2022-07-27 OMA Agenda - Board of Trustees

OBESITY PILLARS: MONTHLY NOTIFICATIONS TO OMA MEMBERS Harold Bays MD

Editor in Chief Obesity Pillars

Proposal: Once a month, the Obesity Medicine Association should send an email notification to OMA members, solely dedicated to Obesity Pillars and its articles.

Rationale:

• The first box of the recently crafted and approved Obesity Medicine Association Strategic Plan noted a goal to increase OMA recognition as “the most respected, recognized, and cited source on obesity diagnosis and treatment.” Two of the agreed upon strategies to achieve this goal were: o Scientific Outreach – OMA is the recognized venue for publication of new research relevant to clinical obesity care in Obesity Pillars o Journal Expansion – Expand the impact of Obesity Pillars • Currently, while journal activities are sometimes briefly mentioned in various OMA emails to members, dedicated emails solely regarding Obesity Pillars to OMA members are restricted to quarterly notifications. Monthly notification of societal journal activity is commonplace and standard among other medical organizations with societal journals. • By the end of 2022, Obesity Pillars will have published approximately 20 Clinical Practice Statements and multiple roundtable discussions. When other medical societies create a single clinical practice statement or guideline, each single CPS or guideline is often heavily promoted via multiple emails from the society. In contrast, no single OMA CPS or discussion has received heavy promotion. • Unless readers go to the Obesity Pillars website, or unless they signed up to be on the Obesity Pillars notification list, then because member notification of journal activity is restricted to quarterly notifications, the impact of Obesity Pillars is also being restricted. • Monthly notifications of Obesity Pillars activity would help achieve goals and strategies of the OMA strategic planning committee: o Improved recognition of Obesity Pillars as the venue for research relevant to clinical obesity care o Expand the impact of Obesity Pillars o Enhancement of the appeal of OMA to both academic and nonacademic obesity medicine specialists – thus potentially increasing OMA membership • Concurrent with each month’s notification of OMA membership of Obesity Pillars activities should be a discussion with OMA’s public relation’s firm. Obesity Pillars has published, and will continue to publish many novel articles worthy of issuing press releases and general public notifications via the press. As it stands, as Editor-in-Chief of Obesity Pillars, I cannot recall a single conversation with the OMA PR firm regarding any of the many CPS, roundtable discussions, and articles published by Obesity Pillars. This approach is not consistent with how other medical societies publicize their journal and content. Similarly, I cannot recall a single CPS or roundtable author being contacted by the OMA PR firm to discuss these articles.