North American Spine Society Committees
Hundreds of spine experts volunteer their time and expertise to serve on a variety of NASS committees. These committees, which oversee the various programs of NASS, are organized under the Board or one of several Councils:
- Board Committees
- Research Council Committees
- Education Council Committees
- Health Policy Council Committees
- Administration and Development Council Committees
View NASS Committee descriptions.
NASS Committee Fiduciary Duties
Members of NASS’ committees, Councils and Board are held as fiduciaries of the Society, meaning that their relationship to the Society is based on an understanding of confidence and trust. There are three fiduciary duties that volunteers have at NASS. These legal duties primarily apply to directors and officers, but can easily be extrapolated to any volunteer position. Broadly speaking, these fiduciary duties can be grouped into three categories:
Duty of Loyalty
A fiduciary must act in accordance with the interests of the organization, and not his own interests.
Duty of Candor
A fiduciary must not withhold information from the organization, particularly with respect to the fiduciary’s dealings with the organization.
Duty of Care
A fiduciary must act with some degree of care with respect to the organization. This is usually formulated as a duty to take the care that an ordinarily prudent person would in similar circumstances.
A variety of other duties, and legal doctrines, are subsumed in these three duties. For example, the duty of care includes a duty of confidentiality, ie, that the fiduciary will not disclose the organization’s information. The duty of loyalty includes the corporate opportunity doctrine. Also related is the Business Judgment Rule which provides that the decisions of a corporation’s board of directors will not be second-guessed unless a decision is self-interested (a violation of the duty of loyalty) or (more rarely) if the board acted in an imprudent manner (a violation of the duty of care).