Vol.11, No.3

May 2006

Academy Golf Invitational a Success

Due to the hard work of Frank Bostock, MBA, CO, FAAOP the Academy's 1st Annual Golf Invitational was a great success. Held at the beautiful Greyhawk Golf Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, participants not only enjoyed two great days of golf but were treated to a wine tasting at the renowned Avanti's restaurant including Frank Bostock's Arizona Winery Zinfandel and Petit Verdot, Todd Bostock's Dos Cabezas' wines and Steve Whiteside's, CO, FAAOP Oregon vineyard Pinot Noir.

To make the Invitational really special Frank arranged for R.W. Eaks, a current Senior PGA Professional with three top 10 finishes this year, to join golfers on both Friday and Saturday. There is nothing like getting a few tips from a top professional!

Academy Board member Jim Rogers, CPO, FAAOP, who helped arrange the event joined the other golfers for the weekend. Bostock in a letter to the Board of the Academy said he hopes that this will be only the first in what will become an annual event. In addition to everyone in attendance having a great time the Academy raised nearly $10,000 to further our mission.

U.S. Department of Education Grant Update

The Academy has submitted its proposal for a fourth year of grant funding through the U.S. Department of Education. The comprehensive set of complementary projects are designed to meet the increasing demand for O&P provider services and to firmly establish the foundation for improving the quality of applied O&P research, education and patient care. These goals will be achieved by building on six of the program areas developed during grant Years I-III as outlined below.

Project One (Awareness): A national O&P awareness and recruitment campaign to attract qualified students to the field of O&P to include a public awareness campaign and the development of a targeted and relevant O&P-related science curriculum.
Project Two (Geographic Map): This project has been successfully completed in previous grant years and has no effort proposed for Grant Year IV. However, the outcomes from this project continue to provide considerable benefit to the other six projects.
Project Three (Strategic Planning): A series of meetings will be held with institutions with rehabilitation PhD programs to encourage inclusion of an O&P emphasis in the degrees they award.
Project Four (Master Agenda): Development of a methodology that will result in a comprehensive curriculum for performing literature reviews and critical evaluation of published literature. Additional efforts will focus on the development of an online professional education course outlining clinical research processes to enhance a practitioner’s ability to consume and conduct research.
Project Five (State-of-the-Science Conferences [SSCs]): One additional conference in a series of State-of-the-Science topics in O&P will be held and certificate programs predicated upon two previous SSCs will be developed.
Project Six (Professional Continuing Education [PCE] Courses): One additional offering in a series of online PCE courses will be produced based on the findings of a multidisciplinary group of acknowledged experts who define the State-of-the-Science on critical clinical issues.
Project Seven (Entry-Level Education): Through collaboration with the National Commission on Orthotic and Prosthetic Education (NCOPE), the Academy will foster NCOPE's objectives to identify the necessary fundamentals and unique challenges of conducting research. This will help update the O&P residency program to keep pace with the changing demands of O&P care and allow new practitioners to provide better care to their patients.

The Academy anticipates final confirmation of the grant award later this summer. At that time, activities from Grant Year II will have concluded. Grant Year III activities are ongoing.

Research Council Update

The Academy’s Research Council (RC) continues to move forward with various projects to advance the profession.

The Grants Committee is working on policies for the Academy’s a new foundation that will ultimately help fund future O&P research. Guidelines, policies and protocols for the research side of the 501(c)3 organization are currently being formulated to establish standards for operations for such matters as to how to properly and equitably disperse funds for O&P research.

The RC's Research Education Committee has been tasked with reviewing Resident Research Papers. This group is evaluating the papers in order to make a recommendation for inclusion of the top selections in the Academy’s "Best of Residents" series.

Additionally, Wieland Kaphingst, Dipl.-Ing., CPO has been named the chair of the Standards and Protocols Committee. He is diligently beginning work in this new area, bringing years of experience in international standards to the Academy.