The AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting: A Grateful Look Back

Daniel C. Chelius, Jr., MD, Immediate Past Annual Meeting Program Coordinator

As the sun set on the AAO-HNSF 2024 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO^SM in Miami Beach, Florida, and with it my tenure as Annual Meeting Program Coordinator, I actually walked down to the beach for the first time, sat under an umbrella, and tried to grapple with a complex set of emotions—relief, joy, and awe, but also a creeping sense of already missing the friends and colleagues who made the whole thing possible. I have often said that the more I’ve gotten to know “The Academy,” the less it seems an abstract concept, rather simply becoming the people working side-by-side with me for the common good of our community. Staring at the ocean, reflecting on this week in Miami, and these past five years as Coordinator, I realized that what I was really experiencing was profound, overwhelming gratitude.

This year’s Annual Meeting capped a turbulent pandemic and post-pandemic meeting era. In 2020, I had the honor of supporting my predecessor and mentor, Mark K. Wax, MD, as he salvaged our 2020 Annual Meeting, which was scheduled to be held in Boston, Massachusetts, pivoting to an all-virtual format in mere months. Mark planted the seeds of flexibility that would define our operations and philosophy during the following years. He led our Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) to take a hard look at the equity of presentation opportunities and solidify the integrated subspecialty structure that both the AMPC and the Education Program continue to rely on.

The author, Immediate Past Annual Meeting Program Coordinator Daniel C. Chelius, Jr., MD, and AAO-HNS/F Executive Vice President and CEO James C. Denneny III, MD, on stage at the 2024 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO.Over the following years, the waxing and waning COVID-19 surges required us to reconsider the concept of a meeting. We worked to create a safe space, not only for science and education, but also especially for the personal connections that our community had been sorely missing. Considering our work with various platforms and formats, ultimately culminating in the first major national hybrid in-person/virtual medical meeting in 2021 in Los Angeles, California, and our follow-up hybrid 2022 meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I cannot overstate how critical the support, guidance, and vision of James C. Denneny III, MD, AAO-HNS/F Executive Vice President and CEO, was to these endeavors.

The story of how his prophetic purchase of pandemic insurance mitigated our financial losses from the 2020 virtual meeting and subsequent years has been widely shared. But few know of the countless moments in those years when his fair and steady leadership, thoughtful advice, and willingness to take measured risks helped optimize our meeting opportunities. Dr. Denneny’s hand silently steered and empowered so many of the decisions that led to ever-increasing, enthusiastic attendance and engagement in LA, Philly, Nashville, and Miami.

With record-breaking domestic attendance in 2023 and even more so in 2024, and with our highest international attendance in over a decade, after Miami, I believe we can confidently say our meeting, and really our community, has navigated the pandemic well and capitalized on the challenges of the past five years, so that we could continue to reap the benefits of our annual global reunion for education and patient care, in great part thanks to Dr. Denneny’s influence.

One of the best parts of coordinating the Annual Meeting was getting to work with an incredible panel of over 60 true experts, dedicated teachers, and proven leaders on the AMPC. I have been so fortunate to be part of a passionate, engaged, innovative team applying their efforts to improve our meeting each year. During my tenure, the 100+ colleagues who have served terms on the AMPC have diligently reviewed, debated, and then operationalized a host of critical actions, like our responses to the pandemic, our emerging presentation platforms, and our efforts to bring inclusive equity to the meeting faculty and meeting content. They’ve answered my calls for advice at all hours and shared their time and talent generously over and over again. I’m honored to call so many of you friends, and I was especially thankful to be standing with several of you at the end of the last session in Miami.

Dr. Chelius hands the Annual Meeting gavel over to Dr. Damask, in Miami Beach.I’m also incredibly thankful for the dedicated work of my colleague, friend, and successor, Cecelia Damask, DO, whose experiences in educational leadership and tireless contributions to the Annual Meeting over the past five years have directly resulted in some of our biggest successes. We are very lucky to have her guiding the next era of our Annual Meetings, and I’m going to sleep better knowing that she’s taking the reins. (Read more about Dr. Damask and her vision for the future of the Annual Meetings in the November issue in a special interview and profile.)

The 2024 Annual Meeting Call for Science saw the largest response in memory with over 2,600 submissions. The competition was tight, and the selection process required the AMPC to dedicate thousands of hours to review, deliberate, and select the final program which featured over 450 didactic and Panel Presentations, 26 Simulation Education courses, and over 1,100 Scientific Oral Presentations and Posters. It was a stunning display of the hard work from throughout our community and around the world, and I’m so grateful for the faculty and presenters who brought their expertise to the podium and the Simulation Hall in Miami.

There was palpable excitement throughout the scientific presentations and lecture rooms as our most experienced, honored teachers shared insights with the rising voices of emerging leaders. Our simulation offerings have grown from a few beloved but isolated hands-on minicourses to a topically and technologically diverse set of groundbreaking education opportunities. This is unique in the otolaryngology education sphere and only achieved through the thoughtful, innovative, and determined efforts of our faculty. It was my singular privilege to meet and communicate with so many presenters and instructors over these five years. Your generosity and passion fueled the program and will always inspire me.

Our AMPC has sought to leverage the concept of “Community and Conversation” to direct our Academy’s efforts at the Annual Meeting in understanding and responding to difficult challenges facing our field today. From this focused intent for the program, we’ve seen ideas arise like the Great Debates, Crucial Conversations, Stump the Experts, Coffee Talk with the Otolaryngology Private Practice Section and ASCENT, the Care Equity focus, the Artificial Intelligence mini-track, and a host of medical student and trainee-directed education. We’ve called on our thought leaders to take a chance with us in accepting invitations to some of these new platforms over the past four years, and your willingness to take a leap of faith has led to incredible successes and some epic moments at the Annual Meeting. Thank you for trusting us and lending your expertise to drive our communal discussions forward.

Dr. Pyeatt (left), pediatrician and wife of the author and author, Dr. Chelius, in Miami Beach for the 2024 Annual Meeting.

I was so thankful that my wife, pediatrician Amber Pyeatt, MD, was able to join us in Miami this year. I loved getting to experience the Opening Ceremony with her, reconnecting with our dear friends in the meeting hallways and evening social events, admiring our Women in Otolaryngology Section leadership and efforts at the General Assembly, and even having her keep me honest as I discussed the myth of work-life balance on a panel.

But perhaps my biggest highlight was getting to introduce her to my other family, the AAO-HNS/F staff. After all, she’s had a front row seat to our collaborations over these past five years. It goes without saying that none of the world-class education and science, cutting-edge OTO EXPO, personalized and informative communication, welcoming reunion spaces—none of the beauty of the Annual Meeting lifecycle happens without our dedicated, creative, supportive staff. Thank you for taking my calls at all hours, for enthusiastically telling me “Yes!” and courageously telling me “No,” for finding clever solutions to operational difficulties, for being faithful stewards of our community’s resources, for dreaming big with us all to make life better for our patients and each of us. 

AAO-HNS/F Education staff at the Otolaryngology Learning Network booth at #OTOMTG24.

When our Academy’s founder, Hal Foster, MD, invited our community together for the first time in 1896 in Kansas City, he essentially started our organization as an ongoing conversation among colleagues. Some of my favorite moments in the session rooms in Miami—128 years later—came when audience members stepped up to the microphone to ask questions or challenge assertions from the presenters. That dialogue has always been at the core of our Annual Meeting, of our Academy. The answers to some of the biggest challenges facing us will arise from those conversations in the years to come as we define who we are and where we’re going together. Thank you for adding your voice.