I hope that you are having a great summer. The contributions from many SOCCA volunteers are helping develop exciting projects with deliverables I believe the membership as a whole will find engaging and valuable. In this issue of the Interchange, I would like to highlight some the current efforts by the Education and Research Committees since they met in May in Montreal.

It has been my privilege to be Editor of the SOCCA Interchange. It is a daunting task…but worth the work. This work has easily demonstrated to me the power of our Society and its membership. The vast knowledge, experience, and ability to collaborate, frequently with short notice, is exciting, invigorating and a testament to you all.

Read members-only job posts—including a position with Montefiore Health System in New York City—at SOCCA’s Job Board.

The SOCCA Education Committee has undergone substantial changes in the past year. We have grown to become 12-person strong and we have developed clear directives, focusing on the SOCCA strategic goals. Coordinating a successful annual meeting remains the prime focus of the committee and planning for the next annual meeting (to be held in San Francisco) has already begun under the direction of Peter Von Homeyer MD, FASE, the annual program chair.

The SOCCA Research Committee has embarked on a strategic realignment intended to best serve the members of the Society and of the Anesthesiology Critical Care community, at large. The Research Committee has traditionally worked to aggregate and analyze data on Anesthesiology Critical Care practices and on SOCCA membership.

Nearly three years ago SOCCA dove into #SoMe with its twitter account @SOCCA_CritCare, and since that time has covered 3 SOCCA conferences, 2 ASA meetings, and shared #CriticalCare content with over 800 followers. We had our most engaging twitter exchange yet during May’s annual meeting (#SOCCA19) and the aligned meeting days with the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and the Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA).

At the most recent SOCCA Annual Meeting, it was my privilege to present the SOCCA Distinguished Service Award and the Hilmar Burchardi Award to two well-deserving SOCCA members. Below are transcripts from my presentation of these awards.

While anesthesia-related intraoperative mortality is rare, all-cause postoperative mortality, defined as death within the first 30 days of surgery, remains common. Overall, 30-day postoperative morality occurs in approximately 1-2% of all patients—approximately 1,000 times more frequently than anesthesia-related intraoperative mortality.

While there is some disagreement about the details, many observers of the medical profession believe that we are sailing into the teeth of an intensivist shortage, especially with an aging population that has a greater expectation for complex care late in life. The severity of this shortage is hard to assess, as conclusions have varied widely depending on the methodology used.

For the past few years, we’ve highlighted members and their achievements in this ongoing series. This month, we will highlight Vivian Abalama,CAE, IOM, the SOCCA Society Director from the IARS. Without her, many of the Society’s day-to-day functions would not exist and our Physician leadership, committees and others would surely be lost.

Adult acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remains a serious problem, accounting for or complicating close to 10% of all ICU admissions, and with an associated mortality in the 35-45% range. Robust clinical evidence for ventilatory management has helped to create established and accepted guidelines for parameters such as ideal tidal volume of 4-8 cc/kg predicted body weight, optimal PEEP to avoid hypoxemia and de-recruitment while minimizing barotrauma, and this has resulted in improved survival outcomes in patients with ARDS.

If you have an interesting case report, an idea for a pro-con discussion, a review idea, or an opinion on a recently published article, please review the submission guidelines, then submit your proposal/ article to the Newsletter Editor, Craig S. Jabaley, MD at csjabaley@emory.edu on or before October 15, 2019. If your article is chosen for the newsletter, we will contact you for editing and formatting. Thank you.