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The San Diego Allergy Society (SDAS) has a long history of bringing together our county’s practitioners to engage and collaborate on the advancements in treatments in the field of Allergy and Immunology. I have been immensely proud to join the society as Executive Director under Dr. Bob Geng as the institution continues to prioritize education and sharing the advancements within this field. In recent years we have worked to expand the scope of the SDAS, hosting events for the broader Southern California Allergy and Immunology provider and researcher community, prioritizing expansion of our audience to include affiliated specialties, and encouraging various levels of trainees to attend.

Immunology is a unique field due the vast overlap of care with a wide variety of specialties for many diseases that are treated in the specialty. The immune system is an integral part of the human body’s ability to maintain homeostasis, and when disrupted can cause a plethora of problems. Immunology provides a root cause view of diseases as opposed to a more symptomatic view from organ-specific specialties. With the advancement of immune based therapies across many specialties, we seek to provide greater multidisciplinary education in order to combine knowledge from an immune and organ-specific viewpoint. Immune based therapies and multidisciplinary care are the future of medicine and the SDAS is committed to striving for innovation in the educational programs we host.

Historically the SDAS has focused on live in-person educational opportunities, but we are thrilled to embark on a new educational initiative in creating a series of educational booklets. The series will span across diseases, specialties, and healthcare professions. With our foray into enduring educational materials, we are expanding our reach on a national level. In a world where information is readily available at everyone’s fingertips but reliability is not always guaranteed, this series will provide accessible, trustworthy and vetted knowledge written by key opinion leaders to the respective diseases. Our goal is to disseminate this knowledge not only for the proper care of patients, but also to increase awareness within other specialties in order to promote early identification and promote necessary referral patterns. Research is integral to moving medicine forward and education is necessary to implement the change and the SDAS endeavors to be at the forefront with our educational messaging.

Through this educational series we hope that we are able to help current and upcoming providers gain greater insight into the diseases covered, their current treatments and the advances in treatment on the horizon regardless of their specialty. We hope this series proves to be an applicable tool for practice and inspires providers to look beyond what is known and aim to continue the work to expand our current understanding. The SDAS will continue to prioritize education as our knowledge and understanding of the medical field advances.