A very important undertaking for us this year was a top to bottom analysis of our own practices around diversity, equity, and inclusion. We started by taking lessons from the CHEST Foundation-sponsored listening tour across the nation. Many of our patients of color lack adequate access to the care they need, which informs our efforts in advocacy and health policy. We also learned that, as a profession, we have not earned the trust of our patients of color, and we must take steps to remedy that. CHEST began this effort by developing the First 5 Minutes program, which teaches all of us how to take the first moments of our interactions with patients to enhance our empathy and to establish trusting relationships with them. You will hear more about this program in the months to come.
CHEST is dedicated to ensuring that all of our members have equitable opportunities to take part in our learning activities, both as participants and as developers. Likewise, we want any member who desires to advance in our organization to have wide open opportunity to develop and use their skills. We hired a consulting firm who specializes in aiding nonprofits with their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals to help us find our weaknesses in that area. They spent several months interviewing members at all stages of their careers and in a variety of job types, with the goal of determining what it is like to be a CHEST member of color, a woman, a member of the LGBTQIA community, or a member of any group that has been made to feel “other.” We are currently working to turn their findings into concrete steps to make CHEST the most diverse and inclusive medical society possible. Finally, our consultants are helping us to ensure that the people we hire to work for our organization full time have equitable opportunities in their workplace, and that CHEST headquarters feels inclusive and is diverse for them.
COVID-19 rages on. In fact, daily case numbers at this writing are skyrocketing, higher than at any time during the pandemic, and hospitalization rates, while lower than with some of the previous waves, are following. Many of us are stressed, and in many of our ICUs, we have fewer nurses than we did at the outset of the pandemic. The CHEST COVID-19 task force continues on the job, though, with fresh content to match the current circumstances. These dedicated individuals, who I recognized with a Presidential Citation for 2021, have worked since the early days of the pandemic to scour the literature and the landscape to find the right data and the right experts to inform the topical infographics, reviews, webinars, and podcasts that are freely available to all and are posted on the CHEST website. I hope that you have availed yourself of the material there, and, if not, you have missed some valuable learning opportunities. Missed them in real time, that is; they are all on the site for you to use at will. We are optimistic that someday soon, there will be less of a need for the COVID-19 task force, but the members are all ready to continue their work until that time comes..
I’ve highlighted just a few of the higher profile things that CHEST achieved in 2021. It would be impossible for me to cover all that CHEST has accomplished this past year. My sources tell me that during my presidency, we generated, signed on, or declined to join nearly 100 advocacy statements on topics ranging from recall of home CPAP machines to access to appropriate supplemental oxygen for patients with interstitial lung disease, to the acquisition of a nebulizer company by a tobacco company. We held successful board review sessions and repeated our all online, yet interactive, version of the CHEST annual meeting, with more than 4,000 total attendees– not as large as an in-person meeting, but not terribly far off, either. I will add that our program chairs and their committee pivoted from a meeting in Vancouver to a meeting in Orlando to, with only 6 weeks’ notice, a meeting in the ether. We are fortunate to have worked with such talented and dedicated individuals, and all of us owe them a lot for their efforts.
If, as I say, I have been a wartime president, then the worldwide viral pandemic that directly affects those of us in chest medicine has been the war. In spite of the current tsunami of cases, I am optimistic that the war ends relatively soon. CHEST will not simply return to normalcy, though. Dr. David Schulman, a brilliant and innovative educator, has taken the leadership reins of the organization, and I foresee exhilarating times ahead.
We are making it through a challenging environment, and CHEST is stronger for it. I will look forward to seeing all of you in Nashville, when we, at long last, can look one another in the eye, shake one another’s hand, and enjoy the experience of the CHEST annual meeting together. And if you don’t mind me asking, when you see me in Nashville, will you please do exactly that?