March 3, 2024

When I reflect on my first year as the CPEG President, I realize what a privilege it is to be part of a wonderful body of professionals. As I chaired the Executive Committee, I enjoyed the support and wisdom of the Past President, Dr. Diane Wherrett. Additionally, I experienced the amazing organizational skills and efficiency of the CPEG Secretary, Dr. Manpreet Doulla. I was always informed and updated about our financial status by CPEG Treasurer, Dr. Andrea Ens. Our fellowship funds have been stable and increasing as a result of the active fund recruitment by Dr. Preetha Krishnamoorthy allowing us to fund our fellows to pursue further scholarly activity while being supported by an adequate salary, recently optimized at $85,000 plus benefits.

Without a doubt, we had a very successful Annual Scientific Meeting in Saskatoon with credit to Dr. Rebecca Perry, the Organizing Committee Lead, and Dr. Mark Inman, the Local Organizing Host, together with the rest of the Scientific Committee. Year after year, at our annual meeting we are presented with the latest state of the art knowledge of pathophysiology and management of endocrine disorders. I feel that this meeting is like a family reunion every year as we come together to learn, network and have fun!

As you all know, we cannot accomplish our day to day clinical work and care for our patients without our skilled endocrine nurses. I would like to give a special thank you to our past CPEN President Kristen Langdon and to welcome Brenda Fraser who promptly took over the leadership role and was an effective member of our CPEG Executive Committee.

CPEG has also been actively advocating on behalf of the patients. In 2023, I met with Health Canada to address the glucagon shortage. Recently, we voted and sent our priority endocrine drug list to the National Priority List of Pediatric Drugs (NPLPD).

I am glad to announce with gratitude of his tireless contributions to CPEG over many years, we have decided to name our Distinguished Service Award the “Dr. Dan Metzger Distinguished Service Award”.

I am grateful to the members who readily volunteered to fill the upcoming positions, Dr. Zoya Thawer to learn from Dr. Metzger how to run CPEG website and Dr. Seth Marks to be our CPEG President Elect.

Finally as we approach the tasks ahead, I would like to encourage each of us to continue sharing our strengths for a common purpose of keeping CPEG a dynamic and effective group.

Dr. Rose Girgis, MBBCh, MSc, FRCPC
President, Canadian Pediatric Endocrine Group (CPEG)
Professor & Associate Chair of Education
Department of Pediatrics
University of Alberta