A Message from the President
posted: March 20, 2020
To all CA AACE chapter members:
I have not had the chance to correspond with everybody since our last chapter meeting in San Francisco over the fall and so wanted to take this opportunity to touch base. I wish that I was doing so during cheerier times but I hope that everybody is doing well nonetheless. It goes without saying that the coronavirus pandemic has made all of our lives challenging, frustrating, and frightening. Please remember, as we all work together to get through this, that you are practicing good hygiene, social distancing, and other recommendations both at work and at home that have been put forth by the CDC and other sources. Some Endocrinology practices have been able to provide their patients with telehealth visits to minimize disruption to their practices and so, hopefully, many of you are able to take advantage of such opportunities. CMS is allowing, at this time, reimbursement for Medicare patients who might receive such services in order to alleviate concerns regarding their leaving home unnecessarily. If I hear anything from AACE that would be of consequence to our chapter, I will be sure to pass it along.
Speaking of national AACE, the annual Clinical Congress in Washington, D.C., scheduled for May 7 – 10, has just been cancelled. It looks as though it will not be postponed and held at a later time this year because of the logistics involved in doing so and, of course, because of the fluidity of the pandemic and the lack of certainty at present regarding how long current restrictions will need to be in place. I would like to mention that, prior to the pandemic, I, in conjunction with the appropriate parties within our management company, WJ Weiser, had been arranging for a California chapter reception to be held on one of the evenings of the meeting. National AACE had agreed to provide chapters with free meeting space in the hotel to allow a revival of these for any chapters or regions that were interested and able to provide such an experience for their members. I was even exploring inviting some other nearby chapters, if they were not having their own receptions, to attend, in an effort to enhance the networking and socialization experience. I am sorry that this endeavor needed to be abandoned.
On a brighter note, we can all hopefully look forward to gathering in San Diego in September for our next annual CA chapter meeting. This will be held at the Hilton Torrey Pines in La Jolla over the weekend of September 11 – 13. Our program co-chairs for this year are Drs. Patricia Wu and Adrienne Nassar from Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. They, in conjunction with our annual meeting planning committee, have put together a superb lineup of speakers and topics. This, along with all registration and hotel information, can be found on our chapter’s website. In fact, everybody should have received, in recent days, information about the registration link now being open as well about the hotel, whose early bird booking rates are available until August 21.
If there are any questions or concerns that arise, as always, please feel free to reach out to me. My e-mail address is Levine.Matthew@scrippshealth.org. Stay safe and healthy and I look forward to speaking to everybody at some point in the future.
Matthew J. Levine, MD, FACE
President, CA chapter of AACE
Scripps Clinic, Division of Diabetes/Endocrinology
Endocrinology Fellowship Director, Scripps Clinic/Scripps Green Hospital