One of the best things about being ASA President-Elect is that you get to work really closely with so many great leaders. This year, it has been my privilege to engage deeply with one of the finest and most strategic leaders in ASA history, President Donald E. Arnold, MD, FACHE, FASA. His outstanding leadership over the past year has been an inspiration to me. His focus on strategy has set us up for success for many years to come. Our members, our specialty, and our patients are deeply grateful for his immense contributions to anesthesiology.
Our ASA team has been working hard on executing our Strategic Plan, making progress on the issues most important to all of us. Of course, there is more work to be done, but I am committed to continuing ASA’s focus on securing fair payment, holding big insurance accountable, preserving anesthesiologist-led care, and supporting early career anesthesiologists.
Beyond our strategic agenda, one thing that always energizes me is working in the operating room. Occasionally, I get to work with very new trainees and even young people who are considering entering the medical field as a profession. To these folks, all things are new. All things are unspoiled. From this innocent viewpoint, they see only the wonder of medicine, and they have only the highest aspirations for this most noble of professions. It is as if they are experiencing their personal dawning of the medical field as a profession in which all things are possible. However, we all know that medicine is filled with challenges and that these carefree days of viewing medicine as a passion will quickly be subsumed by a more bracing reality.
As President-Elect of the world's foremost organization for anesthesiologists, I am keenly aware that our mission is to advance the practice of anesthesiology and secure the future. However, I understand that my activities should be to help move the specialty in a direction which will bring us all a little closer to a utopia of again practicing medicine for the joy of helping people. That is the dream, and that is the purpose. And I know that if we work together, all things are possible.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your President for the coming year. It is both the greatest honor and the greatest challenge of my career, and I pledge that in the year ahead, I’ll give you everything I've got.
Date of last update: February 11, 2026