SPA at Age 21

he Society for Pediatric Anesthesia (SPA) is proud to be completing its 21st year as an organization dedicated to the advancement of the practice of pediatric perioperative care, with the threefold mission of promoting patient care, education and research. During these formative years, SPA has grown substantially in both its size and contributions to the specialty of anesthesiology. Current membership totals more than 4,400, including practicing anesthesiologists and resident members.

The Society’s activities are designed to meet the academic and professional needs of all practitioners who care for children. SPA hosts two scientific and educational sessions each year: the Fall Meeting in October preceding the ASA Annual Meeting and the three-day winter/spring meeting in partnership with the Section on Anesthesiology of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). SPA members have devoted their efforts to providing educational offerings that bridge the science and practice of both pediatrics and anesthesiology and seek to improve the perioperative care of children. The most recent winter meeting, Pediatric Anesthesiology 2007, was held in Phoenix, Arizona, and was attended by nearly 500 registrants. The featured scientific sessions included “Developmental Pathology of the Infant Airway,” “Genetics and the Pediatric Anesthesiologist,” “Syndromes, Associations and Sequences,” and “New Horizons in Paediatric Anaesthesia: Ultrasound,” with each session providing research updates and implications for the clinician. The day prior, the new Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia Society (CCAS) www.pedsanesthesia.org/ccas held its inaugural scientific and educational meeting, which proved to be an overwhelming success. Attended by well over 250 registrants, the meeting featured excellent presentations and discussions by leaders in pediatric cardiac anesthesiology.

Advocacy for children’s care and overall health is a major part of the SPA mission, a mission shared by our colleagues in the Section on Anesthesiology of AAP. The educational offerings of SPA include discussions on current health care needs of children and on the role of physicians and health care professionals in improving child health. The winter meeting includes the annual AAP Advocacy Lecture, which this year focused on poverty and its effects on the distribution of health care to poor children.
The Society also supports efforts to advance the practice of pediatric perioperative medicine around the globe, collaborating with sister societies of pediatric anesthesia in other countries. This year’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco, for instance, is a joint meeting presented in concert with the Association of Paediatric Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, focusing on “Pediatric Anesthesia Developments and Outcomes.” The SPA Committee for International Education and Service, or SPACIES, is a venue for discussion and dissemination of information to anesthesiologists interested in clinical service and educational opportunities in underserved areas of the world. SPA actively supports learning opportunities in pediatric anesthesia in developing countries in the form of fellowships through the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists. Fellowship recipients have been able to dedicate six to 12 months in training in Vellore, India, to expand their knowledge and practice of pediatric anesthesia.

Looking ahead, our next Winter Meeting, Pediatric Anesthesiology 2008, will be held in San Diego, California, from April 3-6, 2008. The program will offer a cornucopia of educational opportunities. CCAS also will host its second annual meeting on Thursday of the meeting week, which will provide updates on the science and art of the perioperative care of children with congenital heart disease. Attendees may, alternatively, elect to take the course in pediatric advanced life support (PALS) and update their PALS certification on the Thursday before the main meeting begins. A broad range of workshops, refresher courses and problem-based learning and discussions complete the educational offerings. SPA and the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States are co-hosting a one-day symposium with experts in malignant hyperthermia (MH) to examine data regarding the relationship of MH and identifiable syndromes. Details of the upcoming meetings can be found on the SPA Web site www.pedsanesthesia.org.

The SPA Newsletter and online educational offerings at www.pedsanesthesia.org complement the semi-annual meetings of the Society. The newsletter is published three times a year and contains articles on the Society’s activities, reviews of important articles from various medical journals and expert debates on controversial topics. Members also may access ongoing continuing medical education (CME) opportunities on our Web site, where we provide new CME content each month.

SPA continues to co-sponsor a yearly pediatric anesthesiology young investigator award with the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research. The Society also is actively pursuing continuing quality improvement initiatives. The Pediatric Regional Anesthesia Network is a coalition of members sharing their institutions’ experiences through a registry of data and outcomes for regional anesthesia in children. The “Wake Up Safe” initiative has been working on a process by which we can learn from adverse events and near-miss situations in order to develop recommendations for preventing future adverse events.

SPA is proud to work so closely with ASA. Leaders and members of SPA actively participate in ASA committees in order to promote and advance the practice of anesthesiology. SPA members also are honored to regularly contribute to the educational programs and scientific sessions of the ASA Annual Meeting. This year the Annual Meeting includes numerous lectures and workshops related to pediatric anesthesia.

The Society for Pediatric Anesthesia and its members continue to work diligently to improve the perioperative care of children through our activities in research and education and by fostering a culture of inclusiveness and involvement for all practitioners of pediatric perioperative care. I am privileged to be able to work with great colleagues and represent the members of the Society.

Jayant K. Deshpande, M.D., M.P.H., is Professor of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics, Anesthesiologist-in-Chief, Executive Physician, Pediatric Quality and Safety, Interim Director, Division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, Monroe Carell, Jr., Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Vice-Chair for Pediatric Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Anesthesiology, Nashville, Tennessee.