President's Column | March 2023

Mar 31, 2023

Dear Colleagues,
 

 March Madness. In the words of my husband, “What a time to be alive.” He lives for this month every year. He fills out his bracket with the same childlike excitement as my oldest son. They watch every game that doesn’t air during school hours and travel to catch at least one round. With me not being the late-night parent, I tend to miss most of the games though I’m often awakened by yelling and stomping from the mancave. My son never fails to give me a play-by-play every morning when he wakes up and it makes me smile to see how happy the love of sports makes him. Our team didn’t make it far in the tournament, but when it comes to college sports, who doesn’t love a Cinderella story? The hope of a historical win is enough reason to continue watching all the way to the championship.
 

This month the madness isn’t solely caused by basketball. For me, presidential responsibilities have me dribbling a lot of balls. I’m not as talented as the college players my son idolizes and often lose a ball or two along the way. Regardless, I’m keeping my eyes focused on them all. I’m now closer to the end of my tenure than the beginning, however, there are still many goals I want to accomplish before my time as your president comes to end.
 
This month my CME chairs and I traveled to Boston to put finishing touches on the summer conference. The meeting space was designed, and every detail from exhibit hall placement, lecture table set-up, marketing locations, to furniture choices was thoughtfully planned. In true “Lauren” fashion, I visited numerous event spaces searching for the perfect location for the Welcome Reception and VIP Event. Boston is rich with history and my vision is to capture that in our events. If you attended Miami, then you experienced my goal of offering conference attendees a complete “experience.” Miami’s historic meeting did just that, and if Boston goes as planned, the summer meeting will be another meeting for the books.
 
Summer registration opened last month, and we are already trending positively. Early Bird Registration ends April 17, so use the registration link in this newsletter and take three minutes to register. I promise you will not regret joining me in Boston this summer.
 
I could not be prouder of our CME Committee and staff members for refining every aspect of our meeting planning. We are functioning more efficiently than ever before, and I hope members and industry partners can attest to this through their registration experience, sponsorship opportunities, educational content and correspondence.
 
If experiencing March Madness and the NCAA Tournament is the goal of every college basketball team, then meeting with the AAD Board of Directors at their Annual Meeting is the championship game for our organization. The coming together of both organizations has occurred for many years and is something SDPA leaders and staff spend the year preparing to attend. This meeting allows both organizations to update the other on current projects, advocacy efforts, voice concerns, make requests and emphasize the need for collaboration.
 
Last week President-Elect Laura Bush, Interim Executive Director Harvey Tillipman and I met with several members of the AAD Board in New Orleans (see picture below).They were updated on all the positive strides made by our organization and the DermPA™ profession regarding education, advocacy and visibility. We were excited to share our membership has reached 4700, last fall’s CME meeting reached a historic attendance and was the third largest dermatology meeting in the country, our Legislative Action Center has led to support of numerous important pieces of legislation that affect both dermatologists and PAs, and our flagship journal, JDPA, met a historic goal of becoming indexed on Google Scholar, which will translate to greater discoverability of our PA authors among the larger medical community.

SDPA requested affordable access to the JAAD for our members and hope to be able to announce this benefit soon. We also requested quarterly meetings with AAD Board Members in hopes that frequent communication may prevent damaging misconceptions and improve collaboration among our professions.
 
The relationship between AAD and SDPA has unlimited potential. I am hopeful that every step taken for better communication and collaboration will improve our organization’s goal of providing quality dermatologic care to those in need and who trust us with their health. 
 
Walking away from the meeting, a feeling of comradery filled the air and though there wasn’t a winner for this matchup, I will happily accept a tie.
 
With the above madness filling the first half of my month, surprisingly there are more monumental projects in the works as I type this. Though I never played basketball as a kid (hilariously enough, I was asked by my volleyball and softball coach not to come back to the second day of tryouts) I have learned to dribble. I haven’t perfected the skill and likely never will. Some days not all the balls get to the goal, and I’m okay with that. I will pick them back up tomorrow and keep dribbling until each goal is made. At the end of my tenure, I can’t wait to cut that net down.

 

Yours Truly,

Lauren Miller, MPAS, PA-C
President, SDPA Board of Directors