President's Report 2005-06
Southwest Chapter, AMWA

Membership

Chapter membership is 269 as of August 2005.

Finances

The chapter has a balanced budget and a healthy financial reserve.

Developments

• Communications among chapter members continue to improve through use of our e-mail "amwasouthwest" Yahoo! Group, which is now used to distribute chapter announcements, updates, job postings, and the chapter newsletter. The e-group moderator is Ann Sutton, the chapter's webmaster.

  The program committee sent an e-mail survey to the membership in July 2005. Answers to questions (focused mainly on preferences for chapter meeting locations, topics, times, and so on) are being tabulated. 

Regional Conference

The chapter’s fourth miniconference will be held in Austin, Texas, on May 19, 2006 at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. The conference organizers are Anita F. W. Frijhoff, and Pamela McAlpin.

The associated hotel is the Woodward Hotel and Conference Center (rate: $55/night + tax). The for-credit courses to be offered are:

• Grant Writing: NIH and Non-NIH Resource Options and Strategies (EW/FL) [206]
• Advanced Writing (ADV) [706]
• Journal Submissions Other Than Research Articles (EW) [209]
• Bibliographic Resources for Medical Communicators (editorial approach) (G) [102]

Noncredit workshops to be offered are:

• Giving Effective Presentations (NC)
• DNA, Cell Cycle, and Cancer: An Introduction (NC)

Programs

March 30, 2005, Houston, Texas
Membership Appreciation Event. Jason Moore, MS, MBA, manager of industry programs for the Houston-based nonprofit organization BioHouston, described his organization’s efforts to promote the development of the bioscience industry in Houston and the opportunities that such development may create for medical writers and editors. The wine-and-cheese event, which 24 members and guests attended, was held at Majors Books.

May 25, 2005, Houston, Texas
Sixth Annual Career Roundtables. Thirty-one members and guests registered to participate in 1 of 4 roundtable discussions held at the Baba Yega restaurant. This year’s  table leaders and topics were as follows. Karen F. Phillips, scientific publications manager at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and managing editor of the Journal of Clinical Ultrasound, led a discussion on setting editorial priorities and determining how much editing on a manuscript is enough. Stephen Palmer and Christina Chambers medical writers and editors at the Texas Heart Institute, discussed the potential benefits of BELS certification for different types of medical writers and offered tips on how to prepare to take the BELS exam. Jude Richard, also from the Texas Heart Institute, discussed the principles of evidence-based medicine and the ways in which evidence-based medicine can affect the work of medical writers and editors in years to come. Ruth Sorelle, who served as the Houston Chronicle’s medical writer for 20 years before leaving in 1998 to become senior director of special projects in the office of public affairs at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, discussed the strenuous task of remaining objective about medical matters in an era of subjective journalism.

July 16, 2005, Seabrook, Texas
Summer meeting. Mimi Swartz, an executive editor at Texas Monthly, spoke about her experiences writing her article “Till Death Do Us Part,” which was published in the magazine’s March 2005 issue and which describes the history behind the breakup of Baylor College of Medicine and Methodist Hospital. Thirty-two members and guests attended the event, which was held at the Villa Capri restaurant in Seabrook, Texas.

October 11, 2005, Houston, Texas
Presentation: Communicating health information to individuals with low literacy skills. Dr. Maria Jibaja-Weiss, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, will discuss her work designing computer-based resources that use text, audio, graphics, and other media (i.e., telenovelas) to communicate health information to people with low literacy skills and will demonstrate some of the interactive materials she has developed. The event will be held at the Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Houston.

December 5, 2005, Houston, Texas
Holiday gala. David S. Buck, MD, will speak about his work with the homeless at the Southwest Chapter's annual holiday gala. Dr. Buck is an associate professor with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and is the president and chief medical officer of Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston. The event will be held at Josephine’s Ristorante in downtown Houston.

January 2006, Houston, Texas 
Annual John P. McGovern Award Banquet. AMWA Southwest will host its 24th annual John P. McGovern Award dinner in January 2006 (date tbd). This year’s recipient is Barbara Gastel, MD, MPH, coordinator of the master's degree program in science journalism at Texas A&M University. Dr. Gastel also teaches medical writing and is editor of the Council of Science Editors periodical Science Editor. For her outstanding efforts as a teacher of and contributor to the field of biomedical communications, Dr. Gastel has received 2 previous AMWA awards: the Golden Apple Award in 1993 and the Harold Swanberg Distinguished Service Award in 1998.

Scholarship Program

The chapter’s scholarship program, now in its sixth year, is designed to encourage a promising graduate or undergraduate student in the field of medical communication. Participants are required to submit a 500-word essay that will be judged by a panel of AMWA chapter officers. The winner receives a check for $500, a 1-year student membership in AMWA, publication of the winning essay in the Southwest Chapter Newsletter, and an invitation to the chapter’s annual career roundtables meeting in May 2006.

Respectfully submitted,

Christine Wogan
Chapter President