Where were you in 1975?
Back then I was busy being a high school student during the weekdays, and was either skiing in the winter, or building barns and stringing barbed-wire fences on our family ranch during the summer weekends. Outside of that, I was mostly preoccupied with foreign cars…my Saab Model 97 (an ugly grey-blue new-fangled front-wheel drive thing I bought from my best friend for $480) needed lots of work, and in the Chilton’s Guide, step #1 always seemed to be “Remove the engine”—even changing the number 4 spark plug! Carburetors and brakes could be rebuilt back then. The clutch plate was made of milled graphite, and I think I cracked and replaced it 3 times (guess I rode the clutch a bit too much). I later worked my way into an MG Midget, but found that it also required weekly maintenance to keep it moving. Weak-spot: Lucas electronics. I traded it for a Fiat X1/9, but it literally caught on fire! Finicky things. But boy, they were fun. I guess I just liked working with my hands, fixing and building things.
I didn’t know it at the time, but a significant event that would impact my career took place in 1975: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine was established. In 2015 the AASM is celebrating 40 years of advancing sleep medicine.
Across four decades, many leaders and more than 10,000 members have helped the AASM build the field of sleep medicine from the ground up, establishing sleep as a recognized and respected medical subspecialty. The foundation for our future is solid.
However, in the last few years the building codes for the U.S. health care system have been rewritten to emphasize health outcomes and high value. I believe that sleep medicine has unique capabilities to deliver the value-based, patient-centered care that is being demanded of us. By working together during this time of complex transition, we can strengthen the sleep specialty and improve the lives of our patients.
AASM leaders and members already are busy drafting the blueprints and constructing the framework for the future of our field. We are developing quality measures for sleep disease evaluation and management, creating a protocol for integrating telemedicine into a sleep practice, and drafting sleep-related questions to incorporate into electronic health records.
There is much more work to be done, and we need your involvement. If you have not yet renewed your AASM membership for 2015, then I urge you to renew today.
Let’s build the future of sleep medicine together.
Sincerely,
Timothy Morgenthaler, MD
President
