Make plans now to attend the 2010 ATS International Conference, May 14-19, in New Orleans.
“Novel” and “late-breaking” are just two of the adjectives used by Marc Moss, M.D., to describe the American Thoracic Society’s 2010 International Conference in New Orleans, the premier educational venue for clinicians and scientists in the fields of pulmonary, critical care and sleep.
“This will be a year of many firsts,” said Dr. Moss, who serves as the ATS 2010 conference chair, as well as professor of medicine at the University of Colorado. “For one, this is the first year that the ATS has accepted abstracts of unique clinical cases, as well as scientific abstracts. The result has been remarkably successful. The Society will present approximately 500 clinical cases as abstracts at this year’s meeting. Submissions have been received not only from individuals in the U.S. and Canada—but also from clinicians and scientists who practice in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.”
The ATS also initiated a late-breaking abstract deadline of February 10, in addition to its regular abstract submission deadline that occurs in early November. “This later deadline provided additional time for investigators to submit research representing recent significant scientific breakthroughs that really should not wait until the next ATS meeting,” he said. “We received more than 200 late-breaking abstract submissions.”
The addition of clinical cases and a late-breaking abstract deadline has contributed to another first for the ATS: a record number of abstract submissions. “More than 6,000 abstracts were received and most of them included timely, important research discoveries and developments,” Dr. Moss said.
“The Society has also undertaken a number of efforts to ensure that junior attendees find the meeting accessible and easy to navigate,” added ATS president J. Randall Curtis, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Washington and head of the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
“For example, a Road Map has been designed for trainees and junior attendees that lists activities for this group, including information about a Center where they can network, participate in activities and meet experts,” he said. “We’ve always had offerings for junior members at the annual ATS Conference—we’ve just ramped them up this year.”
The ATS also will kick off the 2010 meeting with its first opening ceremony from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 15. This year’s inaugural keynote speaker will be New Orleans ICU physician Bennett deBoisblanc, M.D. (for more information on Dr. deBoisblanc see the related story ICU Physician to Give Keynote at Opening Ceremony).
“The 2010 International Conference is amazingly timely, especially in light of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now the earthquake in Haiti,” Dr. Moss said. “We are faced with growing concern with how the healthcare profession, both nationally and globally, deals with properly providing care in times of disaster.”
Others words that Dr. Moss used to describe ATS 2010 are “clinically relevant” and “interactive.”
“Attendees will find more opportunities for networking, and a greater emphasis on idea sharing,” he said. “We will have newly formatted thematic poster sessions that foster interactions between clinicians and researchers, so everyone gets a chance to participate and discuss the science that will be presented at this year’s meeting.”
“We are also continuing in the tradition begun last year by developing a symposium that will focus on the newest and most relevant randomized trials of recently published or soon-to-be published trials,” added Dr. Curtis. “The popular late-breaking-abstracts session will once again be part of the program. I’m also very excited about our President’s Symposium on Comparative Effectiveness Research, which will include Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, as well as Dr. Michael Lauer, who directs the NHLBI’s program on comparative effectiveness research.”
ATS 2010 also has incorporated new sessions to keep programming fresh and relevant. New this year include sessions on the effects of both vitamin D and obesity on lung disease and staffing challenges in critical care units and the ICU. Other timely topics to be discussed are stem cell research, regenerative medicine, personalized therapy and the cost-effectiveness of home sleep testing.
“In general, a lot of the science that will be presented at this year’s conference is extremely novel and will provide the scientific framework behind the most recent clinical discoveries in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine,” Dr. Moss said. “Attendees also will learn clinically relevant information that can change their practices and that they can immediately apply in patient care.”
‘Year of the Lung’
In collaboration with the members of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), the ATS recognizes 2010 as the “Year of the Lung” to raise awareness about lung health among the public, initiate action in communities worldwide and advocate for the resources needed to combat lung disease and improve lung health around the globe.
“We see proclaiming 2010 the ‘Year of the Lung’ as a launching point for programs that strive to promote awareness and remind world citizens not to take for granted their lung health and the quality of the air they breathe,” said ATS President-Elect Dean S. Schraufnagel, M.D., who is leading the effort with colleagues from the American College of Chest Physicians, Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, European Respiratory Society, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Latin American Thoracic Society and Pan-African Thoracic Society.
