On behalf of the Team at PRESENT e-Learning Systems, I’d like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. For those of you stuck in hospitals, emergency rooms, or operating rooms, I wish you double good wishes. Remember that the time you’re spending away from your families is incredibly generous. The time you’re donating to help other human beings in trouble and who, without your expertise and skill, would likely not do as well. You’re giving a true gift to another person.

For everyone else who has a chance to rest a little during this holiday season, I hope you’ll join me in thinking of all the wonderful things in our lives for which we have to be thankful.

I’d like to relate two things I’m most happy for this season.

Families

The first is my family. I’ll be spending this Thanksgiving with my parents and siblings and also with my wonderful wife Melissa (we’ve been married 20 years!) and my beautiful children Lazarus (13-years-old) and Lyra (7-years-old). Without them, I can honestly say I would be no one and would have accomplished nothing in life. Every time I walk out the door is a sad moment since I won’t see them for hours. And every time I come home is a new gift. To have my kids greet me at the door with hugs and smiles is always the highlight of my day.

---

“This Thanksgiving, join me in thanks for our Families and our Profession. We’re not perfect but we are great.”

---

I also have a second family of sorts: PRESENT e-Learning Systems. I’ve been honored to work with this group of dynamic people over the years that have done something wonderful for the podiatric profession by creating a successful educational system. I’ve had a busy year with these folks, after having lectured at four of their excellent conferences. As someone who has spoken at many podiatry conferences in the last couple of years, I can tell you I’ve been wonderfully taken care of with an attention to detail and camaraderie that demonstrates just how excellent my PRESENT family is. I have been the recipient of such wonderful generosity of spirit from everyone involved that I can honestly say I feel like family to them. Giant holiday hugs to my PRESENT family!

» A great big hug right back to you, Dr Shapiro, from the entire PRESENT family. It has always been such a pleasure to work with you and to know you. Here’s to an even better year ahead!

Our Profession

I’d also like to relate my thankfulness to our podiatry profession. We aren’t perfect, and we have a lot of growing to do, but podiatric medicine and surgery is a vibrant, necessary, and highly rewarding profession. I could never list all the ways this profession has positively affected my life, from monetary to personal to intellectual to social growth. I don’t know what kind of person I would have been if I had pursued another profession, but I’m all the better for having been part of podiatry. To all of you I’ve met and worked with over the years, and all of you I have yet to meet, I wish you a most Happy Thanksgiving and wonderful holiday season.

Best wishes.