This year the ATS meeting was held in Toronto during May 16-20.  The Critical Care Assembly within the ATS has over 6,000 primary and secondary affiliated members, making it both the largest assembly within the ATS and one of the largest concentrations of critical care physicians in any professional association worldwide, including SCCM, ESICM and ACCP.  Thus, this professional societal affiliation remains important to critical care medicine, in general, and our department, in particular.  Dr. Michael Pinsky continues to remain active on the administrative side of the ATS leadership.  At the Critical Care Assembly Business meeting he was elected to a two-year term on the influential Nominations Committee.  As usual, our department played an active role in the congress and continues to play an active role in the ATS administration.  Michael R. Pinsky, MD, gave an invited lecture on "Non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring" in the Postgraduate course: Pulmonary Circulation and Hemodynamics.  Dr. Bouchra Lamia presented an abstract on hemodynamic monitoring in the ICU (1).  Dr. Hyung Kim presented an abstract on cardiopulmonary interactions using an acute canine model (2).  Dr. Marilyn Hravnak, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, in collaboration with Drs. Michael DeVita and Michael R. Pinsky presented an abstract on the use of an integrated physiological monitor to assess cardiopulmonary instability in a step-down unit (3).  The complete citation of these abstracts follows.

1.  Lamia B, Kim HK, Hefner A, Puyana JC, Pinsky MR. Comparison of non-invasive estimates of cardiac output and pulse pressure and stroke volume variation in ICU patients. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2008; 177(4):A7631.

2.  Kim KH, Lamia B, Gordon L, Pinsky MR. Effects of the tidal volume on the determinants of arterial pulse pressure (PPV) and stroke volume variation (SVV) during positive-pressure ventilation in dogs.  Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2008; 177(4):A632.

3.  Hravnak M, Edwards L, Foster-Heasley M, Clontz A, DeVita M, Pinsky MR. Electronic integrated monitoring of medical emergency team calls to a step down unit. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2008; 177(4):A842.