From the President  

Marina Gvakharia, M.D., Ph.D., HCLD/ELD(ABB), MT(AAB)

Dear peers,

As I am almost finished with my tenure as CRB president, I would like to thank you all again for entrusting me with these huge shoes to fill. I was scared at first, but then I said to myself: Self. Stop. Shoes are huge. So what. Grow a pair. (Of feet.)  Hopefully, I was able to do just that and to perform at my job to your satisfaction.

During the past couple of years, the CRB board and its presidents worked very hard on your behalf in order to advance CRB's presence and its causes. I am presenting you with this brief report on various projects that we’ve been tackling lately.

Firstly, we made many updates to our website, which now features more up-to-date and complete information about CRB, its officers, bylaws, history, and educational events. Our newsletters are also available on this website in a user-friendly and searchable format.

We were fortunate to be able to recruit many excellent professionals to volunteer in our committees. Under the excellent leadership of their chairs, CRB committees worked hard on various legal, educational, credentialing and organizational issues.

I met my personal goal of producing an informative biannual newsletter, which was well received by our membership and other peers. Many thanks to my fellow contributors and to the AAB office for their help with publishing. The plan is to continue with this publication so we can keep our members informed and engaged. Speaking of great publications - our cooperation with RBM Online continues. You are entitled and encouraged to take advantage of the special subscription offer for CRB members.

Under Stan Harris’s leadership, the legislative committee continued its efforts of monitoring legislative initiatives pertaining to our profession.  Please see Stan’s report in this issue on some of the initiatives and developments that may affect our profession.

The  CRB board and  the legislative committee joined forces in drafting the CRB position statement on “Personhood initiatives.”  This project required a lot of research, consultation, and reflection. I want to thank the CRB committees and members who participated in discussions and sent their thoughtful comments and suggestions. This document received overwhelmingly positive reviews from our peers and patients.

Gerry Celia and his credentialing committee provided excellent and much needed assistance to ABB with writing certification examinations and reviewing educational programs for ABB CEU compliance.

Additionally, CRB provided ABOR with consultations regarding re-branding Embryology and Andrology technologist certification as ELS (Embryology Laboratory Scientist) and ALS (Andrology Laboratory Scientist). We will see these new certification categories available for our members very soon.

David Walker and his group reviewed CRB standing rules and prepared them for publication on our website, so that all members can be aware of our “modus operandi.”  We are also grateful to Dave for his excellent support to the board as our secretary.

Mark Dow and his meeting committee have done an amazing job in putting together this year’s educational conference. We are introducing roundtable luncheon discussions, and we are also continuing with the now traditional keynote lectures and hands-on workshops.  This year’s scientific program is outstanding – huge kudos to Mark and his group. I can only pray that as next year’s meeting committee chair I can live up to this legacy. See? The “big shoe saga” never ends…

Until next time,

Marina Gvakharia
CRB President