Theodore Sanford, MD
It is hard to believe but we are now in the 5th year of our Anesthesia Update meeting held in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This year we had a most successful meeting as judged not only by the number of registrants, and also by the number of return registrants, but also by the number of departmental alumni. What was of most interest is that these alumni were from the same graduating class, and had actually planned to meet as sort of a “class reunion”. As you can imagine, Puerto Vallarta in February seemed like heaven to those of us from the frozen north.
The hotel had recently updated its meeting facilities, and was in the process of finishing their new gym facility. We enjoyed our guest speaker Robert Stoelting from Indiana, and had a very informative TEE workshop put together by Wei Lau.
The 2001 meeting promises to be no less interesting and in some ways will broach a couple of subjects that none of us were ever taught in our residencies. A prominent health care attorney will present several talks on Compliance with federal regulation for billing, and also discuss the unbelievably complex and onerous new rules for Confidentiality of patient’s records. This is especially important information since many of us use electronic communications forpatient care.
In addition we will have several lectures from our new research director Ralph Lydic on sleep and lectures from two of our newest faculty Marie Csete and Christopher Turner. Marie is an expert on liver and renal aspects of anesthesia, and Chris is our newest Neuroanesthesia faculty. Therefore, as you plan you winter getaways from the weather of the north, I urge you to consider joining us for a winter retreat in Puerto Vallarta.
I honestly don’t think there is a better value for your vacation and CME dollar or peso. And the opportunity to get reacquainted with classmates or fellow residents makes for a very enjoyable meeting. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me at tsanford@umich.edu.