Dr. Schraufnagel is co-chair with Jo Rae Wright, Ph.D., immediate-past president of the Society, of an ATS “Year of the Lung” taskforce that will initiate activities throughout the year. A major project already under way is Breathing in America: Diseases, Progress and Hope, a book highlighting the prevalence of respiratory disease in the United States. More than 40 ATS members are serving as chapter editors and reviewers of this publication.
Among the issues that the campaign will address is the urgency of increasing funding for lung disease research and training programs around the world.
President’s Lecture
This year’s President’s Lecture will be delivered by Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine‘s Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Nursing. He also serves as medical director for the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care, which supports quality and safety efforts at the Johns Hopkins University Hospitals. In 2003, he established the Quality and Safety Research Group to advance the science of safety.
“Dr. Pronovost is a recipient of the MacArthur ‘Genius Award’ and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2008,” Dr. Curtis said. “He is a pioneer in patient safety and quality. In his address, he will focus on the challenges he faced convincing traditional scientists and quality and safety experts to adapt their viewpoints to include patient quality and safety as an area of science. In his work, he has since successfully integrated the two.”
Hands-On PG Course
The opportunity to learn how to use new medical procedures and technology is one to which many clinicians look forward when they attend the annual ATS Conference. PG3: “Interventional Pulmonology with Practical Demonstration: Tools & Knowledge to Empower Your Practice,” which will take place on Friday, May 14, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., will offer just such an opportunity. The daylong session will review current and emerging palliative airway techniques, as well as how to use these techniques on patients.
“The lectures will address situations we encounter every day in a bronchoscopy suite, such as commonly adopted practices in the management of bleeding complications to more innovative techniques in bronchoscopy, such as endobrochial ultrasound, which have become a very important tool in the staging of lung cancer,” said Momen M. Wahidi, M.D., M.B.A., director of interventional pulmonology in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, and assistant professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. “Other lectures will address some of the state-of-the-art technologies that are not yet commonly used, but which promise to have an impact in the diagnosis of lung cancer and other lung diseases, such as micro-confocal bronchoscopy.”
Dr. Wahidi will serve as session co-chair, along with Armin Ernst, M.D., who serves as a faculty physician at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and Praveen Mathur, M.D., M.B.B.S, of Indiana University’s Department of Medicine in Indianapolis.
During this postgraduate course, attendees can visit six stations where they can receive hands-on training in:
- Transbronchial needle aspiration (TBNA)
- Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS)
- Long-term indwelling pleural catheter (IPC)
- Percutaneous dilation tracheostomy (PTD)
- Cryotherapy and argon plasma coagulation (APC)
- Medical thoracoscopy
“Many of these procedures offer minimally invasive, advanced techniques to help in the diagnosis and management of patients predominantly with lung cancer, but also with other benign and malignant diseases that involve the thorax,” Dr. Wahidi said.
Since postgraduate courses require an additional registration fee and seating is limited, plan to register early to ensure admittance to PG3.
NINR Celebrations
The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year. To salute this milestone, a number of events at ATS 2010 will focus on the Institute’s accomplishments over the last quarter-century.
“The interaction between the ATS and the NINR is extremely important to the interdisciplinary relationship that has developed between pulmonary, critical care and sleep clinicians-including physicians, nurses and other clinicians-in addition to the collaborative research efforts that continue to grow between physician and nursing scientists,” Dr. Moss said.
The celebration will open with symposium A11: “Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the National Institute of Nursing Research,” which will take place on Sunday, May 16, from 8:15 to 10:45 a.m. “We are especially excited to have Dr. Patricia Grady, director of the NINR, presenting as part of this important session,” added Dr. Curtis.
“Over the years, the NINR has funded many researchers in those areas central to the focus of the ATS International Conference,” said Kathleen Lindell, Ph.D., R.N., who is chair of the ATS Assembly on Nursing. “This session will highlight the diversity of projects that the NINR has funded to advance the science of patient care.”
Following the morning symposium, Karen Huss, Ph.D., RN, program director for acute and long-term care, end-of-life training at the NINR, will talk about the institute’s funding priorities in these areas and answer any questions from attendees at an NINR-sponsored session from noon to 1 p.m.
After lunch, the Nursing Year in Review session will get under way. This year, as in the past, the program will be led by “really top-notch” experts” across a spectrum of topics related to the fields of pulmonary, critical care and sleep, according to Margaret Ann Carno, Ph.D., M.B.A., RN., chair of the Assembly on Nursing’s Program Committee. Speakers will review major advances and papers that have been published in the last year and how they have changed care or the understanding of a clinical problem or scientific issue relevant to nurses working in respiratory and critical care.