Message from the Scientific Program Chair

Howard M. Clarke, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.S.(C), F.A.A.P., F.A.C.S.

It was a great pleasure to serve as Program Chairman for the 14th annual meeting of the American Society for the Peripheral Nerve held in Puerto Rico in January, 2005. The essential nature of the program design remained unchanged from previous years. We shared a morning with the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery and the American Association for Hand Surgery. One and a half days were exclusively devoted to the American Society for the Peripheral Nerve, following on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.

This year, 79 abstracts were submitted for consideration by the Scientific Program Committee of ASPN. Of these, 52 were selected for a final podium presentation, including two papers for the outstanding nerve paper session at the combined meeting and the remainder for the plenary sessions of ASPN. I thank all of the members of the Program Committee who rated the submitted abstracts for consideration. Those committee members were:

Ivan Ducic Jose Monsivais Greg Evans Nash Naam Peter Evans David Netscher James Kerns Robert Spinner Martijn Malessy Melanie Urbanchek Nancy McKee David Weinstein

In addition, we provided five courses at the combined instructional course morning on Saturday, and four courses for our own instructional morning on Sunday. I was very pleased to be able to invite two research scientists from the University of Toronto to present our invited lectures: Professors Milton Charlton and Mike Salter kindly agreed to address our Society.

My greatest thanks must go to Krista Greco and the staff at the Central Office, who made all our arrangements both easy and fun.

Respectfully submitted,

Howard M. Clarke, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.S.(C), F.A.A.P., F.A.C.S.