INTRODUCTION

Dear Colleague: The American Academy of Pediatrics Department of Committees and Sections are pleased to present this supplement to PEDIATRICS. This is the fourth supplement devoted entirely to abstracts of presentations given at the Academy's Annual Meeting. It contains a vast array of subspecialty information in a structured abstract format, which will be indexed in the journal and be retrievable through all of the document delivery systems that feature PEDIATRICS. It will also be available on the yearly CD ROM update of PEDIATRICS. In addition this publication will serve as a guide and timetable for the Academy's Section programs which will be offered at the AAP 1999 Annual Meeting to be held October 9-13 in Washington, DC. Please remember to bring this, your complimentary copy, to the meeting! A limited number of additional copies for your personal use or distribution to colleagues will be available at the meeting. Sections are arranged alphabetically. A Section's educational schedule appears first, followed by the complete text of the abstracts. Abstracts are identified by a number that appears in the left column of the schedule; this same number will identify the expanded text. Abstracts are numbered consecutively within each Section. Please note that the Section on Allergy has elected to print their schedule only. A great deal of time and effort has been volunteered by the Academy Section members to develop these programs and to write and coordinate the abstracts for this special supplement. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of of Kathleen Ozmeral (editor); Larry Mahoney, MD (Cardiology); Andrew Spooner, MD (Computers and Other Technologies); Niranjan Kissoon, MD (Critical Care); Daniel Isaacman, MD (Emergency Medicine), Flaura Winston, MD (Injury and Poison Prevention); Robert Cady, MD (Orthopaedics); Bruce Maddem, MD (Otolaryngology); William Engle, MD (Perinatal Pediatrics); Max Langham, MD (Surgery); Thomas Abramo, MD (Transport Medicine); and Craig Peters, MD (Urology). I believe that we have planned a full schedule of informative and educational Section activities at the Annual Meeting and hope that this abstract compendium/program guide will be useful to all attendees. As always, Section programs are open to all registrants, and you should feel free to move from one section meeting to another as topics of interest to you are presented throughout each day. Our sponsor for this project, Pasteur Merieux Connaught, concurs with the Academy that the continuing education of our members and allied health colleagues is of paramount importance. We appreciate the company's support in helping to bring this project to AAP members and PEDIATRICS subscribers. The abstracts will also be available on computer disk at the Annual Meeting at the Pasteur Merieux Connaught exhibit booth (Booth #809). We look forward to seeing you in Washington DC.