Dear Colleagues and Friends,
As I complete my term as AANA’s president, I would like to sincerely thank you for this incredibly rewarding opportunity and for your support throughout my presidential term. The culmination of our 2022 AANA Annual Meeting (AANA22) was so special, having over 1,000 of our members again together in person to learn and celebrate AANA. Congratulations to the Program Chair Kevin F. Bonner, M.D., FAANA on an outstanding meeting.
It’s truly been an honor serving as your president, especially as AANA celebrated its 40th Anniversary. It was the perfect opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come as an organization and what lies ahead for our future.
AANA’s accomplishments over the past year have been significant, driven by our extremely talented and dedicated board, the committee chairs and their volunteers and the AANA executive team, starting with the 40th Anniversary Campaign. An ambitious undertaking initiated by AANA Past President Brian J. Cole, M.D., M.B.A., FAANA, AANA sought to raise $4 million in honor of its 40th Anniversary. I’m pleased to report that we exceeded the goal, raising nearly $4.4 million through donations, grants and legacy pledges and can look forward to allowing the AANA Education Foundation to advance arthroscopic education and research initiatives for generations to come.
Our Webinar Wednesday series, designed to introduce timely and trending topics in arthroscopy on a regular basis, took a strong cadence in 2021 as well, with at least one new webinar and over 200 attendees registered on a bi-monthly basis. In AANA’s spirit of collaboration, these webinars featured partnerships with other organizations such as ASPETAR, SLARD and the Hawkins Foundation/Sharecare. Our online educational offerings were well received and, even without our own annual meeting, AANA awarded over 15,000 CMEs in 2021!
The AANA DocMatter Community showed exponential growth during 2021 – engagement levels were at an all-time high of 73% with over 800,000 views! It’s encouraging to see so many of you participating in this interactive platform and sharing what works (and what doesn’t) for your practices. Keep the conversations going!
I am also delighted to share that the AANA Fellowship Education Series demonstrated significant growth and reached 40 additional fellowship programs in 2021. We also provided 42 Resident Scholarships to AANA22 in San Francisco. Every Resident who applied received funding to interact with and learn from our incredible AANA Faculty. Residents and Fellows are the lifeblood of AANA’s future, and we want to provide these opportunities to encourage their engagement.
One of the cornerstones of my presidential commitment was to ensure that AANA is at the forefront of improving diversity and inclusion within orthopaedics. More than any other medical specialty in the United States, orthopaedics remains underrepresented by women and minorities. Throughout my term, we improved female and minority representation across all programming, including many more women and those underrepresented on the podium, and we had the largest group of women ever to attend the annual AANA/SOMOS Course. I am so proud that AANA was the first-ever AAOS specialty society to partner with the Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society for our 2022 Specialty Day program – an incredibly impactful achievement that featured over 50% female faculty!
Finally, I am concluding my presidency with a major announcement – AANA is launching an exciting new diversity program: Future Scope: Introduction to Arthroscopy and Orthopaedics, and has successfully secured a three-year partnership with one of our largest sponsors, DePuy Synthes. In the coming months, we will offer exciting new courses for female and underrepresented medical students introducing them to the fundamentals of a career in orthopaedics. This initiative will be at the forefront for the new presidential line, and I anticipate this important offering will broaden the diversity of students pursuing an orthopaedic career in the years to come.
Speaking of the presidential line, I have passed the AANA gavel on to your new President James (Jim) W. Stone, M.D., FAANA, and I am extremely confident that he will continue to advance our great society. He has much in store for our membership, and I am excited to see where he will take AANA and all that he will accomplish.
Thank you for entrusting AANA to me this past year. It has been my great honor to serve as your president and the highlight of my professional career.
Congratulations to Jim and the 2022-2023 AANA Board of Directors!
All the best!
Mark H. Getelman, M.D., FAANA
AANA Immediate Past President