Presidential Lecture

Dear colleagues and friends, new and old members of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and most welcome guests. The honor of serving as President of this Society carries with it the privilege and responsibility of formulating and delivering the annual Presidential address. What to talk about exercises one’s mind for several weeks if not months before the meeting. There are no guidelines and no published record of prior addresses. One can get an idea by perusing the titles in past programs. Or, one can try to emulate the topics of the President’s of like-minded if not identical societies such as the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, their senior counterparts the American Pediatric Society and Association of American Physicians or our own particular senior counterpart, the Endocrine Society. Each publishes their annual Presidential address which makes for interesting historical and scientific reading. Whatever the group, the speaker generally focuses on one of four major themes.