President-Elect's Message
As I start the year as President-Elect, I wanted to reflect on one of the great strengths of the APA: nurturing our young members. Ours is an organization whose focus has always been on the next generation of leaders, and I hope to help continue that tradition over the next three years. Almost every activity of the APA is geared towards the professional growth of our members, making it hard not to talk about every aspect of what our organization does when describing our focus on young members, but let me mention a few highlights:
- Young Investigator Awards: The Young Investigator Award program has blossomed over the last several years. This year we gave out 16 awards, with funding from the APA and our funding partners (AHRQ, the Commonwealth Fund, and HRSA-MCHB)! This is an extraordinary number of awards, more than we have ever given out in the past. And we have also added a national mentorship component to each award to facilitate the career development of our young researchers.
- Educational Scholars Program: The Educational Scholars Program, under the leadership of Connie Baldwin, has recruited its 4th Cohort of scholars. The program, which started in 2006, has touched the lives of over 80 young educators and helped them advance their careers in educational scholarship. Connie works with an active executive committee as well as many faculty advisors for the scholars.
- New Century Scholars Program: The New Century Scholars Program, led by Lee Pachter and Cheryl Kodjo is now in its 6th year of operation. Its goal is to increase workforce diversity in academic pediatrics by providing mentorship and career development support to young under-represented minority pediatric residents interested in careers in academic medicine. Lee and Cheryl are aided by a very able advisory group, and many junior and senior mentors for the New Century Scholars. I am personally delighted to have become a senior mentor this year!
- PAS Workshops: A highlight of PAS for young members is the menu of workshops at the PAS meeting. This year's selection seemed better than ever. The workshops provide an opportunity for our young members to hone their skills in research, education, patient care, and policy as well as to enhance their career development. In Vancouver this past month, I led one workshop (on reviewing abstracts for national and regional meetings) and participated in another (on writing young investigator grants). Both these workshops, as is true for almost all the workshops, especially targeted young members, including fellows and junior faculty.
- Regional activities: The Regions are a perfect starting point for young members joining our organizations. Opportunities to present research and networking experiences are two of the strengths of the Regional meetings. Some Regions also give out small Young Investigator Awards to assist young researchers. Many of the present leaders of the APA started out being active members in the APA Regions and I encourage all our members, but especially the younger ones, to "check out" their APA Regional organization.
All of these wonderful activities are just a sampling of what our organization does to nurture our young members. And each of them "takes a village" of our more senior members to be a successful endeavor. And of course, none of them could happen without our wonderful APA staff under the leadership of Marge Degnon: Connie Mackay, Nui Dhepyasuwan, Jennifer Padilla, Raquel Bailey, and Usha Mishra.
It is my privilege to be part of the APA leadership that guides these efforts, and I look forward to working with all of you over the coming years.
Benard P. Dreyer
President-Elect
Academic Pediatric Association
bpd1@nyumc.org
