Welcome to the Second Annual Society for Pediatric Pain Medicine Meeting!

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our Second Annual Meeting at the beautiful Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix, AZ on March 12, 2015.

Our first full year as a society has been one of tremendous growth and development. The SPPM now has over 540 members. We have completed our first election of an outstanding slate of officers and board of directors. And we had a superb inaugural meeting last year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We owe a huge vote of thanks to Petra Meier-Haran, MD for organizing that meeting.

You talked, we listened. We heard your requests for more information on regional anesthesia, yet also for diverse topics and speakers with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. During this meeting we will be offering enlightening presentations covering the full breadth of pediatric pain management from opioids’ effect on sleep to regional anesthesia in palliative care.

This year, our first speaker of the day is the outstanding Pediatric Psychologist, Tonya Palermo, PhD, who will be discussing “The Interrelationship of Chronic Pain and Sleep Disturbances.” Sapna Kudchadkar, MD, a young, highly accomplished Anesthesiologist and Intensivist, will be reviewing her research on sleep and opioids. In the third session of the day on palliative care we welcome Stefan J. Friedrichsdorf, MD, a nationally recognized authority on palliative care. How can we best approach these patients, many of them with chronic pain problems that may last for years?

We have the privilege of hosting experts from variable backgrounds, and we could not resist asking three of them to help us understand the current literature. Their presentations of the “Best of Pediatric Pain Literature” will provide us with a shortcut to understanding what the most memorable and important papers are today for our practices.

Rounding out the program will be presentations by Pediatric Neurologist Suresh Kotagal, MD, private practice Anesthesiologist John Jones, MD, and Research Nurse Terri Voepel-Lewis, PhD, RN. In short, the speakers are representative of the interdisciplinary cooperation required for children in pain.

Of course, we cannot forget about lunch. Attendees will again have a choice: a leisurely meal and a visit with our exhibitors or an engaging PBLD with up and coming clinicians (check out the future of pediatric pain medicine!), as well as experienced faculty from institutions across the nation.

I have enjoyed my chance to serve our society as program chair for this meeting, working with speakers and moderators to build an exciting program. I could not have accomplished this without the help and support of our Executive Committee, Yuan-Chi Lin, MD, program vice-chair, and the entire Education Committee.

At the conclusion of this meeting, I will turn the reins over to Dr. Yuan-Chi Lin who will be directing the 2016 meeting. Please help him produce an outstanding program by filling out your evaluations with particular emphasis on what you need to improve patient care. If you let us know where you have “knowledge gaps,” we can provide the best content for your CME and MOCA credits.

Enjoy the meeting and your stay in Phoenix.

Sincerely,
Robert T. Wilder, MD, PhD
Program Chair