Dear Colleagues,

As we approach the holiday season, allow me to recap some of the highlights of 2022 for us in TID.

COVID-19 is now in its third year, and even as the virus evolves, our approach to the virus in the setting of transplantation has evolved. TID Council worked hard to bring about an updated COVID-19 guidance on our website. Do take a look at it – we have developed, based on the published data, new criteria for donor and recipients suffering or recently recovered from COVID-19. We are aware that different populations have different takes on the risk that the virus presents, and we have tried our best not to be didactic. Nevertheless, we have come up with a consensus, so please feel free to base your hospital/departmental guidance on the write-up.

Even as the SARS-CoV2 virus continued to show off its flexibility and resilience, a new virus emerged – monkeypox. As it extended its reach, its possible impact on transplantation was not lost on TID Council. Hence we came up with a guidance document. Once again, we are aware that the risk appetite is different in different centres (and changes in our patients as their clinical circumstances change). But we noticed the paucity of data on monkeypox in the field of transplantation, and thought that a consensus achieved by an international panel would help you on the ground.

Council has continued to work hard to provide educational materials for our members. We have had six Clinicopathological webinars (CPC’s) this year. Maricar Malinis, Wanessa Clemente and Stephanie Pouch deserve heaps of praise for putting these together – it takes a lot of work and all of us on Council are grateful for their amazing dedication.

Council would also like to thank everyone for joining the TID Virtual 2022 on Nov 16 and 17. Many thanks to Cameron Wolfe for helming this year’s effort; there were twenty-two international speakers who shared their expertise and virtually overloaded us with information.  We are happy to report that over 400 individuals attended the sessions. The recordings are now available online for the CPC’s and for TID Virtual 2022 for all TID and TTS members. Visit www.tts.org/tid

A full program lies ahead for us in 2023. We will partner with the International Heart and Lung Transplant Society (ISHLT) in their webinar in February, and we will co-badge a symposium at the International Pediatric Transplant Association (IPTA) in March. We will hold TID 2023 live in Adelaide, Australia as a pre-congress event at the annual meeting of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases, and we hope many of you will be able to join us. We will also have a live symposium in Hong Kong at the Congress of the Asian Society of Transplantation in August. Do participate in these activities, and kindly promote them to your colleagues.

We will be holding Council elections in the spring of 2023. As you can see, the TID Council has been active and will continue to provide our members with the perks of membership, so, if you feel you can contribute, be sure to ask your colleagues to nominate you to join us on Council. You can influence the direction in which we should develop.

As physicians, we’ve all worked very hard, so it’s time to unwind. On behalf of Council, may I wish all of you a happy December.

Sincerely,