Sonoma in January is peaceful, cozy, and crowd-free. With quiet tasting rooms, crisp winter scenery, and a relaxed pace after the holidays, it’s the perfect time to enjoy wine country at its most authentic — and it provides an ideal…
CEO Update, December 2025
The holiday specials fill you with hope and reflection. Even the Sound of Music (which I still do not understand the Christmas link) offers hope with Maria telling the children where one door closes a window opens — not to mention the whole dramatic climb over the Alps…. The holidays do help us reflect on what we have and what the possibilities are.
It reminds me how fortunate I have been in my career. To be able to work with brilliant, kind, and innovative people who put the organization and its members first is inspiring. I would like to think we bring out the best in each other. And this best builds to create some really great programming.
In January, the Board will convene their creative juices to take a reflective look at all our programs and member needs to figure out what is working, what needs tweak, and what can be developed. As the healthcare environment shifts, there is more opportunity for in office — from allergy services to in-office procedures. As you know, allergy can be a great practice builder helping to drive other ENT services and giving you more tools to help manage your patients ENT issues. Our Explorers Course (pre-work open now with the live component January 22-24 in Sonoma) takes deeper dives into allergy, inflammatory disease, and hot topics. Jennifer Villwock, MD, FAAOA, along with Jack Krouse, MD, PhD, MBA, FAAOA and their tremendous faculty have put together cutting edge content around environmental impact, autoimmune disease, rhinologic viome and biome, ocular allergies and more. This new program is a great way to bring new concepts into your practice.
From a cost perspective, early adopters of the AAOA’s Affinity program are saving upwards of 30% on antigen, combined with cost savings with more than 38 vendors through this new member benefit. Your leadership understands the practical challenges in medical practice today, and they have worked to bring you best in class pricing on antigen to help you reduce your overhead.
We also hear the challenges around staffing. Training is key to both their success and your success. Complementing our Basic Course, we are now offering our Educational Stacks to help you bring AAOA core concepts into your practice. Offering three modules twice annually, you can choose which modules best fits your needs — Adding Allergy, OnBoarding Staff, or Work Smarter, Not Harder. Sourced from our course curricula and Annual meeting, these modules give you up to 17.5 hours of CME for yourself or to help train staff.
As we turn the calendar page on a new year, it is exciting to see where the AAOA is and to see the opportunities ahead. Driven by your feedback, we will strive to continue bring you programs and resources to help solve your challenges. Congrats to 2025 and all the year brought us. Cheers to 2026 and all it can offer!
