2020 Annual Meeting Cancellation

August 18, 2020

Dear Valued PAOrtho Members and Registrants,

As the world comes together to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, we in medicine know better than any the importance of the many sacrifices we have faced in 2020. With this in mind, we are sure that you will understand the extremely difficult decision we have made to cancel our 2020 Annual Meeting, October 14-17 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With rising COVID-19 positive cases in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other regions, indoor gatherings are again restricted to 25 people or fewer. In addition, travel restrictions and quarantine restrictions on many members and speakers make it difficult for those individuals to attend and participate in the meeting. Lastly, the Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society values its camaraderie and social interaction at events such as our welcome reception and OrthoPAC events, and planned social events make it difficult to practice social distancing with today’s standards.

4)Although the board and I have elected to postpone the in-person meeting, we are planning an excellent virtual program for this fall with a variety of symposia to serve as a resource in obtaining some of your required CME for end of year license renewal, including patient safety CME. We are planning to use our website as a forum to publish video presentations for the accepted abstracts and posters. We have had a record number of abstracts submitted (155) and are sure this virtual presentation will be valuable for our members. Acceptances for these abstracts will be going out shortly, and CME will be available for our membership. 

We want to extend our greatest thanks to all who contributed to planning the meeting and ensure that all the momentum will go into making our 2021 meeting even better. For attendees who are already registered for 2020, your registration fees will be refunded. If you booked a hotel room, you will be receiving a cancellation notice from the Omni William Penn Hotel. We hope you will join us in 2021 at the Hotel Hershey, and will forward you the official dates as soon as possible in an upcoming e-mail.

We appreciate your support and understanding, and thank you for all you are doing to help our country during these unprecedented days. We cannot wait to reconnect with all of you, once we are on the other side. Stay safe.

Jonathan Garino, MD, MBA
President
Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society