Facing new realities: Strategies for change

Abstract

I T HAS BEEN MY HONOR to serve as president of this organization for the past year. I am pleased to be with you today to discuss the achievements of the Academy during the past year and share with you some of my thoughts on the future. I agree with James Demopoulos, who said in his presidential address in 1992, As President of the Academy these past 12 months, often functioning as a conductor of a highly complex and acclaimed symphony, I have witnessed the extraordinary efforts of the Board of Governors, the National Office and more than 200 committee members who have contributed thousands of hours of effort to achieve so much.~ Joseph Goodgold noted in his 1979 presidential address that the structural backbone of the Academy is reliable and efficient continuum of services provided by the administrative staff. / I would, therefore, like to thank the Academy, the Board of Governors, the many committees, and the National Office staff of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, especially Ron Henrichs, our executive director, and Lucy Beck, his executive assistant, for their help and support during my tenure as president. It has been a pleasure to work with each and everyone of you. I would also like to thank my colleagues and staff in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine, especially my second right hand, Donna Jones. Their support haS allowed me to devote many hours to the Academy. And finally, I would like to thank my family, and especially my wife Ellen, for their acceptance of my time away from home and preoccupation with PM&R and the Academy even when I was at home. Howard Rusk noted in his 1977 Walter Zeiter Lecture 3 that Arthur Sulzburget, publisher of the New York Times, commented on physical medicine and rehabilitation by saying, I f there is anything good about a war, it is taking the good things developed because of it and making them available to all people. I am a product of the Vietnam War and my entering into physical medicine and rehabilitation is a result of that war. It was in Vietnam that I gave significant thought to my future, and decided physical medicine and rehabilitation was the specialty for me. It met my goals of being clinically involved, dealing with long~term patient care, being in a shortage specialty, and working to improve the quality of life of the individuals we treat. Now I stand before you 28 years later to tell you it has been, and continues to be, everything I ever hoped for. Two events have shaped the goals I had for the future and for the Academy this year. First, as I was preparing to assume the presidency of the Association of Academic Physiatrists (AAP) in 1983, I! was painfully aware of the challenges for growth presented by Robert Darling in his presidential speech in 1968. 4 He stated that growth occurs in one of three forms. It is either a constant upward slope, a cycle where growth is alternated with regression, or an explosive acceleration. To accomplish the explosive growth phase, the AAP developed and implemented its first strategic long-range plan. Although this explosive growth started during my term in office,