Communications Committee Report 2002

The Communications Committee met for the second time at the recent CAPM&R meetings in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The good news is that attendance doubled this year compared to last.  The bad news is that meant we had two people there instead of just one. Myself and Nora Cullen, the editor of the newsletter, were the only two in attendance.

Although membership continues to be small, the committee has been pretty active.  The past year has seen the transition to an electronic newsletter with little or no major glitches.  Dissemination of information now occurs primarily via email, with paper mailings also still used for some events.  Over time we hope to eliminate the paper mailings altogether.

Registration and abstract submission for the annual meetings was available through the website this year, and we had an excellent response.  The vast majority of abstract submissions were done through this medium, and the comments were very positive.

Over the next year we hope to further expand and update the website to make it more accessible and user-friendly.  There are opportunities for synergies between various committees as well, such as using the Communications Committee and website to help track research projects and publications through the Research Committee.  We hope to take advantage of these opportunities in the near future.

We would also like to consider expanding the use of the newsletter as a forum for disseminating original information.  We are open to the submission of original research articles, as well as opinion or Op-Ed pieces.  As the medical literature moves more and more towards electronic publishing it is anticipated that these types of publications will become increasingly used and accepted when applying for grants and promotions, and the CAPM&R Newsletter would be one option for those wishing to pursue electronic publications.

The issue of List Serves for the various committees and SIG’s within the CAPM&R has also been the topic of some discussion as of late.  Due to the relatively prohibitive costs, this idea is currently on the backburner, although some groups (such as the stroke group) are creating their own List Serves through public sites such as Yahoo. We will wait and see how these work out over time – hopefully they will be very successful.

To those of you who have provided feedback, both positive and negative, I thank you.  And to those of you who have yet to do so, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any helpful thoughts or suggestions.

Jeff Blackmer