OSA President-elect Chris Swide has finalized the schedule for the Haugen lecture that will be held in Portland on Saturday, September 15, 2007. As previously described, this one day meeting will focus on simulator training, and the Haugen lecturer will be Randy Steadman from UCLA. Faculty from OHSU's Department of Anesthesiology will also be lecturing and assisting with the hand's on simulator experience. The meeting will take place at OHSU's simulation center.

Here's some more information about the schedule and directions to the meeting location:

• Brochure and Registration Information
• Meeting Schedule and Faculty
• Directions to the Simulation Center
• Map of the Simulation Center

Hope to see you there!

No, the title of this story is not a mistake! The government agency responsible for the Medicare program recently announced that they were considering a substantial increase to the Medicare anesthesia conversion factor. This so-called "proposed rule" is now open to public comment. The ASA is asking EVERY anesthesiologist to let Medicare know how crucial this change is for anesthesiologists caring for our elderly and disabled. To see how you can help make this happen, please visit this page at the ASA website. It has instructions for electronic submission of comments, a sample letter for your use, and several background articles for those who want to understand this issue in greater depth.

Also, the Oregon Society's Secretary, Norm Cohen, serves as the Chair of ASA's Committee on Economics. He has been very involved in this battle for improved Medicare payments for many years. If you have further questions, you may contact Dr. Cohen via the contact information found on the OSA Leadership page.

As has been described here previously, Oregon has a mandated requirement for continuing medical education in pain management and end of life care. If you are a regular attendee of OSA conferences, you've probably met most of this requirement; however, for those that haven't, the California Society of Anesthesiologists offers 12 hour-long online CME courses in this area, priced at only $25/credit hour. For more information, visit our southern neighbor's website at http://www.csahq.org.

The 2007 Haugen Lecture will be held in Portland, Oregon on September 15. This year, Dr. Randy Steadman, a noted expert in simulation who is on the faculty at UCLA, will present a lecture on the future of simulation in our specialty. Dr. Mike Seropian, OHSU's simulation director, is working with Dr. Chris Swide, OSA's President-elect, to develop an exciting group of activities to complement Dr. Steadman's lecture, including difficult airway simulation and other hand's on uses of simulation to expose the attendees to this modality. More details will follow soon, so please reserve this date on your calendar.

Angela Kendrick, M.D. serves as the Oregon anesthesiology representative to this state's Carrier Advisory Committee (CAC). The CAC advises the local Medicare Carrier Medical Director on medical policies and payment issues. Dr. Kendrick has provided us a report from the most recent meeting of the CAC.

ABC News recently aired a story on anesthesia awareness. Former ASA President James Cottrell, M.D. appeared on the segment to help review ASA's position on the issue. An internet broadcast of the story can be found here. The ASA has recently published a story about the myths and facts of anesthesia awareness that might help communicate effectively to our patients about this subject.

The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee is seeking an administrator for their department. If you or someone you know is interested in relocating to Wisconsin and has extensive knowledge in business management, finance, and health care administration relevant to an academic practice, please check out this job description. Contact information may be found in the PDF.

For those of you seeking continuing medical education credits, the Oregon Society of Anesthesiologists Spring Salishan 2007 meeting has qualified for up to 6.5 credit hours. Check out the online brochure in this earlier post. See you soon!

On March 30, 1842, Crawford Long delivered the first ether anesthetic in Jefferson, Georgia. In recognition of this American medical innovation, the United States recognizes this date every year as Doctors Day in the United States.

This year, the American Society of Anesthesiologists' President, Dr. Mark Lema, is using the event to focus the energies of all anesthesiologists on an important public health issue — smoking cessation. To learn more, please see this press release.

The 2007 ASA Art Exhibit will be held in San Francisco from October 14 to October 16, during the ASA Annual Meeting. The theme for this year's Exhibit is "Bridges." If you plan on attending the Annual Meeting, have an artistic streak and would like to share your creation(s) with your professional colleagues, please visit this ASA website for registration details and guidelines.

http://www2.asahq.org/web/miscfiles/07exhibitgl.asp