Editor’s Corner: Beating Isolation Through Collective Innovation

“In the long history of humankind (and of animal kind too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” ~ Charles R. Darwin

I often peruse the comments of historical figures for whom I have admiration in order to ‘center myself’ and better lead my colleagues. This quote from Darwin struck me as ideal for our present COVID-19 ‘era’ during which we are asked to lead through challenging, sometimes unprecedented times.

As health care providers of all disciplines, and at all levels within health care systems, we have been asked to put our creativity and ability to innovate to the test in the last few months. We have had to move rapidly in our ‘duty to plan’ for disaster management in regards to providing care for an onslaught of patients acutely ill with an infection we didn’t even really understand. Concurrently we have had to manage the fears of those patients with ‘routine’ problems so they did not allow fear to keep them from obtaining needed care. This requires a level of collaboration and improvisation to which Darwin alludes that we couldn’t have imagined had we not been faced head on with the challenges placed before us, and risen to address them.

In this edition of the LipidSpin, we have also been collaborative and improvisational. For the first time, we are embarking on our new model of joint sponsorship of each edition, to coincide with our Clinical Lipid Updates and Annual Scientific Sessions. Our theme is “Thinking through the Evidence” and applying it in creative ways to address the needs of our patients and focus on our mission of enhancing the practice of clinical lipid management.

Dr. Sasseen’s letter outlines NLA goals and an ‘action plan’ to support this mission.

Our goals for the organization are

• Diversity, inclusion, and equality
• Professionalism
• Public service
• Multidisciplinary approach
• Continuous growth and improvement
• Business ethics
• Cooperative

This edition of LipidSpin endorses these goals by providing tools for busy clinicians, focusing on care gaps and early detection of disease, the importance of shared decision-making with our patients as well as continually providing learning opportunities to our members regarding the breadth and depth of knowledge in lipidology.

In the spirit of collaboration and improvisation then, we are proud to provide our members with this latest edition of the LipidSpin. We loved “seeing” you during September’s LipidPALOOZA, and look forward to doing so again at the virtual Scientific Sessions in December!