Professional Associations

[J-Rad]

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This one doesn't have a clear place for me to put the question, nor is it a terribly important issue, but one I'm interested in reading the perspective on here.

When we graduate fellowship we lose those pleasant M/FIT prices on our professional memberships and oh how do those prices go up. The groups likely to have little interest to you are AOA (American Osteopathic Association) and American Academy of Pediatrics (but I will come back to that, nevertheless), but as a pediatric cardiologist there is also the AHA, ACC, and, as someone interested in ACHD, maybe the International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease.

I am curious your perspective especially on the ACC and AHA. Do most of you have memberships to both? Or do you prefer one over the other? Why, if so? I tend to think of the AHA as having a bit more interest in issues related to congenital and pediatric cardiology (I swear I once read an amusing oped in JACC in which the writer stated that pediatric cardiologists were right atrial appendages to the ACC...ahh, cardiology humor). Both groups' CME is predominantly oriented to adult cardiology issues as well, so one doesn't clearly stand out in that regard, either.

And while you guys wouldn't be members of the AAP, do you keep up your memberships in the ACP? It would be easy to exceed $1500 a year in memberships, so I'd like to get the best bang for my buck. Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[gutonc]

Not a cardiologist, but the only reason I bother belonging to any of my professional societies (ASCO and AACR) is to get discounted annual meeting registration and cheap CME.

I can't really think of any other reason to belong. Sure, there's some lobbying efforts but they're generally ineffective and I only support 1/3 of them or so. It's not like you get a bonus at work, or a better job or more referrals for belonging to a particular organization.

I never bothered to join ACP or AMA. Talk about irrelevant to my needs.

 

[J-Rad]

Thanks.