American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine in 2006: Embracing the Future

“The Worst of Times” 

A year ago, ACRM found itself in an extraordinarily challenging position, having been informed by AAPM&R that after 30 years of co-ownership of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, it had decided to relinquish its 50% ownership, effective January 2009, and establish its own journal. This development led to negotiations between our 2 organizations that resulted in a “final” joint contract. This agreement is in effect until December 31, 2008, after which time ACRM will become the sole owner of Archives. The journal has enjoyed more than a decade of excellent fiscal returns and increasing stature in the international scientific community, evidenced in part by its Science Citation Index impact factor (now 1.73) and its manuscript submission rates. ACRM views Archives as an extremely important asset and appreciates the superb efforts of the editorial office, editorial board, and publisher as contributing factors in its success. Protecting this asset has been uppermost in the minds of ACRM leadership during this past year.

On an unrelated note, but equally challenging, Deborah Wilkerson, the 2003 president of ACRM, died at the age of 57 while scuba diving with her daughter off the coast of Mexico in November 2005. This was a shock to so many of us who were friends, colleagues, and co-workers and caused us to reflect on her contributions to the ACRM and the field of rehabilitation. In concert with her family and close friends, ACRM initiated a memorial fund that resulted in the Deborah L. Wilkerson Early Career Award, which was presented for the first time at this 2006 Annual Meeting in Boston.

A New Year—New Initiatives 

As the year 2006 was ushered in, the organization had embarked on a number of initiatives to strengthen our internal operations and our service to the membership and the field of rehabilitation research. To strengthen communications with our members, we have provided the ACRM electronic newsletter, E-News!, on a weekly basis. The “Members Only” section of our website has been enhanced with the addition of slide presentations from our annual meeting. An Early Career Task Force was initiated, which assisted in developing the criteria to establish the Deborah L. Wilkerson Early Career Award and developed a new educational programming for the annual meeting and a mentoring network to assist early career rehabilitation research professionals. The International Task Force, newly established during the past year, embarked on several projects to determine what strategies might be most effective in enabling ACRM to participate fully in the global rehabilitation research community and to attract international participation in our annual meetings. A tentative plan has been developed to hold our first “international” meeting in Toronto in 2008 in conjunction with the Ontario Rehabilitation Research Network. The ACRM Policy and Legislation Committee, in concert with Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC, a legislative advocacy firm, provided leadership for an inter-organizational coalition of rehabilitation related professional and consumer-based organizations that has advocated for a stronger presence for rehabilitation research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that is, a distinct NIH Institute for Rehabilitation Research, increased awareness of rehabilitation research at related institutes at the NIH, and better tracking of the NIH investment in disability and rehabilitation research. This effort is ongoing and has resulted in some important inroads in raising awareness among key officials at the NIH.

Vital Signs 

An organization’s health and well-being can be measured by a variety of key indices: in the case of ACRM, these “vital signs” are fairly easy to identify and are notable because they are currently pointing in the right direction. The organization’s membership, which had been declining over the past 10 years, has stabilized and has shown a modest increase. Our annual meeting, co-sponsored with the American Society of Neurorehabilitation, attracted 390 registrants, which was a 10% increase over last year and the highest attendance at the meeting in the past 5 years. The conference has become a leading venue for high-profile rehabilitation research scientists and a milieu for critical education offerings and networking opportunities for early career researchers. The Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group has continued its stellar record of productivity, as it has developed new task forces and projects to assess the evidence base for a variety of issues and concerns in brain injury rehabilitation. Our fiscal reserves, as discussed earlier, have more than doubled due primarily to the new contract with Elsevier. In addition, we have raised sufficient funds to establish the Deborah L. Wilkerson Memorial Fund. We have added new committees and have more members who are involved actively in the affairs of the Congress. Archives, our most treasured asset, has continued to improve its ranking in the Science Citation Index and has experienced increases in manuscript submissions and pages published within the past year. Finally, our collaborations and co-sponsorships with other organizations in the matters of educational conferences and legislative advocacy continue to grow. These positive trends are very encouraging and are indicative of a bright future for our organization.

While it is tempting to take personal credit for these notable achievements—there are many people to credit for them—without strong, effective leadership and management, an organization such as ours is unlikely to succeed. I have been fortunate to work with a very talented group of people—board members and committee chairs—who are strongly committed and deeply involved in rehabilitation research. In addition, the ACRM central office staff members have demonstrated that they are extremely hard-working, dedicated, and capable of achieving great feats under sometimes difficult demands of too much work, too many deadlines, and too few staff.

The Future 

As a psychologist, I have generally believed that “past behavior is the best indication of future behavior” and I would argue that that applies to organizations as well as to people. Therefore, I have presented what I hope is a convincing argument that the evidence in recent years shows that ACRM has made great strides in fulfilling the mission established 10 years ago, when the mission was changed to one reflecting a rehabilitation research-focused organization. I believe we have heeded the advice of past-president Martin Grabois, MD, who stated “Obviously, for us to succeed and move the organization and field forward, we need to deal with our membership issues, increase our financial resources, improve the quality and quantity of rehabilitation science, the funding for it, and the distribution of these findings to health care professionals and consumers.”5(p1098)

Despite periods of limited financing and declining membership, ACRM has made substantial progress in overcoming these obstacles and has been, to a great extent, re-vitalized. Our goals and actions should reflect an organization that is secure in its mission, its fiscal stability, its leadership, its sense of purpose, and that is moving steadily toward self-actualization. More is needed, however, to maintain our momentum—more products and tangible membership benefits, more collaboration with like-minded organizations, more emphasis on advocacy and public policy initiatives, and more outreach to clinicians and consumers. The future has become increasingly brighter for the ACRM: let us embrace that future so we may achieve our highest aspirations to improve the quality of care and quality of life for people with disabilities, their families, and their communities.