Broadcast Network continues to provide the public with news on a wide variety of anesthesiology-related topics. This year participating doctors and topics included:

• Leif Saager, M.D., “Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction”

• Daniel B. Carr, M.D., “Magnetic Therapy”

• Olubukola O. Nafiu, M.B., B.S., “Prevalence of Overweight and Obese in Pediatric Surgical Population”

• Jerry Reves, M.D., “Transforming Research in Anesthesiology”

• Jessica A. Alexander, M.D., “Dietary Supplements and Herbs”

• John E. Tetzlaff, M.D., “Anesthesiology Education”

• Charles W. Otto, M.D., “CPR: Is There Anything New in Resuscitation?”

• Timothy J. Brennan, M.D., Ph.D., “Pain Research”

• Bernd Weber, Ph.D., “Isoflurane Sensitivity in Drosophilia Minisleep Mutants”

• Teus Kappen, M.D., “Baseline Blood Pressure”

• Boris Mraovic, M.D., “Preoperative Hyperglycemia — Risk Factor for Pulmonary Embolism After Major Orthoscopic Surgery”

• John M. Zerwas, M.D., “How Hospitals View Anesthesiology Departments”

• Mario Moric, Ph.D., “Abuse Distribution of Prescription Pain Medication in the U.S.”

Distributed to the hometowns of the interviewed doctors — including WKCS in Chicago, WBMX in Boston, KYW in Philadelphia and KPRC in Houston — the 45- to 60-second features reached an estimated audience of 10,897,000 radio listeners.

ASA Public Relations Associate Brittny Dziadula contributed to this article.