The most recent meeting of the American Road Race Medical Society (ARRMS) was held in conjunction with the 2010 Chevron Houston Marathon on January 16, 2010. It was a lively and productive meeting with individuals from key marathons in attendance:  John Cianca, MD; Joe Chorley, MD; Paul Guttuso, MD, and Mike Misiora, MD (Chevron Houston Marathon); Pierre d’Hemecourt, MD, and Jeff Brown, PhD (Boston Marathon); Mark Shecker, MD (The Myrtle Beach Marathon); and Kevin Ronneberg, MD (The Twin Cities Marathon). Milton Datta, MD, also attended as well as Ed Kompare from Philips. The emergency response equipment for The Chevron Houston Marathon was generously provided by Philips.

Dr. Kevin Ronneberg presented a lecture on using electronic media to track patients and provide surveillance. The topic created great interest among the attendees and sparked a long discussion about future use and potential for marathon medical record keeping. In fact, the possibility of initiating a pilot version of the program at the Twin Cities or Boston Marathon in 2010 was explored.

Other discussions focused on the educational mission of ARRMS including a web-based learning initiative being developed by Chris Troyanos of the Boston Marathon. Collaboration with the London and Berlin Marathons will most likely occur to accomplish this initiative.

Lastly, I completed my two-year term as president of ARRMS and passed the presidency on to George Chiampis, DO, of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon.  Dr. Chiampis is looking forward to helping ARRMS continue to move its initiatives forward and expand membership involvement.

The next meeting of ARRMS will be held in Boston in April 2010 (details will be posted on the ARRMS site and sent to members via e-mail). Additional meetings will be held at ACSM in Baltimore in May 2010 and at the Chicago Marathon in October 2010.

I want to thank everyone who helped me drive ARRMS forward during my years of presidency. I continue to believe in this organization and know it can help advance road race medicine for the benefit of participants, medical personnel, and races in general. 

–John Cianca, MD