Thank you all for participating in the member survey we sent out last Fall. I’m very glad to report that 100% of you who answered the question rated MDD either strong or very strong or well-functioning overall. There are, of course, some of you who left that question unanswered and presented us with a missing data problem!
This year, we will continue to build a strong community for statisticians working in medical devices and diagnostics area. MDD sponsored sessions at JSM and the FDA/AdvaMed workshops. Webinars are another important tool to achieve this goal.
In the survey, 83% of you supported starting a “welcome new members” initiative, and that effort is being led by our Section Representative Greg Maislin. This year, we will incorporate newsletter with the MDD website to provide more timely updates. Together with ASA connect and our twitter (ASA_MDD) account, we will keep you in the loop.
As 80% of our members think MDD should offer more opportunities for recognizing members, our website/newsletter editor Alvin Van Orden will put our members in spotlight and write columns about them. If you know of members of our community that are especially deserving of recognition, please let us know. Through the website, our communication secretary Zhihao Yao will lead a “Promote Your Fellow Member Campaign” to encourage sharing and giving credits to fellow colleagues. Please make sure to visit our website often (http://community.amstat.org/mdd/home)!
To attract more young statisticians to the medical devices and diagnostics field for sustainable development, we will continue organizing more activities such as the student paper award competition and best contributed paper competition at JSM. We are glad both are considered by our members as very good use of MDD resources (87% and 92%, respectively). With more than 95% of members’ support, we’ll officially start a mentor/mentee program to help build relationship between younger and more experienced statisticians. Stay tuned!
With the unique and challenging issues faced by statisticians working on medical devices and diagnostics, MDD will explore mechanisms to encourage cooperation and innovation. This year, MDD will co-host the “Day 0” workshop of FDA/AdvaMed medical devices and diagnostics statistical issues conference (May 8, 2018). Instead of the previous short course format, this year for the first time, the “Day 0” conference will be held as sessions where speakers and attendees discuss cutting-edge advances of statistical developments. This is also in response to our member’s support (70%) indicated in the survey.
All in all, this is an exciting year and I’m privileged to work with a set of great volunteers / officers to work for you to make MDD a stronger section and a better community for you!
Sincerely,
Xiting Yang