San Francisco's meeting was a huge success! Attended by more than 900 professionals, it was our largest ever. The quality and quantity of presentations was unparalleled in any existing mental health conference, making this year's conference a monumental achievement of which we can all be proud. I deeply appreciate the efforts of Paula Schnurr, PhD, and Dean Kilpatrick, MD, who in conjunction with the Sherwood Group staff, assembled such an outstanding meeting.
I would like to recognize the strong presidential leadership of Matt Friedman, MD, during 1996. Matt leaves us with an organization that is healthy, growing (2,500 members!) and mature. He also leaves us on strong financial footing, something that could not be said as recently as four years ago. We owe him and his predecessors a debt of gratitude. The Society is today an outstanding and vibrant organization.
As I assume the presidency, I look forward to working with Matt as pastpresident and Sandy Bloom, our recently named president-elect. Together with a talented executive committee, I'm certain we will achieve the board's goals for the coming year.
On Jan. 1, Dean Kilpatrick became editor-elect of the Journal of Traumatic Stress. I had the pleasure of chairing the Editor Selection Committee and reviewing the credentials of many outstanding candidates. Dean was chosen for his amazing level of sustained productivity over the years, the high impact of his work, his experience on editorial boards and review panels, and his vision for the Journal. Under his leadership, we look forward to the continued ascendancy of JTS as the world's premier trauma journal.
There are a few activities that you may wish to know about or for which you might volunteer. First, Susan Roth, PhD, has been creating a pamphlet to address the issue of trauma and memory in an even-handed, scholarly way. She has enlisted the help of a virtual who's who in the area to contribute to this effort. This document will be useful for clinicians, legislators, policy-makers, those involved in the judicial process and anyone affected by this debate. A final document is expected this spring.
As the Society grows, we are increasingly interested in affiliations with like-minded organizations. ISTSS has received numerous requests from groups wishing to affiliate with us. Matt Friedman has agreed to head a committee to construct guidelines for such affiliations. At the 1997 ISTSS Annual Meeting, we will share presentations with the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, which is holding its annual meeting immediately after ours at the same location. Danny Kaloupek, our program chair, and Marlene Steinberg, MD, the ISSD program chair, have met to plan a jointly sponsored program. We will continue to look for such opportunities to expand the Society's breadth and depth.
We are also working with the Sherwood Group to enhance our offerings to members via the Internet. As most of you are aware, ISTSS has a Web page that receives thousands of hits a month. With a large portion of the Society ordering the 199697 Membership Directory on disk, it seems that the time is right for us to move assertively in increasing communications via the Internet. A lengthy discussion of the possibilities occurred at the Board of Director's meeting in San Francisco and several ideas will be implemented this year.
Let me conclude by saying that I am delighted to be leading ISTSS at this time. The study of psychological trauma is vital and exciting, and we are at the cutting edge of research in many areas, facts to which our journal and conference attest. We are attracting more professionals to study trauma and PTSD. The number of submissions to journals, the number of grants submitted in the area and the increase in dissertations and theses on trauma are indicators of the field's vibrancy. The multidisciplinary integration of science and clinical practice is the hallmark of the ISTSS. It is what will lead us into the next century and what will keep us as the Society for the study of psychological trauma.