President's Message
By Wilford K. Gibson, MD
VOS President
Wilford K. Gibson, MD
VOS President
Welcome to the second year of e-newsletters! It seems as if I were just arranging my thoughts for the January issue. If all goes as planned, this will be my last newsletter as President.
As your exiting President, I'm proud of our board and members and what we have accomplished this year. I'm also pleased that the legislative session is winding down and there is nothing of major importance to report that relates to orthopaedic surgery.
Our accomplishments include the 61st Annual Meeting, which will be at Wintergreen Resort in Wintergreen, VA on May 2-4, 2008. Now is the time to register and make your reservations. The brochures have been mailed and you may fax your registration to VOS or register online at www.vos.org. Our special guest speakers, Dr. Iannotti and Dr. Thornhill, have confirmed and the itinerary is complete with faculty from across Virginia. The meeting has been accredited by the University of Virginia - School of Medicine CME Program for 12 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Our Program Chairs, Douglas Boardman and Mark Willis, have put together an excellent meeting and deserve our thanks and congratulations.
I believe our proactive legislative actions have given us some success and cause for celebration. After creating our orthopaedic political action committee and hiring our consultant, we have addressed podiatric scope of practice and physical therapy direct access issues. This year there were no issues raised. The physical therapists agreed not to bring new scope of practice or physician-owned physical therapy issues to the legislature for five years. We need to maintain vigilance and support our ORTHO-PAC. We may now look for issues such as certificate of public need and assignment of benefits to study and create our own dynamic agenda. I look forward to being the immediate past president and continuing to work with our board on issues that are important to all of us.
Please, share our excellent meeting plans with your orthopaedic colleagues, physician assistants and nurse practitioners and join me in welcoming them to Wintergreen!
Wilford K. Gibson, MD
President, Virginia Orthopaedic Society