CAHON Bylaws Revision - Membership Eligibility
April 18, 2025
As part of our ongoing efforts to support CAHON’s strategic goals for growth and engagement, we’ve been working to identify and remove barriers to membership recruitment and retention. This led us to take a closer look at our bylaws.
One key area of focus was the Associate Membership category. We recognized that the robust application process already ensures a strong commitment from applicants, making the requirement for annual renewal unnecessarily burdensome—especially for trainees. Moving forward, Associate Members will now be reassessed for membership based on their expected training completion dates (e.g., the end of residency or fellowship), rather than on an annual basis. This change required a formal revision to the bylaws, which was approved by the Board on October 4, 2024.
We also addressed some confusion surrounding the interpretation of a specific bylaw section. The original language stated that “Residents-in-training, U.S. medical students, and foreign medical graduates living in North America are eligible to apply to become Associate Members in the Network under the following conditions: i. Demonstrated commitment to enter a program in the field of Hematology...” To provide clarity, the Board approved a minor but important amendment. This change grants the Board the authority to define what constitutes a “demonstrated commitment” by specifying the required information during the application process.
The Allied Membership section of the bylaws has also been updated with additional language to clarify the career stages of individuals eligible for this membership category. These changes were approved by the Board on March 13, 2025.
You can view the full red-lined version of the bylaws revision since October of 2024 in the members-only section of the CAHON website: Bylaws (you will have to log in to view)
Finally, the Board also developed a detailed policy outlining the information that applicants applying for Associate Membership must provide during the application process, which has been incorporated into the membership section of the CAHON website: Membership Categories