Since I joined the SHM Board of Directors in 2017, the most rewarding part of my experience has been meeting and learning from SHM members across the country and the globe. As president-elect, I want to make sure I’m hearing our members’ voices loud and clear as we navigate the road ahead and lead SHM into the future.
Dr. Rehm
To facilitate more frequent conversations with our members, current Board president Dr. Rachel Thompson suggested The Prez Room—a series of in-person and virtual events to introduce ourselves and discuss hot topics and issues affecting members at their institutions and the innovation that they have seen—or created!—to help address these topics. Our goal is to learn how SHM fits into the lives of our members and how SHM can be part of the solution to support our members better at the local and national levels.
While attending the Pediatric Hospital Medicine conference (#PHM22) at Disney’s Yacht and Beach Club in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. this summer, I was able to sit down with Dr. Thompson and SHM members attending the meeting. We met around a table, enjoying a lunch break in this new format that we are so excited to introduce. In a wonderful dialogue, the members introduced themselves and shared meaningful conversations around important topics, such as:
- The importance of advocacy for our members and patients
- The incredible impact SHM has made in our personal and professional careers
- The importance of being together again at an in-person conference
- Our desire to improve communication among our executive council for SHM’s Pediatrics Special Interest Group (SIG)
Often, we take for granted our influence in others’ lives. One of the highlights for me in our first Prez Room was to hear a Pediatrics SIG member share her memories from the Pediatric Hospital Medicine meeting that I chaired in the summer of 2017. At that meeting, I was lucky enough to open the first plenary by sharing an experience I had the week prior when I needed a friend in Minneapolis to help with a family emergency. When I thought of all the possible people who could help, many were connections I had made through my network in SHM. This member shared how impactful that story had been for her and how it encouraged her to get more involved with SHM. I hope that through all that SHM has to offer, including our new series of Prez Room opportunities, you, too, will be encouraged to get involved. I think you will be really glad you did!
Dr. Thompson and I look forward to seeing many of you over the next year. We would love to hear your suggestions for ways SHM can help you both personally and professionally in the years to come. We hope to take what we learn from these informal conversations with diverse groups of our members to better inform future programming and directions for SHM. There is no time like the present to really understand how our Society can shape the future for our members and our patients, and we invite you to be a part of the discussion.
Dr. Rehm is the associate chief medical officer of Children’s Services in the department of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. She is also SHM’s president-elect.