SGO: A Continually Evolving Society

The highlight of my career as a gynecologic oncologist is to have been elected to the Presidency of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists. I want to thank the entire membership for this honor and for the support you have given the Society and me during this year. However, I want to start by thanking my wife, Arlene, my three sons, Bruce, Andy, and Ken, and Anne and Kelly for the support they have given me over a great number of years in allowing me to pursue my career in academic gynecologic oncology. Without their support I would not be addressing you today. Before I address three major subjects I believe the Society should invest in, in the future, I would like to make some prefacing remarks. The 1998 annual meeting is superb. It could not have reached this level without the extraordinary endeavors of Dr. Jonathan Berek and the Program Committee. I believe that they deserve a round of applause for the tremendous effort that they have put forth to make this the program possible. Much of the work that goes on in the Society is not visible to the membership. I cannot stress enough the value of the activities of Irv Bomberger, Karen Carlson, and our staff in the Chicago Headquarters to the success of our ever-evolving Society. Irv has been outstanding in supporting and helping the Society recognize where it is and where it needs to go. Irv has helped me enormously in fulfilling the obligations of the Presidency. I want to thank him for the pleasure of working with him and for his insight in aiding the Society to step into the 21st century. I also want to thank Max Austin for his outstanding work as Vice President and for his enthusiastic support in working with the Fellow’s Task Force and Ken Hatch for being a superb secretary–treasurer. Activities for the Society in Washington are critical and have been so successful, because of Jill Rathbun, our government relations liaison, and her colleagues in our Washington Headquarters working in concert with Carolyn Runowicz and the Government Relations Committee, Alex Kennedy, and the Outcomes Task Force and Michael Berman and the Coding Committee. Also the Washington office partnered with the Office on Women’s Health at the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Cancer Institute to create an ovarian cancer strategic planning conference this past December. Jill has educated me about Congress and provided me the opportunity as President of the SGO to learn firsthand what potentially can be accomplished if the SGO functions effectively as an advocacy group and continues to be a voice heard and recognized in Washington. During my predecessor David Gershenson’s presidency, the SGO went through a strategic planning process [1]. This process defined areas that SGO members were interested in receiving additional support and services from the SGO. This past year has seen implementation of the strategic plan. We have taken the needs of the membership and begun the process of creating products and services to meet those needs. Two examples of this are as follows: In the SGO membership survey the members identified managed care as being the biggest threat to gynecologic oncologists. The strategic planning process took this to the next level by identifying outcomes assessments as a way to obtain data that could be used with managed care companies to help SGO members in negotiating access to patients. During this past year the SGO Outcomes Task Force under the leadership of Dr. Alex Kennedy has created and piloted an outcomes assessment tool that focuses on endometrial cancer patients, their satisfaction, the quality of care they receive, the cost of this care, and their functional status both before and after the surgical intervention by a gynecologic oncologist. The end point for this project will be a detailed report with comparisons that can be shared with managed care companies and other private payers. In the future this outcome assessment tool with technical support, data analysis, and reports will be made available to all SGO members through the implementation of the gynecologic oncology outcomes assessment leaders network. Over the next 2 to 3 years additional outcomes assessment tools will be made available in the areas of pelvic mass and ovarian cancer treatment. Also during the strategic planning process emphasis was placed on securing adequate reimbursement levels for the procedures conducted by SGO members as therapies for women with gynecologic cancers. The SGO Government Relations Committee under Dr. Carolyn Runowicz’s leadership prioritized its efforts and was able to help delay draconian cuts of 20–35% in the practice expense component of the Medicare Presented at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Society for Gynecologic Oncologists, Orlando, FL, February 7–11, 1998. GYNECOLOGIC ONCOLOGY 70, 157–162 (1998) ARTICLE NO. GO985068