Forum 2023 Meeting Recap

Hi Forum!

Wow Wow Wow. We had such a great weekend in Florida. Tons of love, hugs, laughs, and learning. We all left feeling so positive and affirmed VERY grateful to have this group of women who are from first to last brilliant, amazing, inspiring, and really really funny people. To those of you who could not make it, we missed you. This summary is for you! See the pictures posted here and please post if you have pictures so we can share.

Jackie did a great job with the program and Kat knocked industry out of the park. Betsy moved on to past president and Laura moved in as the new President. She is already scoping next meeting sites and next year is San Diego. La Costa.

We welcomed new members and the invited prospects.

The Board turned over and now we have:

President, Laura Alberton

Vice President, Jocelyn Wittstein

Secretary: Stephanie Stephens

Program Chair 2023: Courtney Dawson

Membership: Jackie Brady (this is huge, Michelle has retired from the board after 14 years!)

Past President: Betsy Watson

Past past President: Erin McLemore

Pam Fund Chair: Tammy Scerpella

Social Committee, including social media/website: Chris Morganti Hugs program: Susan Ott

Member at Large: Carmeleeta Teeter

Member at Large: Leah Brown

Treasurer: Cheryl Rubin

By Laws: Patty Kolowich

Tammy introduced the first project sponsored by the Pam Fund. Every meeting forward, there will be an presentation by the winner of the Pam award, $5000 to support research, charity, project, or some other imaginative thing to honor Pam and her love of the Forum which she founded and the support of women in orthopedic sports medicine and industry. Applications will be available in the Spring and the deadline will be October 1, so stay tuned and check the web site this spring.

New subcommittee were formed:

Treasury to help Cheryl do some smart management of the money in the Pam Fund and the savings account

Pam Fund to help Tammy get the new project going

Social media committee ( Jen Fitzgerald, Nancy Cummings, Juliet De Campos, and me, Chris Morganti) to help me get the website and other communication methods rolling so that we can keep our nurturing web of women communicating well for the 362 days a year we are not physically together. There is a list a mile a long(“honey do list” of possibilities for us to collaborate and communicate and start tuned as your get asked to join various task forces that will work form one small step project to the next project on this goal.

Here are some of the things that happened:

McKenzie (Mack) came and stood right on the podium to show us her poise in all of her impressive 20 something self. She has graduated college(!!!) and moved on to San Francisco, where she lives with her best friend right in town and is loving her job and the West Coast. She hung with us the whole weekend and she is awesome

We had some industry talks on MACI, Cartimax, (Cassandra for both) and Quad tendon ACL smith nephew (Leah and Cassandra) and ACL Dupuy-Synthe with Julie Dodds

Laura Alberton talked about her sub acromial bursa stem cell study, Kat Burns reviewed non operative treatment of rotator cuff disease. Really interesting talks, lots of discussion.

Aimee could not come to the meeting, but congratulations on the new baby! She gave a remote talk on the Pectoralis Minor Syndrome great anatomy review. Jocelyn presented her original research on adhesive capsulitis risk association with HRT (less risk with HRT). Vonda Wright was her absolute biggest cheerleader, proclaiming her a disruptor for being the first to associate an orthopedic diagnosis risk with HRT.

Leesa Galatz, who we know as not only a pioneer in as chair of orthopedics at Sinai, but also as one of our own (all so proud of her), came back into the fold as the Sandra Kirkley speaker and gave a brilliant talk on Lessons in Leadership. (And the biggest lesson of the meeting: stop saying “I’m sorry” before you speak out, “you’re not sorry”! (And forget the word “just”)

Saturday morning, Jackie discussed PF disease and Patty did LET/ALL. More lively discussion and brilliant insights.

Our Molly, gave an amazing talk on scar tissue integration into the fascial web and blow us away with her secret life as a Rolf instructor. She will come to you to train someone in your neighborhood. Deanna gave a brilliant talk on the forearm interosseous membrane and made us all understand it like an ACL. Then Vonda took down the house with her talk on care of the perimenopausal aging athlete and getting to the next level. Discussion you can imagine was robust and you really had to be there.

We then had our pilot of round table discussions and they seem to go over well.

Friday the team building was a scavenger hunt and people had a blast. There was a montage of it showed on Saturday that was too funny. There was golf, pickle ball, running/walking on the beach, golf, gym, and hot tub. Saturday dinner we all went around the room and told our favorite thing about the weekend. There are no people in this group who are not funny, and these are just smart, witty, sensitive women.

We mingled with our sponsors and there was one lonely man in the long line of smiling reps at the front of the room when they were introduced.

Ok this is the longest post ever for me.

I am attaching some of the pictures that some people supplied me with , but please post your own too.

Yours Truly,

Christina Morganti