Presidential address 2005: peace-making is the answer: spiritual valorization and the future of our field.

The address given by each president of the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) is an opportunity to summarize the most important things one has learned in a career that culminated in the presidency of AAMR. It is also an opportunity to offer some advice about how to deal with the challenges of the present and future. My focus here is not on my professional journey as a physician and a child neurologist, nor will I review my research on carnitine deficiency and the treatment of epilepsy in persons with disabilities. I focus instead on my spiritual journey as a caregiver for individuals with disabilities and their families and share what I have learned so far from them and from others in our field. The great joy one gets from being in this multidisciplinary professional association (AAMR) is the chance to transcend one’s own field (in my case, medicine) and to learn from people in many other diverse fields. Thus, I now know a little bit about a lot of things that I have learned from sharing with others in AAMR for the past 23 years. My intent here is to synthesize a variety of themes (some of which I know more about than others) into a coherent message that can be useful to us now and to those who will come after us.