President's Report 2006-07
Southwest Chapter, AMWA

Membership

Chapter membership is 286 as of September 13, 2006.

Finances

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

Chapter Conference

On Friday, May 19, 2006, AMWA’s Southwest chapter held its biannual chapter conference at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. This was the first time the chapter conference has been held outside the Houston area. Anita Frijhoff, the chapter’s Assistant Program Chair at the time, was the chief organizer and worked closely with chapter secretary Jude Richard and former chapter member Pamela McAlpin. Seventy people (including 21 nonmembers and 6 new members who joined AMWA when they registered for the conference) attended the conference. The courses offered included Journal Submissions Other Than Research Articles, taught by Barbara Gastel; Grant Writing: NIH and Non-NIH Resource Options and Strategies and Bibliographic Resources for Medical Communicators, each taught by Joan Nilson; and Advanced Writing, taught by Marianne Mallia. Our plenary speaker was Dr. James Pennebaker, Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who spoke about his research on the use of writing and other forms of self-expression to overcome the emotional and physiological aftereffects of traumatic experiences. The conference took in $12,990 and cost $11,955, so the net income for the chapter was $1,035.

Other Developments

• The chapter recently voted to amend its bylaws per AMWA’s request. (The amended bylaws are attached.) The amended bylaws were approved by the Board of Directors and passed by a two-thirds majority vote of members voting.
• Because this year’s Annual Conference is within the Southwest Chapter’s geographical area, we are planning to operate a hospitality booth.
• We have resumed making digital video recordings of presentations given at chapter meetings. Additionally, we now have the ability to make DVDs of these recordings, which we have made available (free of charge) to all chapter members. Copies of the DVD will also be given out at AMWA Southwest’s booth at the Annual Conference.

Programs

March 14, 2006, Houston, Texas
Member Appreciation Event. After some networking time, Jeanie Woodruff, scientific editor for the Department of Symptom Research at the University of Texas (UT) M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, gave a presentation entitled “Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Your Best Advantage.” Ms. Woodruff demonstrated the use of PowerPoint’s features to make more effective presentations and provided attendees with a highly readable and well-organized handout. This presentation was recorded on digital video; a DVD of the presentation will be provided for free to interested chapter members. Whenever possible, DVDs will be made of future presentations and made freely available to chapter members unable to attend presentations in person.

May 27, 2006, Houston, Texas
Seventh Annual Career Roundtables. This brunch meeting was held at the Baba Yega restaurant in Houston’s Montrose area. Each attendee participated in one of five roundtable discussions. Ghostwriting and Guest Authorship roundtable leaders Herbert Fred, MD, MACP (UT Health Science Center at Houston) and Natasha Calder, MA (Cyberonics, Inc.) discussed the issues faced by medical writers and editors working with manuscripts. Participants at the Education for Medical Communicators roundtable learned about the BELS certification process from Laurel Prokop, ELS(D), MT(ASCP) (Techstyle Group LLC), and Ann Jennings, PhD (University of Houston-Downtown (UHD)), gave them an overview of UHD's Professional Writing Program. At the Interpretation and Presentation Issues of Statistical Results roundtable discussion, Myrna Khan, PhD, MBA (Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center) shared tips on assessing the reliability of results reported in abstracts and scientific papers. In Getting More from Microsoft Word, Stephen Palmer, PhD, ELS (the Texas Heart Institute) showed how to customize Word to your preferences. At the Producing a Physician-targeted Newsletter roundtable, Jude Richard, ELS (PPD, Inc.) shared knowledge he acquired as managing editor of a Texas Heart Institute newsletter for cardiovascular surgeons, cardiologists, and physicians.

July 22, 2006, Houston, Texas
Summer Meeting. Attendees enjoyed a catered picnic lunch followed by a guided tour of the Body Worlds 3 exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The human bodies and organs displayed at this exhibit were preserved by using the plastination method developed by German scientist and physician Gunther von Hagen. Three outstanding anatomists from Houston, Drs. Cassius Bordelon, Franz Mong, and Lawrence Ross, volunteered to be tour guides. Dr. Bordelon is an associate professor of molecular and cellular biology at BCM and the host of the one-minute BCM-produced television health segment, The Body Explained. Dr. Mong is an associate professor at the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, UT Health Science Center at Houston, and Dr. Ross is the President-Elect of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists.

October 10, 2006, Houston, Texas
Joint meeting with the Houston Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. After a social hour with hors d’oeuvres at the Holiday Inn Select Greenway Plaza in Houston, Dr. Linda Driskill, Director of the Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication at Rice University in Houston, will present. Dr. Driskill’s talk about the Project’s unique approach of teaching writing to students in science and engineering will provide attendees with useful tips for their own writing as well as for the mentoring of novice writers.

December 2006, Houston, Texas
Holiday Gala. The Southwest Chapter is in the process of finding a speaker for its annual Holiday Gala at the Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Houston. The speaker will discuss ways to develop managerial and leadership skills.

February 6, 2007, Houston, Texas
Annual John P. McGovern Award Banquet. On Tuesday, February 6, 2007, AMWA Southwest will host its 25th annual John P. McGovern Award dinner at the Holiday Inn Astrodome at Reliant Park in Houston. Recipient Steve Sternberg, a journalist for USA Today, will talk about medical reporting in the age of global infections, culture wars, and the human genome. His lecture will stress that the knowledge of today’s medical reporters must extend from medicine to such diverse areas as science, national and international affairs, the economics of poverty, trade policy, international patent law, and religious cross-currents.

Scholarship Program

Respectfully submitted,

Stephen Palmer
Chapter President