SPRING 2015 PRESIDENT'S CORNER

It is with great excitement that I pen the first “Presidential Corner” address of my SGS Presidential Term. I would like to congratulate Immediate Past President Stephen Metz, MD and 2015 Scientific Program Chair, Charles Rardin, MD for a fantastic Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando last month. The scientific program was first rate including a memorable debate on power morcellation and an inspiring Keynote Lecture by David Grimes, MD on evidenced based surgical practice. In addition, the social events were really enjoyable – I have fond memories paddling the chain lakes thru Winter Park, Florida followed by a lovely outdoor reception sipping mojitos under the moonlight and watching the Disney fireworks! Please make plans to attend the 2016 42nd Annual Scientific Meeting in Palm Springs – I am positive that my program chairperson Eric Sokol MD will create a “California themed” meeting (think wine country casual) of equal caliber and I am already working on the “Mountain Biking with the President” social excursion.

The overriding theme and resultant goals of my presidential year will be to promote evidenced based medicine to create surgical best practice models. The Affordable Care Act and the creation of Accountable Care Organizations and the recent United Healthcare decision regarding automatic pre-approval of vaginal hysterectomy underscore the need for our society to produce the unbiased research on which these decisions should be based. We will continue to focus on the expansion of the Fellows Pelvic Research Network (FPRN)TM, and our investment in the Systematic Research Group (SRG). We plan to work with ACOG to develop post graduate training models and guidelines for vaginal hysterectomy .

I encourage you to fully participate in SGS – our new and revamped website has many features such as the members only surgical video library that I think you will find useful in your practice. In addition, we should all be a voice for the endorsement of evidence based medicine – please participate in any way you can.

I look forward to this year and I welcome your suggestions. If you have any comments, questions or concerns – please feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Thank you for your participation,

Andrew Walter MD