“Dissatisfaction is the goal.” Care of the injured patient is rife with failure. For those of us whom are lucky enough to have found our profession, failure is a daily occurrence. “If only I had.....” “Why are we an outlier here.....” “How could we have done this better?” I take pride in this constant quest to improve the quality of the care that I render, much as I am sure that you do as well. We look at the data, examine our outcomes, and design interventions to improve the quality of our “product.” Your Committees and your Board of Directors function the same way for EAST. We convened our Spring Board of Directors’ Meeting in April and coupled it with a strategic discussion. The goal? To be dissatisfied. Prior to the meeting, we all tried to look critically at our organization, the needs of our membership, and the state of trauma care. We iden- tified areas upon which to focus, gathered the data, and then went to work at the strategic discussion to identify ways in which EAST could improve. In sum, it was Kaizen (“improvement”) at its best. The following morning, we convened to work on our ongoing ini- tiatives. I was stunned at the sheer volume of work that had been done by our committees, the variety and quality of the ideas, and the extent of the initiatives that were proposed. Every proposal that was brought before the board was vetted carefully, taking the time to ask Message from the President 2017 ISSUE TWO Bruce A. Crookes, MD, FACS In This Issue Strategic Goals Continued on page 2 E A S T E R N A S S O C I A T I O N F O R T H E S U R G E R Y O F T R A U M A news LEADERSHIP  Prepare young surgeons to become leaders DEVELOPMENT Promote unique programs for the career development of young surgical leaders SCHOLARSHIP  Provide education and training across the con- tinuum of acute surgical care FELLOWSHIP  Encourage a sense of community for personal professional growth COLLABORATION  Work with our stakehold- ers to advance patient care and trauma systems •  Last Call for Abstracts •  Pay it Forward Day Recap • INVEST-C Hack-a-Thon •  EAST Multicenter Trials Update • Award Deadlines •  EAST Mentoring Program A D V A N C I N G S C I E N C E • FOSTERING RELATIONSHIPS • B U I L D I N G C A R E E R S