Communications Committee Update

On behalf of the Communications Committee, we invite you to take a look at the newly launched SOCCA Drip online. To provide a greater wealth of resources to members in a timelier fashion, SOCCA Drip will be regularly updated to feature both long-form content written by members and brief topical highlights from the popular media, peer-reviewed literature, relevant professional societies, and other sources that will be of interest to the membership. We will continue to aggregate the majority of these features into our quarterly Interchange newsletter. The Committee’s goals to amplify the accomplishments of SOCCA’s members, disseminate relevant updates from the organization, and provide an outlet for information relevant to the membership have taken on renewed importance over the past year. To that end, member submissions are of the utmost importance to ensure that Drip (and therefore Interchange) remain relevant and valuable. As a committee, we would be happy either to take your ideas from concept to completion or to publish your original work—or anything in between. Please do reach out to Vivian Abalama (vabalama@iars.org) so that we can help publish your ideas, thoughts, or achievements.

The Committee would also like to mention two additional resources. First, our Twitter account (@SOCCA_CritCare) remains fully at your disposal as a SOCCA member. In addition to spotlighting developments within SOCCA and new Drip updates, we would again like to amplify what you, your trainees, your peers, or your organizations are doing. We recently conducted a second Twitter journal club in conjunction with Anesthesia & Analgesia (@IARS_Journals) and would love to facilitate these types of collaborations with anyone who might be interested. Secondly, in March, SOCCA joined IARS in launching a physician-oriented online discussion forum via DocMatter. In a time where in-person networking has been externally constrained, the ability to discuss both clinical and non-clinical topics in a close online platform is of particular value.

In my capacity as editor of Interchange, I am thrilled that this issue features a diverse selection of pieces, which reflects our simultaneous confrontation of a pandemic respiratory virus (with clinical, professional, and personal impacts) alongside the other challenges with which we have historically contended. I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who took the time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to express their viewpoints on the myriad ways that the last year has impacted, and will continue to impact, our subspecialty. As something of a hybrid between a scholarly and trade publication, Interchange will serve in the future to document how we felt, were affected by, and responded to this unique epoch. To that end, please do consider how SOCCA can help to broadcast and enduringly preserve your thoughts as a member of the community at a time that has served to spotlight the unique aspects and value of our subspeciality.

Author

Craig Jabaley, MD

Chair, SOCCA Communications Committee

Emory University, Atlanta, GA