President's Column
Read archives from AAN Past President Orly Avitzur, MD, MBA, FAAN, who served from May 2021 to April 2023.
September 2022
The Wide World of Neurology
Over the course of my tenure as a writer for Neurology Today®, I have had the privilege of interviewing countless international members. Their knowledge and experience has helped me appreciate diverse health systems and has guided me to concepts which would be applied to my work as a member, and later chair, of the Medical Economics and Management Committee. I sometimes met those colleagues in times of crises, like after an earthquake which left Pakistan devastated, and an economic collapse that caused Greek neurologists to struggle with procuring basic services and medications for their patients. Their dedication to neurology under duress was steadfast and inspired me in my practice here. I was repeatedly struck by how our common bond in neurology made our differences in backgrounds seem small and our connection immediate and strong.
Nearly one in four American Academy of Neurology members now resides outside the United States. In the past two years alone, I have spoken to members in Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and many other countries, to ask how COVID-19 has affected their patients and to hear about their challenges as neurologists. Several expressed interest, and ultimately joined our committees, despite time zone differences that have made participation arduous, and daily work demands made even more taxing by extra burdens created by the pandemic. I have consistently learned from those interactions but never was it so urgently needed as in March of 2020, when neurologists in Australia, Spain, and France provided us with early insights on the presentation and treatment of COVID-19 patients who were tragically filling their intensive care units. Since that time, the pandemic has served to emphasize that many public health issues are interwoven and that we benefit most from working together.
It has long been the tradition of the AAN to build relationships with our counterparts in neurology in other parts of the world. We have had a close association with the World Federation of Neurology (WFN) and have enjoyed participating in World Brain Day and other WFN international activities. Recently, I traveled to the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) meeting in Austria where AAN CEO Mary Post, MBA, CAE, and I met with leaders from several countries and discussed brain health and other topics of mutual concern. It was our good fortune that Vienna is home to the president of the WFN, Prof. Wolfgang Grisold, a gracious host—and 2004 graduate of the AAN’s Palatucci Advocacy Leadership Forum—who introduced us to Viennese culture and sites and to his family and colleagues.
During that trip, I also met with Prof. Paul Boon, the newly elected president of the EAN, and engaged in a productive discussion about how our two organizations can work together on subjects of shared interest. We currently offer a joint membership with the EAN which we hope can be enhanced by cross-attendance at our annual meetings. I look forward to future collaborations to benefit both our associations’ members.
Later this year, I plan on speaking at the 18th Asian Oceanian Congress of Neurology and 29th Annual Conference of the Indian Academy of Neurology in New Delhi. India comprises the second largest number of international members at the AAN. I hope to meet delegates of their subsections during the conference and learn more about global neurology. Our two organizations have been meeting annually for many years and enjoy exchanging ideas regularly.
Along with the time and effort involved in building and maintaining these vibrant relationships, our Academy delivers crucial financial assistance and badly needed resources. For several years, the AAN has provided financial support for trainees participating in the Regional Training Course presented by the EAN and African Academy of Neurology (AFAN) and held annually in conjunction with the AFAN Congress. The AAN pays for the travel expenses for an AAN faculty representative to teach at the course and attend the congress.
We also give International Scholarship Awards to dozens of bright, young medical students from around the world, so they can attend our Annual Meetings. This eye-opening experience puts them in proximity of many of our leading neurologists and provides knowledge and passion they can bring back home and share.
The Academy, along with its publisher, Wolters Kluwer, provides access to Continuum® as an enduring reference and source of education to neurology professionals in 49 World Bank-classified low- and low-middle-income countries in collaboration with the WFN as its distribution partner. Continuum has paid subscribers in 92 countries. Our flagship science journal Neurology® receives 65 percent of its manuscript submissions from outside the US. The journal also publishes Argentinian and Japanese editions edited locally by Ricardo Reisin, MD, and Nobutaka Hattori, MD, PhD, respectively. Our popular Brain & Life® en Espanol web page can be accessed by Spanish-speaking people anywhere, while the quarterly Spanish-language print edition is also shared by US neurologists with patients and their caregivers.
But no matter what language you speak or where you call home, our focus as neurologists is on the health and safety of our patients. This September 17 marks World Patient Safety Day in which the World Health Organization is calling for global solidarity and concerted action by all countries and international partners to improve patient safety; this year’s focus is on medication. As I wrote in the May President’s Column, Ukraine is experiencing a severe shortage in neurologic drugs and several of our members are engaging in efforts to send antiseizure medications and other supplies there. Since then, I have heard from more of you—with and without ties to the region—who are raising funds to send more packages. I know how much that means to our members who live in Ukraine who continue to care for patients with neurologic conditions.
One such AAN member from Kyiv, whom I met at the EAN meeting where she had been invited to present a paper, remarked on how quiet and peaceful the streets of Vienna were and how surreal it was to experience such calm after over 125 days of war and violence. She also shared how she takes one day at a time, and no longer focuses on an uncertain future. Her duty, she says, is to serve a hospital with few remaining neurologists. Perspectives from international members like her are often similarly grounding and help me acknowledge what is important to an organization like ours: providing quality care to people with neurologic conditions and respecting each other as members of a large, diversely wonderful world with a singular love of neurology.
Orly Avitzur, MD, MBA, FAAN
President, AAN
oavitzur@aan.com
@OrlyA on Twitter