Special 125th Anniversary Issue – Bulletin

Albert L. Merati, MD, AAO-HNS/F President (2019) presents Dr. Thompson with the award for the John Conley, MD Lecture on Medical Ethics.

Dana M. Thompson, MD, MS, gives the John Conley, MD Lecture on Medical Ethics during the 2019 Annual Meeting & OTO Experience on the topic, "Achieving parity in otolaryngology care: Our ethical obligation beyond care access."

1996 AAO-HNS/F exhibits commemorating the 100th anniversary (top and bottom pictures)

never seen the likes of that... and it woke up a lot of people in the Academy to ‘Oh, this is a group that has something to say, that is passionate about something, and wants to see change.’” In 2019 when Dr. Dana Thompson delivered the John Conley, MD Lecture on Medical Ethics, recounting the story of so many underrepresented voices in medicine, she focused us on our common goal and ongoing work for our Academy and our meeting to fully embrace the diversity of our membership and the communities we serve. There is no better place and time than our Annual Meeting for us to embrace and enact change. The stimulating power of a meeting The 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting & OTO Experience was only the second time in our Academy’s history that we were unable to come together in person. The first was in 1945 for what should have been the 50th meeting. It was cancelled due to directives from the Office of Defense Transportation to reserve bus and plane seats and hotel rooms for military personnel in the later days of World War II redeployment. The 1945 Pan

American Otolaryngology Congress was to have taken place in conjunction with the Academy Meeting, creating what would have been one of the largest international gatherings of otolaryngologists to that point. When the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible for us to gather in 2020, we were fortunate to have the technology to still facilitate a large part of the meeting’s educational mission—over 30,000 hours of education content was consumed. To an extent, the “Office Hours” discussions began to recreate the experience of lively and personal conversations with course faculty and Academy leaders. We will build on 2020’s lessons to utilize new platforms in future meetings, out of necessity or design. And yet, there was so much that we missed in terms of engagement and collaboration. As Dr. New wrote in his 1945 Presidential Address, “No amount of reading can supplant completely the stimulating power of a large and well organized meeting. Here, two factors are in effect: first, a direct informative one brought about by hearing a lecture, by assimilating an instruction course, or by seeing a moving

OTO Experience, established a relationship between the practitioner and the innovative industries broadening our technical options for patient care. Dr. John Conley’s 1986 endowment of his namesake lecture, “... that [he] could support...education in fields that are akin to medicine, and also life... embrac[ing] ethics, philosophy, sociology, religion, world affairs, economics and government” both set a precedent for the endowment of invited lectureships at the Annual Meeting and created one of the most well-attended annual moments of thought leadership about the direction of our field. Perhaps one of the greatest recent moments of visionary change at the Annual Meeting came in Boston, Massachusetts, during the 2010 meeting with the formation and endowment of the Women in Otolaryngology (WIO) Section as described beautifully in the WIO’s recent documentary "Four Days in Boston: A History of the AAO-HNS Section for Women in Otolaryngology (WIO)." In the film, Dr. Pell Ann Waldrop recounts “... that was a pretty magical time...we raised $400,000 in four days. The Academy had

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SPECIAL EDITION: 125TH ANNIVERSARY AAO-HNS BULLETIN ENTNET.ORG/BULLETIN