Outgoing ALA President Forecasts Bright Future

Sustainers’ Fund

Dr. Crumley also discussed the Sustainers’ Fund, a campaign to raise $500,000 in unrestricted money-available for meetings and general use-by the Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meeting in 2011.

Like other organizations in this tight economy, the ALA has had a drop in reserves. It has cut expenses by holding its winter council meeting by teleconference and eliminating the banquet from the recently held annual spring meeting.

In the Sustainers’ Fund campaign, any fellow, corresponding fellow, or emeritus member who makes a donation of $100,000 or more will have his or her name attached to the Sustainers’ Fund, Dr. Crumley said.

This will go a long way toward defraying costs at the annual meeting and other annual costs, he said.

Dr. Crumley revisited the roots of the field as well, tipping his cap to Dr. Horace Green, the Father of Laryngology, who was expert enough to even remove a laryngeal growth without the aid of a laryngoscope, operating mostly by feel, which to me is flabbergasting.

And he gave a nod to the group, organized by Dr. Frank H. Davis, who met in Buffalo in 1878-considered the founding meeting of the ALA. In those days, specialization was frowned upon by most of organized medicine, and people who split themselves into small groups as we have done were not highly thought of, Dr. Crumley said. Accordingly, these were courageous individuals.

Dr. Crumley said the field will keep evolving at a fast pace. As lasers and endoscopes become more advanced and useful to the laryngologists, so do clinically useful techniques from the worlds of gene therapy, stem-cell reseach, optical coherence tomography, and many other disciplines, he said. I am no futurist, but because of where we are technologically today, I think it would be very doubtful that a clinical day in the life of a laryngologist in the year 2019 would in any way resemble a clinical day that we experience in this year of 2009.

A Look to the Future

Dr. Fried, in his capacity as the new President, said he will continue to try to draw new talent into the field. He is attempting to broaden publication abilities and open up as many slots as possible for podium presentations at the annual meeting.

He said that he hopes the ALA can continue to shed its image as an organization for older doctors. We were considered a group of senior otolaryngologists and we’re trying to dispel that notion, he said.