On behalf of the executive committee, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the newly redesigned website of the American Society of Spine Radiology! The upcoming year will be an exciting one for the ASSR as we focus upon initiatives to increase membership and meeting attendance, and strive to improve our visibility as a leading educational and scientific society. The ASSR will maintain a close relationship with our parent society, the ASNR, but is my hope that we will move further afield to augment our membership with additional members of the international spine community and its several related societies.

It is appropriate to recognize all of the officers and members of the ASSR who have worked so hard in the past and contributed their efforts to the benefit of this dynamic and growing society. I am hoping again this year for very active participation on the part of the membership through numerous standing and ad hoc committees. In addition to the usual committee responsibilities, I have drafted specific charges with focused goals and strategies for each committee. These charges are by no means entirely exhaustive, and each committee will develop its own strategy as it moves forward to improve and promote our society.

Through generous corporate support, we will be able to continue the highly successful Mentor Awards Program, initiated last year under the direction of Past Presidents Orlando Ortiz and Judith Donovan Post. With additional corporate support, we are planning to initiate the ASSR/ArthroCare Corporation Spine Research Award. This program will allow the ASSR to provide research awards between three and thirty thousand dollars, up to a combined annual total of thirty thousand dollars, to any member of the ASSR in good standing, as well as their mentored medical students, residents and fellows. Awards will be granted and amounts determined based upon review by the ASSR Research Fellowship Committee. We are grateful for the generosity of ArthroCare Corporation, which has made these awards possible, and we encourage applications for this outstanding opportunity to initiate pilot studies or small-scale investigations which might lead to larger grants.

Gregg H. Zoarski, M.D.
President, ASSR