Open Line to the President

Wayne A. Gordon, PhD, ABPP/Cn, FACRM

Dear Colleagues:

The Board meeting had just adjourned and I was having lunch with Ric Morgan at a bistro in Toronto, discussing my agenda as president of ACRM. There was no transition team, no job description, just a role to move into and figure out what it is about. Even though I had been closely watching Marcel’s activities over the past year, I still had no idea of what was involved or what exactly my role was. I soon found out that the most difficult part of the “job” is learning “long-distance management”, with me living in New York City, but the “heart” of the organization is in Indianapolis. It is difficult to “take hold” of an organization when you are not an active participant in its day-to-day operations. This is an area that I am working on.

Over the past two months I have been integrating my role as president of ACRM into both my “psyche” and my work flow. What has emerged from this process is a set of goals for my presidency:

• Rehabilitation research is under-funded! While most researchers would say that funding for research in their respective fields is inadequate, the dearth of funds available for rehabilitation research is totally inconsistent with the number of individuals that we serve and the demographics of our population. To address this issue, our Policy and Legislative Committee is working closely with the Disability Rehabilitation Research Coalition to increase research funding for disability research across federal agencies. A letter urging this increase was sent to the Presidential “transition team” in which an argument was made to include this request for funding as part of the stimulus package that is being developed. A similar request was made to increase NIH funding as well. Our advocacy efforts in this area are being led by Marilyn Spivack.
  
  
• I have been a member of ACRM since 1979 (interesting the coincidence between the 30-year anniversary of my joining the organization and my term as president….those of you with a sense of history or humor will note how long it took me to work my way up the ladder!). I recall the excitement I felt when my application for membership was accepted, and I have presented at the annual meeting almost every year since then. It is my desire to engage the membership of the organization in as many different ways as possible, e.g., joining committees, presenting at meetings, informing membership of the “latest” via Enews, welcoming suggestions for the structure of the annual meeting, creating new networking and “special interest” groups modeled after the successful BI-ISIG, etc. To this end I am delighted to report that Sue Ann Sisto has been very active with her fellow SCI researcher colleagues in moving the SCI Networking Group towards its becoming a special interest group. In addition, Steve Page is forming a stroke networking group and Allen Heinemann is forming a participation/outcome measurement networking group. Finally, Tamara Bushnik is already meeting with the Program Committee to develop a format for the 2009 meeting, and we anticipate that there will be a significant increase in pre-course offerings.
  
  
• Effective January 1, 2009, ACRM became the sole owner of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, as the Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation has relinquished its share of the journal to ACRM and has begun publishing one of its own. The Archives is the highest-rated journal in the field, and its ownership not only enhances the visibility of ACRM but ensures the financial health of the organization. So, the goal for ACRM is not only seeking to increase its membership but also to increase subscriptions to the Archives from physicians. Physician subscribers are important because they are key to retaining pharmaceutical companies as advertisers, as the latter contribute a large proportion of total ad revenues. There has been about a 12% increase in membership over the last quarter. This is due to the hard work of our membership committee, under the leadership of Cynthia Dahlberg and the success of our annual meeting. We are actively recruiting “subscribers” from national and international organizations of physiatrists and we are hopeful that these efforts will be successful. Although the Archives editorial policies are totally independent of ACRM, our efforts to increase subscribers are being directed by Marcel Dijkers and the editors of the Archives, Jeff Basford, Leighton Chan and Allen Heinemann.
  
  
• Since joining the Board several years ago, I observed that once their year as “past president” had ended our former presidents were no longer included in the management structure of the organization. I felt that was a big loss to ACRM and, as one former president told me, “…it was like falling off of a cliff.” Marcel Dijkers, Joe Giacino and I were charged by the Board to develop a solution to this problem. It was decided that past presidents of the preceding five-year period would be allowed to maintain their “portfolios” beyond their term of office and remain as ex-officio members of the Board. All individuals who were President of ACRM during the past five years have agreed to “stay “ on the Board. Gerben DeJong is leading a group of the Policy and Legislative Committee that is preparing a white paper on health policy and healthcare reform, as these issues impact individuals with a disability; Keith Cicerone has agreed to continue his role as the champion of cognitive rehabilitation; Allen Heinemann is initiating a networking group on the measurement of outcome/participation; and Marcel Dijkers will continue to chair the Archives Committee.
  

So far this journey, as your President has been interesting and a learning experience. Part of the process has been to set reasonable and achievable goals and not to “overreach”. In this way at the end of the year we will all be able to examine what has been accomplished.

I wish you all a joyous, happy, healthy and of course productive New Year!

Wayne A. Gordon, PhD, ABPP/Cn,FACRM
President
American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine
6801 Lake Plaza Drive, Suite B-205
Indianapolis Indiana 46220