From the Governor, Thad F. Waites, MD, FACC Dear FACC Colleague: On April 1st, I assumed the office of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Governor for Mississippi. As ACC Governor, I sit on the Board of Governors for the College. In that capacity, I plan to represent you at ACC and to present any issues or concerns that you might have involving the practice of cardiovascular medicine. This is an exciting, critical time for medicine and for cardiology in particular. Our “voice” needs to be heard. The sixty-six member Board of Governors serves as an advisory body to the Board of Trustees regarding health care, legislative, regulatory, socioeconomic, and health policy issues. Issues and/or concerns that have been identified in a local chapter often become agenda items for discussion during the meetings of the BOG. You should have received by now a notice of a meeting of our Mississippi Chapter. This will take place during the Mississippi State Medical Association’s annual meeting. Our chapter meeting will be on Saturday, May 31st, from 12:00-1:30 pm. The location is the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi. The room will be announced later. This will be a luncheon meeting with a speaker. Molly Nichelson from the Advocacy group of national ACC will be there to discuss health care policy reform and this Presidential election year. We will also be open to discuss any needs or concerns of our members. Please plan to attend. You will be receiving fairly frequent communications from me. I will be forwarding information from the Board of Governors as well as from myself, and from any of you who would like to communicate with your fellow cardiologists through this method. If this letter got to you through some circuitous route, please let me know your preferred email address or snail-mail address. Also, if you know of any colleagues who aren’t receiving these notices, please provide their email addresses. I can be reached as listed below. Our web site, for the Mississippi Chapter, is www.msacc.org. The site presently needs some work, but we plan to keep it current with planned events as well as with information from the Chairman of the Board of Governors and also from me. We will try to have a meeting annually and the College is now capable of providing CME for these meetings (alas though, not this year’s meeting on the 31st). I look forward to communicating with you and working for you. Sincerely, Thad F. Waites, MD, FACC ACC Governor for Mississippi 415 S. 28th Ave Hattiesburg, MS 39402 Email: thadwaites@gmail.com or twaites@netdoor.com