Minutes of ASE Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease (PCHD ...

Committee Updates: In reports to the Council Board, committee liaisons provided the following updates:
Awards Committee
Dr. Peter Frommelt reported that the Awards Committee proposed a system for recognition of
sonographer excellence by mimicking the pediatric council—an award will be given yearly to a
sonographer in ASE, with a lifetime achievement award alternating with a distinguished teacher award.
This was prompted by a large contingent of excellent sonographer nominees for the teacher award this
year, including a pediatric representative; the lifetime achievement award will be vetted and a nominee
put forth by the sonography council.
Finance Committee
Dr. Gregory Ensing reports that because of ASE's conservative investment strategy, and reasonably
aggressive cost cutting over the last 2 years, ASE remains in a favorable financial status with total assets
similar to those before the economic decline of the last several years. Cuts made were in the areas of
meeting "extras", limited funding of some grants (including travel grants), controlling other CME meeting
costs, and increasing income from revenue generating projects such as posters. The exception to ASE's
conservative financial expenditures has been a very substantial increase in the advocacy budget to
support lobbying efforts to limit the very major proposed cuts in echocardiography reimbursement. The
multiplying of the advocacy budget was strongly supported by the Finance Committee.
Public Relations Committee
Grace Kung, MD, FACC, FASE reported that she was able to help select interesting and noteworthy
abstracts that will be presented at this year's meeting as part of her work on the Public Relations
Committee. Many people in the general public do not realize that children are afflicted by cardiac disease,
they assume all cardiac disease is atherosclerosis and I think it is very important that we educate the
public on the importance of congenital and acquired heart disease in the pediatric population. Special
reports such as the one included in the committee report help a lot. Most, if not all, of the congenital
defects can be detected by ultrasound, most even in utero. Dr. Kung would be honored to continue
serving on this committee and to participate in general awareness of pediatric cardiac disease. She will be
unable to attend the meeting this year as newborn twins are keeping her quite busy!
IRT Committee
Dr. Adel Younoszai reports that there has not yet been a meeting of the IRT Committee within his term as
liaison; they will meet in San Diego.
Bylaws and Ethics Committee
Dr. Claudio Ramaciotti reports that during the last meetings of the Bylaws and Ethics Committee the
emphasis has been on discussions about Conflicts of Interest. Changes were made to ASE’s Conflict of
Interest statement based on ACCME requirements/recommendations. These were intended to address
conflicts for Board and Education Committee members with input in planning ASE’s educational portfolio.
More specifically the emphasis was on separation of commercial interest from education. The approved
document was sent to the Executive Committee for approval.
ASE Research Committee
Dr. Colin Phoon reports that he was struck most by the paucity of pediatrics / congenital heart
submissions and was led to wonder how we as a Committee might try to bolster interest from the
pediatric cardiology community. However, a follow-up problem would be that even if there were more
pediatric / congenital grant proposals, there is a limited number of pediatric cardiologists on the
Committee (one out of 20, this year). This need for qualified reviewers raises the question of whether the
option of ad hoc reviewers, as recommended by the primary assigned reviewer, would be feasible or
desirable. Although he does not know the numbers, it is probably desirable to have representation on the
Committee in relative proportion to either membership in ASE, or research activity in ASE (e.g.,
proportion of pediatrics / congenital heart abstracts at ASE Scientific Sessions). He would argue that a