SER President’s Message
February 4, 2021: Albert Camus wrote in 1954 that it takes the depths of winter for us to discover the invincible summer within us. Here we are in the midst of a literal and metaphorical winter, and summer beckons. The days are getting longer, the COVID case counts are falling (for now) and the vaccine cavalry is coming over the hill. SER meeting abstracts, symposium proposals and award nominations have streamed in, more “late-breaking” abstracts are on the way, and the June 2021 meeting is taking shape. The question of how much of the meeting will be physical or virtual is still an open one, as noted in a previous message. We are monitoring the situation, but must make a firm commitment in March, and will communicate this to the membership by April 1. We can already guarantee that virtual participation at the meeting will be available, and this implies the same advantages enjoyed in the December 2020 meeting, such as access to recordings and therefore the opportunity to view conflicting events. Of course it also implies the downsides of remote attendance, but we have your feedback from the last meeting and will work with the vendor to use these comments to improve the functionality for virtual attendees.
In addition to the annual meeting in June, SER has a busy spring line-up of events and activities to enhance your epidemiologic knowledge and push “Zoom Fatigue” into the next edition of the DSM. HRSA’s Theresa Chapple takes the reins of Twitter on February 17th, followed by UNC geographer Arrianna Planey on February 24th. An SERtalks event on February 25th and February 26th at Boston University involves a dozen panelists tackling the questions of how and why we use racial data in epidemiologic research, what we have learned, and what we still need to figure out. SERexperts on March 31st takes on sexual harassment in the epidemiology community with Martha Werler and Wendy Nembhard, and in an April 21st journal club, McGill obstetrician Isabelle Malhamé will lead discussion of an article on cardiovascular maternal morbidity. Don’t miss these and other events, as updated on the events calendar at the SER website, and don’t forget to renew your membership. Lastly, remember that “late-breaker” abstracts can be submitted for the June meeting from now until March 2, and without any restriction as to how late-breaking is the work, recognizing the fact that we are all lately a bit broken.
Many of us are now mired in admissions committees, selecting students for fall matriculation to masters and doctoral programs. The flood of applications makes it clear that all the hip young people want to be epidemiologists these days. Thank you, COVID, for all that free advertising! There will be plenty of pandemic reflection at the annual meeting, considering what we got right and what we got wrong, how we helped, and where we missed opportunities to be more helpful. And needless to say, there are still other diseases out there, too. The rest of the epidemiologic universe has not been on pause while we all beefed up as infectious disease experts, and so our 2021 events and annual meeting will still be as rich, varied, and comprehensive as ever. Professional organizations like SER are the places for these conversations, where we assess and debate our approaches, and consider critically our collective culture. There are opportunities to sweat the details in workshops, and to ponder in symposia the big questions of who we are as epidemiologists, how and why we do the things we do, and how we can learn from each other to do better. Don’t be left out of those conversations.