The Joint Section on Pain sponsored a well-attended and highly successful Satellite Symposium preceding the recent Annual Meeting of the AANS, entitled, “Interventional Therapies in Neurosurgical Pain Management.”
The Section is producing a CD-ROM of the symposium consisting of all the open session lectures during the two days. The speakers’ slides have been digitized and synchronized to the edited, audiotaped presentations. Slides can be enlarged and reviewed in as much detail, taking as much time as is needed to understand them best. This CD should serve as an excellent curriculum for pain neurosurgery for neurosurgeons with a general practice, for those with special interest in pain neurosurgery and for residents in every training program in neurosurgery. It will be ready for distribution in July and can be purchased through the Joint Section on Pain and the AANS.
At the Annual Meeting of the CNS in Seattle, the Pain Section will integrate a mini-symposium on pain management into the two afternoon sessions sponsored by the Section. Topics will include, “Pain Management in a Clinical Practice,” and “Neurosurgical Management of Chronic Pain.” The first session will focus on what is needed to design a successful pain practice and to evaluate the outcome of treatment. The second session will review basic considerations of pain, rational use of opioids, and applications of augmentative and ablative techniques.
Ali Rezai, MD, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada was awarded the William Sweet Young Investigator Award of the Joint Section on Pain at the AANS Annual Meeting for his paper on the treatment of central pain using deep brain stimulation. This award and the Ronald Tasker Award, offered during the Annual Meeting of the CNS, continues the Section’s commitment toward the career development of young neurosurgeons with interest in pain neurosurgery.
At the Annual Business Meeting, Ken Follet, MD, was re-elected to the position of Vice-Chair and Kim Burchiel, MD, to the position of Secretary-Treasurer. Richard Osenbach was elected to the Executive Council.