Criteria for Postgraduate Course Proposals

The following elements should be addressed in your proposal:

1. Courses must be presented in an organized and inclusive body of knowledge. Accepted concepts and information are to be provided, as opposed to presenting narrow research interests. It is encouraged that, whenever applicable, specific effort should be directed to integrating basic science and clinical aspects of the topic.
2. Chosen topics should meet current needs of the medical/scientific community, and deal with information of considerable interest to practicing physicians and/or biomedical scientists.
3. The scientific and educational content must include a review of knowledge, translation of research into practice, diversity of speakers and an international balance.
4. The ATS seeks diversity among faculty by institution, gender, ethnicity, career level, and international representation.
5. A planned program must include a complete agenda, clearly defined target audience, comprehensive needs assessment, proposed speakers, and lengths of talks.  It is not acceptable to list “speaker to be announced” or to include the name of a single speaker multiple times. Please be sure to include time for breaks and lunch.
6. As the proposer, you are required to review the ATS Privacy Policy and agree to allow the collection and use of your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Policy. You are further required to confirm that you have received permission from the proposed chairs and speakers to provide their personal information.
7. Perceived conflict of interest pertaining to any of the proposed faculty, including the proposed chair(s), must be disclosed consistent with the ATS COI Policy for Official ATS Activities and the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) requirements for accredited CME activities. If accepted, all chairs and faculty are required to complete an online COI disclosure of financial relationships, or no relationship, with commercial interests as defined by the ACCME. In addition, relationships with the tobacco industry or companies engaged in the manufacture, promotion and sales of a cannabis product consumable by inhalation must be disclosed in accordance with the ATS Policy on Tobacco Involvement and the ATS Policy on Association with the Cannabis Industry. Individuals disclosing a current (past 12 months) relationship will be ineligible to chair or present (Note: if relationship is limited to personal financial holdings, divestiture at least 30 days prior to the conference is permitted.)
8. Maintenance of Certification (MOC)
   It is important to ATS to award MOC points for selected Postgraduate Courses presented at the International Conference. You must indicate if the course should be included in the MOC module. If chosen, your course would be expected to provide a minimum of 12 questions based on session content. The chair will be responsible for facilitating this process.
9. Learning Methods: Various educational methods may be employed, including lecture, PowerPoint presentations, other audio-visual presentations, case presentations and live hands-on skills-based education. Case discussion, breakout sessions, and panel discussions are encouraged, when appropriate, rather than straight didactic lectures. All speakers must remain available for scheduled question periods. Demonstrations using live animals are subject to the rules and regulations of the convention center.

10. Special Set-Ups: If the course requires any special set-up, equipment, room layout or breakout rooms, you must indicate this on the proposal form. You must also indicate if the course will include the demonstration of equipment, outline the equipment and any supplemental needs on the proposal form.

    Special requests need to be approved by ATS staff on a case-by-case basis and may result in an increase in course registration fees to cover additional costs.

    Failure to include special room needs, equipment needs or audio-visual needs during the proposal stage may result in the rejection of the course.

11. Skills-Based Education: Course proposals that include a live hands-on practical-skills portion requiring the procurement of special equipment and supplies must provide a preliminary list of equipment needed, possible vendors, and the number of demonstration stations required in the proposal.

    IMPORTANT: The procurement of all equipment for hands-on skills-based education must be organized by the ATS. Course chairs and faculty are not permitted to make procurement arrangements.

    The review committees strongly recommend that courses incorporating a hands-on portion begin with the didactic lectures and offer the skills-based portion in the afternoon.  These courses should also have a maximum registration capacity of 60 attendees to ensure that each attendee will have an acceptable hands-on experience.

12. ATS seeks a diversity of topics at the International Conference and to minimize redundancies. Postgraduate courses held in conjunction with the International Conference should not duplicate sessions planned for the Conference and should have attributes unique to the needs of ATS International Conference attendees, rather than merely duplicate programs held at other venues. The ATS may also call for proposals covering special topics.
13. Course Cancellation:
    • The ATS reserves the right to re-review or cancel postgraduate courses where significant changes have been made in course content and faculty subsequent to acceptance.
    • The ATS reserves the right to cancel postgraduate courses that do not meet a minimum registration.
14. Accepted courses will be held at the convention center or headquarter hotel and room assignments will be determined by ATS. The ATS will not consider proposals for courses to be held at other sites.

Practical Skills Education
The chairs of Skills-Based courses are required to work with ATS staff to organize the course set-up and procure the appropriate equipment to be used at the course by supplying the following:

1. A detailed list of equipment along with a list of possible vendors
2. A floor plan of the skills-based stations
3. A description of each station including the faculty assigned to each station
4. The number of participants per station
5. The plan for station rotation

Chairs and faculty are expected to go over the skills-based program and layout and review the use of the equipment.

Enduring Materials
ATS may also arrange additional ATS CME enduring materials of Conference recordings and materials in the future. Uses may include, but are not limited to, archival copies for educational use, inclusion on ATS and affiliates’ websites, the creation of Online viewing, or other audio/video files, and public dissemination via distribution partners. ATS accepts educational grants from industry to support the production of these media as a means of disseminating educational content beyond the session itself.