Hoxworth Blood Center Director Named ACCA President

Ronald Sacher, MD, director of Hoxworth Blood Center, has been appointed as the 2018 president of the American Clinical and Climatological Association (ACCA) at the one-hundred and thirtieth meeting of the association. 

"The ACCA is a multidisciplinary organization of people who have leadership in American medicine,” says Sacher. "We have members who are presidents of universities, as well as leaders and deans of medical schools and department chairs. It’s a very prestigious organization. This is truly one of the highlights of my career.”

The ACCA was organized in 1884 by a group of physicians and scientists who set about to improve medical education, research and practice in this country. Its initial concern was with tuberculosis and its treatment by residence in a suitable climate. Throughout its long history, the Association has expanded its interests to all scientific and clinical aspects of medicine and its specialties as well as epidemiology, preventive and environmental medicine, while retaining a continuing interest in the influence of global climate changes on health and disease. 

Its membership comprises outstanding physicians selected on the basis of their leadership, their excellence in their chosen field, their demonstrated high level of integrity and professionalism, and their yearning to nurture a spirit of warmth, diversity and friendship. The annual meeting of the Association provides an opportunity for presentation and critical discussion of the most recent progress in research, practice and teaching. It is devoted to the scientific understanding and to the compassionate care of human disease. The meeting also serves to reaffirm the values and the principles of the Association.  Active membership is limited to 250 physicians.

The ACCA is unusual among medical organizations in a number of ways. The very considerable professional accomplishments and expertise of the members of the Association, cutting across, as they do, a variety of disciplines within the broad scope of medicine, provide a unique forum for sophisticated discussion and consideration of a wide array of topics. While the program content retains an important clinical flavor, it is broad enough to extend from molecular biology at the one extreme to health policy and medical education at the other. Broad interests across this spectrum are characteristic of the members, and this breadth distinguishes the Association meetings in important ways from the meetings of, for example, clinical specialty or research societies.