Dear CASA Members: The annual CASA meeting was successfully held at Tony Cheng’s Chinese Restaurant in Washington, DC on Saturday, October 13, 2012. There were about 90 anesthesiologists from both sides of the Pacific Ocean attended the event. ASA president Dr. Jerry Cohen and CSA President Dr. Jin Liu as well as SAMBA president Dr. Peter Glass were present in the event. Most CASA Board of Directors also attended the meeting, they were: Drs. Changzhen Wang, Guogang Chen, Tina Leung, Lingqun Hu, Hong Liu, Xiaowei Lu, Vincent Xie, David Yue Tang, Weidong Gao, Henry Liu and CASA Secretary Dr. Lixin Liu. CASA Honorary Members presented included: Drs. Phillip & Letty Liu, Dr. Funsun Yao. Dr. Yonggang Peng of University of Florida, Dr. Jie Zhou of Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and Dr. Hongfei Feng, Chairman of Department of Anesthesiology of Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in Connecticut also joined the gathering. Dr. Weidong Gao, the Chair of the event, presided this year’s CASA meeting. After Dr. Gao’s welcome speech, Dr. Vincent Xie, the current president of CASA gave a speech in which he updated the audience with the current status of CASA, what CASA has achieved thus far, what are CASA’s goals, and what CASA will do in the future? He also welcomed all the attendees to this annual CASA event. And specifically Dr. Xie thanked Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceuticals for their generous support to this event. Dr. Jerry Cohen, the current ASA president and his family also attended CASA meeting. Dr. Jerry Cohen praised what CASA has done for both ASA and CSA (Chinese Society of Anesthesiology), recognized the beneficial collaborations between CSA and CASA, and the bridging function between CSA and ASA. Then Dr. Jin Liu, the current CSA president, offered some excellent remarks in term of the exchange between CASA and CSA, and he discussed the potentials for the future joint efforts for a common goal: to build a better and more advanced Chinese anesthesia community. He also emphasized the importance for CSA to maintain a close tie with CASA. Dr. Peter Glass, the current president of Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia and Chairman of Department of Anesthesiology, SUNY at Stony Brook, New York, also addressed the audience by expressing his gratitude for having the opportunity of acquainting with so many Chinese anesthesiologists and shared his favorable experience from his trips to mainland China. Dr. Yonggang Peng, chair of CASA Scholar Exchange Committee and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology of University of Florida, has been in charge of CASA’ efforts for scholarly exchanges. He updated the gathering regarding Scholar Exchange Program, according to Dr. Peng, there are more than twenty Anesthesiology programs in the United States accept young Chinese scholars for various durations of exchange. The CASA Board of Director member Dr. Lingqun Hu introduced his well-known mission: “No Pain Labor N’Delivery” in China. Dr. Hu unveiled those hospitals in China with higher rate of epidural analgesia in parturient are able to lower the rate of Cesarean section and improved safety of both mothers and neonates. This result of his study shocked the Obstetric Anesthesia community and potentially changes the health policy in China. After Dr. Hu’s talk, Dr. Chris Wu, Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (he is also a former Associate Editor of The Journal of Anesthesiology) followed with “An update on epidural anesthesia” and Dr. Yun Guan, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, delivered a lecture entitled “State of the Art Basic Research in Pain Medicine”. Both lectures offered some very thoughtful insights of prospective subjects of their talks. Then Mr. Zhan Wang, Marketing Manager of Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceuticals, addressed the audiences on behalf of Yichang Humanwell. He thanked the organizing committee for providing such an opportunity for Yichang Humanwell to sponsor this event. He said he believes this kind of cooperation will be very fruitful in the future. At the end of his talk, he was presented with a beautiful plague from CASA. CASA intended to show CASA’s appreciation of Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceuticals’ generous sponsorship. The attendees also had plenty of time for socializing and building professional networks. Hopefully this kind of event will make anesthesiologists from both China and USA more connected and professionally more productive in the future. CASA 2012 meeting organizing committee: Weidong Gao, MD, PhD Vincent Xie, MD, Henry Liu, MD