Dear colleagues:

In March many of you attended the AAAAI’s 2008 Annual Meeting, which offered over 350 educational sessions to more than 7,700 delegates. In the three months that have passed since we met in Philadelphia, you’ve probably thought back on the sessions you participated in and looked for ways to use what you learned. But for those of us on the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC), we are already deep in the planning process for 2009. As the current chair of the AMPC, I would like to take a moment to explain how the programming process works so that you can have a better understanding of how you might be able to be more involved.

Inclusive Input
Each year’s meeting begins with input and suggestions from the membership, which come to us in two ways:

1. Any member is welcome to submit topic and/or session suggestions at any time through the AAAAI Web site. If you visit www.annualmeeting.aaaai.org and select “Future Annual Meeting Topic Suggestions,” you can enter as much information as you wish about sessions you would like to see offered at future meetings. Additionally, we request topics and suggestions through blast e-mails to the AAAAI membership at the first of November, December and January each year for the following year’s meeting. In 2007 we received over 300 recommendations through the Web site. These suggestions were then submitted for consideration in the programming process for next year.
2. Input from the Interest Sections is the main source of programming suggestions. Every fall the Interest Section committees are contacted by the AMPC with a request to develop session proposals. These proposals, along with those collected through the Web site, are reviewed by Interest Section leadership in the spring and forwarded to the AMPC. Every AAAAI member can join the Interest Section of her or his choice to have an influential role in programming.

Input is also welcome from other constituencies within the Academy such as the Regional, State and Local Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Societies (RSLAAIS) or the New Allergist/Immunologist Assembly (NAIA); however, the Interest Sections have the major voice in programming.

Narrowing the Scope
The subcommittees of the AMPC (Plenary, Symposia, Workshops and Seminars) include representatives from each Interest Section and the Allied Health Professionals’ Assembly. These groups work to narrow down the long list of proposals received from the Interest Sections. During this process, the proposals are often revised or combined with others before they are finalized, but every submission is considered.

Many proposals are seen by more than one subcommittee – for example, a proposal recommended as a symposium but not programmed may also be reviewed by the Workshops Subcommittee. Once all of the subcommittees have completed their reviews, the entire Program Committee meets in person in early summer to finalize the agenda for the next year’s meeting. Speakers are then invited over the summer and registration takes place during the fall and winter (as we start collecting proposals for the following year’s meeting).

In early fall, the abstract deadline arrives. The abstract submission deadline for the 2009 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC is September 3. Immediately following, Interest Section representatives score the abstracts and then program these into Oral Abstract Sessions or Poster Sessions based on score and topic priority. The AMPC has another face-to-face meeting in November known as the “Abstract Building Session” to make sure that each abstract is presented in the optimal forum. You can see how important the Interest Sections are to the abstract process as well, so I recommend joining one to get involved in making our meeting the best it can be.

In total it takes almost eighteen months to plan the AAAAI Annual Meeting. The process always begins, though, with the input of our membership. By the time you read this we will already have set the agenda for 2009, but if you have an idea for a future Annual Meeting session, I encourage you to go to the Web site and submit it now. And it is never too early to begin discussing session ideas with other members of the AAAAI committees you belong to.

In order for the Annual Meeting to succeed, we rely on our members to help us identify the important topics and latest research that need to be shared. If you have submitted suggestions or helped to shape a committee’s proposal, thank you for your participation in this important process. If you have not yet had the opportunity, I hope that you will consider taking part and let your voice be heard.

Sincerely,



R. Stokes Peebles, Jr., MD, FAAAAI
Chair, Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC)

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