President’s Message

With my term as GAADE president in its final months, I’ve been thinking about all that the board and GAADE members have accomplished this year. Most significantly, this was our first year as part of the national “My AADE Network“-model, in which we led the state late in 2010 as the first “Chapter” to become a “Local Networking Group” (LNG). This year, all other chapters in Georgia, including Augusta, Columbus (Chattahoochee Valley) and Valdosta followed suit.

Our actions put into motion the development of a new state coordinating body (CB) called “AADE – Georgia.” Led by Victor Yu of Augusta, other members of the state CB include Diane Hood, RD, CDE – Vice President of Education; Dawn Taylor, RN, CDE – Vice President of Membership, and myself – Vice President of Technology. We are still looking to fill a couple of positions including Treasurer and Advocacy, so please consider volunteering or nominating a colleague.

The CB transition team will assume leadership responsibilities for all the state local networking groups that previously were administered by our local GAADE board, including our budget. This November, Diane and I will represent GAADE by presenting our budget needs for 2012, based on budget requirements of 2011. So, there will be no elections for GAADE this year. However, there will be committee chairs that lead the activities of our LNG including: 1) Programming 2) Outreach 3) Newsletter 4) Website. Please consider volunteering to sit on one of these committees to help keep our LNG active and vital.

Another big change for us this year was the use of My AADE network to communicate with our members. Yolanda Bell, RN, accepted the responsibility of administrating the My AADE website for GAADE. She deserves a huge pat on the back for taking this challenge on singlehandedly and I know she spent a lot of her own time figuring out the workings of the network so she could post meetings, set up online registration and post documents in our library. Great job Yolanda! If you haven’t been on My AADE yet, check it out. There is a whole new world out there including an electronic membership directory. You can easily search any AADE member by region, place of employment and name. In addition, Yolanda has posted presentations from speakers that have spoken at GAADE.

I also want to thank our program committee: Mary Ann Florestan, Catherine Maxwell and Daisy Seremba for the wonderful and informative programs they put together for us, such as Medicaid Reimbursement and ADA Recognition; Group Medical Visits; What’s New at AADE?; Using Social Media to Promote Your Practice and Dealing with Non-Adherence with Gary Scheiner. What a great line-up of speakers and topics!

I’m sure our next program on November 9th will be of the same caliber with Virginia Valentine CNS, BC-ADM, CDE speaking on “Tradjenta: A New DPP-4 Inhibitor.”

In closing, it’s been an honor representing GAADE this year. I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed working with and getting to know so many members. I’m also excited about and looking forward to seeing how GAADE grows in the future under the direction of the state coordinating body.

Sue Tocher, MS,RD,CDE
President - GAADE