Elizabeth F McIlwain, MHS, RCS, FASE, Chair

It’s December and the end of another year is rapidly approaching. This is always the time I reflect back on the year (and the past in general) and look forward to the new year and the future. It is always interesting to assess the goals I set in January and see the progress I made. One of my recent goals has been to use technology more efficiently in my professional life. I’m a child of the 1960s, a product of the 1970s, and I began my echo journey in the mid-1980s. Textbooks, VHS tapes, index cards, and notebooks were an ever present part of my world. I clearly remember that notebook I carried around in my lab coat pocket. It was a work in progress—changing and growing with each new concept I learned in echocardiography. I was always rewriting pages and adding sections. When it got full, I just found a pocket-sized binder with bigger rings! I did not dare remove any information—I might need it and I wanted it at my fingertips. I imagine many of you had a notebook much like this.

Our profession is changing rapidly—new technologies, new procedures, reimbursement changes, and guidelines updates are the norm. That notebook is no longer sufficient or efficient! A wealth of information available to us, and we need to use it to make our lives easier and those of our patients better. I would like to use this space to share some of what is available from ASE and other sources.