Presidential Comments

94th Annual Meeting photo gallery

New Bylaw Changes

We Need to Change!

Will you share your story on orthopaedic history?

New Members

Important Notices

We Need to Change!

By James J. Hamilton, MD, COS Immediate Past President

The Clinical Orthopaedic Society has a long-standing history of excellence. We were all elected to the society because of our reputations as outstanding clinicians. It has been an honor to be a member of this society and be your President for the last year. However if we do not take action quickly, this society is going to die! Due to many factors, membership in all societies is dropping. The pressures of the office with dropping reimbursement make many physicians unwilling to spend time away from the office. Some physicians reason that if they don’t attend the meetings, there is no benefit to belonging and then why pay the dues? Young physicians are much more focused on an immediate return from an endeavor and do not perceive membership in societies as being an honor or recognition for their clinical excellence. The cost of meetings is growing and some physicians only want to participate in meetings focused on their sub-specialty interest. All of these factors result in the Clinical Orthopaedic Society not being able to grow – and if we don’t grow, we will wither and die as a group. Last year I gave my presidential address “Can a Profession be Paid Forward?” and asked all the members to sponsor a young associate and bring them to the meeting. That request was not very effective.

The Board has been studying this problem for a long time. The measures we have put in place have not been effective. We have to change our approach. The Society must become more attractive to young physicians who will become long-term members of the society. Multiple studies show that young physicians desire a focused experience to allow them to come into the meeting and leave with the least amount of time away from their practice and family. Our meeting format of three half-days is very nice for comraderie but makes our meeting much more expensive in time away and cost. The Board has decided to offer increased educational content to one afternoon to provide a better education/time ratio. We are exploring shifting to a Friday-Sunday format to decrease time out of the office. The Board has recommended decreasing meeting costs in order to lower the registration fee and make the meeting more financially attractive. We will start a broader public relations effort to get the Society out in front of surgeons to increase our “name recognition” and desirability of becoming a member. But most of all, we need each of you to sponsor a young associate and increase our active membership.

Hopefully our efforts will be fruitful and the society will prosper for another century, but it will require us to change to make us an attractive organization to future physicians.

NEXT MEETING:
COS 95th Annual Meeting

September 27-29
The Peabody Hotel
Memphis, TN