With summer quickly coming to an end and a new school year almost upon us, it draws my attention to one of the most important services that the Society of Toxicology (SOT) provides to its membership, Continuing Education (CE). The Society provides a variety of mechanisms for members to continue their professional growth and development. I would like to bring to your attention two specific opportunities on the horizon. The first comes from a recent partnership between the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and SOT. Specifically, the US FDA and SOT will collaborate on providing four half-day sessions over the next year on current topics of mutual interest. This series of sessions, termed the “SOT FDA Colloquia on Emerging Toxicological Science Challenges in Food and Ingredient Safety,” will be open for public attendance as well as available for viewing via webcast. The symposia also will be recorded with links available through the SOT website to view at your convenience.
The first of four sessions will focus on partially hydrogenated oils (PHO), often referred to as “trans fats.” This first colloquium, which is tentatively scheduled for October 2014, will cover a variety of topics including, but not limited to, the US FDA recent actions on PHO, the chemistry and biochemistry of PHO and related lipids, the clinical effects of PHO including health hazards and benefits, and will conclude with a moderated roundtable discussion with speakers and invited panelists.
The second professional development and training opportunity that I would like to highlight here is an expansion of CE associated with the SOT Annual Meeting. Due to the continued challenges faced by many of our members due to limited resources available for travel, this past year the Society provided, by webcast, two separate CE courses to those who were unable to attend the 2014 SOT Annual Meeting. Due to the success of the 2014 CE course offerings, the Society will once again provide this opportunity by webcasting three CE courses at the 2015 SOT Annual Meeting. As a reminder, the Society has online CE courses available on a variety of topics posted on the SOT website.
Related to member services and meeting the various needs of our membership, I reported in the May issue of the SOT Communiqué that SOT Council was undertaking a review of its strategic plan. As the first step of our review, we have been collecting information through a variety of mechanisms using a three-phase process. In the first phase, one-on-one interviews have been conducted primarily with individuals familiar with or knowledgeable about SOT but who are not members of our Society. The rationale for interviewing individuals external to SOT is to learn the perceptions of SOT based on a lens external to our Society.
The second phase of information gathering has been from small group interviews with leadership from SOT committees, Specialty Sections, and Regional Chapters. Hearing from our component groups will provide critical information on among other things the structural framework and communication within the SOT. The third phase of data gathering is through a short but focused survey that has been developed, in part, on the information obtained from individual and group interviews. The survey has been distributed to a representative cross section of our membership and will provide input from a far broader segment of our membership than can be feasibly obtained by individual and group interviews.
I would like to thank everyone who has participated in providing Council with the necessary information we require to ensure that the Society is meeting your needs, expectations, and is well positioned to face the opportunities and challenges of the future. Council’s discussions and planning, based on the information we have obtained, will begin with a facilitated session in September. I look forward to keeping you engaged and informed of Council’s progress as we move forward with the review of the SOT Strategic Plan.
In closing, I would like to wish you an enjoyable remainder of the summer.
Norbert E. Kaminski, PhD
2014–2015 SOT President