Earlier this week a report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that pilot fatigue played a role in a 2013 business airplane crash that killed all five passengers. The NTSB report concluded that the pilot’s “fatigue due to acute sleep loss and his ineffective use of time between flights to obtain sleep” contributed to the performance errors that caused the accident.

This week the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project launched the ‘Awake at the Wheel’ public education campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of drowsy driving in order to reduce avoidable motor vehicle accidents and save lives. Drowsy driving prevention is a pillar of the Healthy Sleep Project, which is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and led by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) in collaboration with other partners such as the Sleep Research Society (SRS).

Sleep medicine professionals: support the future of your careers and help the AASM celebrate 40 years of advancing sleep medicine by renewing your membership today. The U.S. health care system is changing and the AASM and its members must work together to ensure that the sleep medicine field remains viable. With your help and support, we can reconfigure the field of sleep medicine and ensure a future in our profession. Renew your membership today and invest in the future of your career and passion, sleep medicine.

On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board held the full-day forum Awake, Alert, Alive: Overcoming the Dangers of Drowsy Driving. Many prominent sleep experts presented at the forum including AASM President-elect Nathaniel Watson, MD and journal SLEEP editor David Dinges, PhD.

A study in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine is the first to show that 30-day hospital readmission rates and emergency department visits are reduced in heart disease patients with sleep apnea who are treated with positive airway pressure therapy. A key warning sign for obstructive sleep apnea is snoring, cautions the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recognizes Emerson M Wickwire, PhD and Pedram Navab, DO as the newest Fellow Members of the AASM. Fellow status in the AASM is a unique honor which recognizes special competency in sleep medicine and significant contributions to the field.

Learn the latest developments in sleep medicine with this convenient resource guide which aids physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. The AASM Standards and Guidelines for the Practice of Sleep Medicine is a compilation of AASM practice parameters, review papers, clinical guidelines and best practice papers. Visit the Resource Library today to purchase the eBook version of this resource.

The AASM is offering all slide sets at a 50% discount, but only while supplies last. Topics like Sleep in Women, Restless Leg Syndrome and the Pediatric Sleep Package: Infants, Children, & Adolescents are all a fraction of their normal prices. Visit the AASM online store today to order your slide sets.

Join us in celebrating the AASM’s 40th Anniversary in 2015 and be a part of the framework that will allow us to advance the field of sleep medicine together. By renewing your membership, you retain the many benefits of the AASM and gain the ability to positively impact the future of sleep medicine as a dedicated professional. An investment in AASM membership is an investment in the future of the sleep medicine field. Let’s continue to build the future of sleep medicine together.

An editorial in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine describes how the AASM’s annual Young Investigator Research Forum is helping to train the next generation of sleep scientists. Chair Sanjay Patel, MD, writes that the forum is a vital lifeline that keeps sleep research trainees on track to develop into productive scientists.

SLEEP 2015, a joint meeting of the AASM and SRS, will feature Keynote Addresses from Daniel Buysse, MD and Masashi Yanagisawa, MD, PhD. As a Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical and Translational Science and Director of the Neuroscience Clinical and Translational Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Buysse’s research focuses on the diagnosis, assessment, pathophysiology and treatment of insomnia. Dr. Yanagisawa, former Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and current Center Director of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative, specializes in molecular genetics of sleep/wake regulation.

The AASM will be once again hosting a forum to aid the career development of promising young investigators in clinical and translational sleep medicine research. The 7th offering of the AASM Young Investigator Research Forum will be held April 8-10, 2015 in Rockville, Maryland.

AASM president-elect Nathaniel Watson, MD, will be presenting on Tuesday as an invited panelist at Awake, Alert, Alive: Overcoming the Dangers of Drowsy Driving, a highway safety forum organized by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Panelists will discuss the problem of drowsy driving, its prevalence, and how it affects driving safety in noncommercial vehicles. Open to the public, the forum will be held Oct. 21, 2014, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m EST. at the NTSB Conference Center in Washington, D.C. The event will also be streamed live via webcast.

A study in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine is the first to show that 30-day hospital readmission rates and emergency department visits are reduced in heart disease patients with sleep apnea who are treated with positive airway pressure therapy. 

The agenda is now available for Sleep Medicine Trends 2015. This is the only two-and-a-half-day meeting focused solely on sleep medicine with clinical, management and clinical research sessions.

Keep your patients up-to-date on the most current sleep medicine topics with a variety of AASM Patient Education brochures. The AASM offers 19 different patient education brochures on topics like Understanding Narcolepsy, Your In-Lab Sleep Study, Dangers of Drowsy Driving and more.

Subscribe to the AASM Scoring Manual v2.1 today and receive multi-platform digital access now through the end of 2015. Along with subscribing to the Scoring Manual, renewing your membership today will allow you to support your profession through 2015.

The deadline to register for the Sleep Disorders for the Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioner Course is Monday, October 13. Don’t miss out on the chance to advance your practice in sleep medicine. Register today for the only AASM course specifically tailored for PAs and NPs that provides invaluable information on diagnosing, treating and managing sleep disorders through case-based clinical lectures.

The American Sleep Medicine Foundation is currently accepting applications for the 2015 American Board of Sleep Medicine Junior Faculty Research Award. Any board certified sleep medicine physician who holds a faculty appointment and finished their fellowship within the last 10 years is eligible to apply for this award. All applications must be submitted electronically no later than Dec. 8, 2014.

Applications for the ASMF Strategic Research Awards must be submitted electronically by Monday, Oct. 13. AASM members who perform research within the United States are eligible for Category I Strategic Research Awards of up to $250,000 and Category II Strategic Research Awards of up to $100,000.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review (CSR) will host four Meet the Experts in NIH Peer Review Webinars in early November 2014. The webinars will give new NIH grant applicants useful insights into the submission and peer review processes. All of the Webinars will run from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST, including a 30-minute Q&A period.