This is my first report to the membership since you gave me the honour of electing me as CHS President in 2007.

Like many of you, I have always maintained a sense of loyalty to CHS (even paying my dues MOST years!) even while wondering whether the organization served a useful purpose. We are all members of ASH and other professional societies which enhance our scholarly and academic careers through the journals they sponsor, the meetings and symposia they hold, and the opportunities they provide for networking and collaboration with colleagues in our often arcane areas of subspecialty concentration. Within the context of a rich and bewildering array of national and international organizations devoted to the scholarly analysis of every aspect of benign and malignant hematology, one might ask whether the CHS is a quaint anachronism. My answer to this rhetorical question is an unequivocal “no”, and the remarkable attendance at our annual Award Night and dinner in Atlanta last December demonstrates that the Canadian hematology community as a whole agrees with me. We hematologists across Canada are bonded to one another; we are the protégées of our senior colleagues and the mentors of our trainees. These links last a lifetime, and they provide a source of stability throughout our careers. We regularly turn to one another for advice and assistance in looking after our patients, in carrying out our research projects, and in advocating within our universities, our local and provincial health authorities, and the RCPSC. How enduring are these loyalties? Anecdotally, I can personally relate conversations with three colleagues within the last year who have gone on to distinguished academic careers in the United States and Europe, and who all asserted some version of the following statement: “I will definitely come back to Canada at some point in my career; the only question is when and where”. I will bet that many of you can relate similar conversations.

So we need not analyze why we value the CHS and why we remain loyal to it. It is our shared interests, experiences, challenges, goals and values as hematologists in Canada that make us a community. As a member of your community, I am asking you to take the following concrete actions:

• Pay your dues to CHS; it is the best bargain you will see all year.
• If you plan on attending ASH this year, keep your calendar clear on Sunday evening for the CHS Annual General Meeting, Award Night and dinner. We will be asking our pharmaceutical colleagues to help support this event, and to refrain from scheduling any conflicting events.
• Encourage your trainees to submit their ASH abstracts to our award program as well. Those whose abstracts are top-ranked will receive awards of $5,000, and will have a prestigious addition to their CVs.
• Let our office know about any hematologists who may not be CHS members (canadianhematology@uniserve.com). We try to be thorough about contacting newly qualified hematologists and hematological pathologists through their training programs, but we may miss some who enter the community through other avenues such as immigration.
• When the term of the current Executive members expires in 2009, give serious consideration to running for a leadership position in the CHS. I guarantee that serving as an Officer of the CHS will give you the same feeling of satisfaction and pride that it is giving me.
• As your Executive Committee, Tom, Stephen, Pierre, Gail and I invite and welcome any suggestions or observations you may have about CHS, and we would especially welcome your interest in becoming involved in the Society.

Dr. Jerry Teitel