Chapter Update: Philadelphia Lipid and Atherosclerosis Club and More

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

With so many topics in the medical and lay news specifically for us, it’s a great time to be a clinical lipidologist! People are talking about the expanded and nuanced role of statins, IMPROVE-IT hit the press, and you can read about PCSK9 inhibitors in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Genetic studies regarding lipid and lipoprotein physiology have made their way into journals, and everybody seems to have an opinion about our national guidelines for cholesterol treatment. Even the New Yorker included cholesterol cartoons.

With these and other issues on the minds of our colleagues, this is a great time to introduce other colleagues to the NLA. National meetings, such as the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions this past November, made headlines and started conversations. Our regional meetings continue to expand on those conversations and help the community understand the complexity of what we do and the NLA’s positions on crucial issues in lipid management. While nuance can be conveyed in a large lecture hall, it is the more intimate discussions that are critical to helping us understand the details. These meetings and conversations are what drew me to the NLA, the NELA chapter, and the Philadelphia Lipid and Atherosclerosis Club (PLAC).

The Northeast region continues to be a hotbed of academic activities. Philadelphia Lipid and Atherosclerosis Club (PLAC) has been meeting for more than 15 years. We get together two to three times per year. Although there is an invitation list, it’s very flexible — anyone with an interest in lipids and atherosclerosis is invited. We typically have a national speaker and we always have quality discussions, debates, and camaraderie.

It is the camaraderie that makes the PLAC meetings so valuable. While conversations occur at the big meetings too, it is these small gatherings where national thought leaders, local division chiefs, clinicians, scientists, pharmacists, and trainees can really get together and share their experience and get involved. These intimate conversations are one of the most important recruitment tools that the NLA can use because it is an opportunity for attendees from different circles to share common ground and a meal in an era where more and more of our time is spent pouring over a monitor instead of meeting face to face!

The PLAC Steering Committee is made up of clinicians from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and attendees come from all three states. We’ve hosted Michael Davidson, MD; Christie Ballantyne, MD; Paul Thompson, MD; and Avedis Khachadurian, MD, to name just a few.

The last presentation was our own Douglas Jacoby, on atherosclerosis imaging. Every year I meet more local physicians with an interest in this field. Meetings like PLAC or the regional/national NLA meetings play such an important role in learning and igniting enthusiasm for lipidology. Join us in Philadelphia and let’s toast to our common interests and our love of learning from each other.