In its 70th year the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons showed itself once again as a preeminent neurosurgical event. From April 6 to 11, 2002, Chicago’s McCormick Place on the shores of Lake Michigan was the primary site where the elements of science, practical information, technology, entertainment, and conviviality coalesced into “AANS: Speaking Out.”
The event attracted the second highest attendance in AANS history: 6, 619 participants-2,971 of them medical registrants. In addition, 209 companies set up shop in the exhibit hall, with more than 3,000 of their staff available to display and demonstrate the latest in medical technology and information at 669 exhibits.
“AANS: Speaking Out” focused on legal and ethical issues facing neurosurgeons, issues surrounding difficult and controversial cerebrovascular cases and state-of-the-art transplantation, and introduced a special program on the neurosurgeon’s role in mass casualty situations. The “Speaking Out” theme developed out of the belief that “neurosurgeons can and should lead national debates about contemporary issues affecting our specialty and practice,” as Stan Pelofsky, MD, the 71st AANS president, and William A. Friedman, MD, the 2002 Annual Meeting chair, noted in their welcome.
As always, the big attraction was the bedrock scientific program, spearheaded by Scientific Program Chair Ralph G. Dacey, Jr., MD. This year’s program featured 38 practical clinics, 77 breakfast seminars, 125 oral presentations in 10 sessions and 540 poster presentations.
Media Helps Get Neurosurgery Message to the Public
The meeting also attracted the media. Eight media releases focusing on scientific topics of interest to the general public piqued the media’s interest in AANS and the neuroscience research presented at the meeting. The media responded with stories published in trade publications and newspapers and on national television, radio stations, online publications and newswires across the United States and overseas. On-site reporters experienced an in-depth look at the full scope of neurosurgery through face-to-face interviews with AANS members, as well as opportunities to hear presentations from world-renowned neurosurgeons and researchers. Notable media covering the meeting included: the Washington Post; Reuter’s Health; London Free Press, London Telegraph; International Herald Tribune (Paris); Globe and Mail (Toronto); American Medical News; BBC Online; Boston Globe and Muzi Lateline News (China).
In addition, nearly 50 AANS members participated in free, one-minute hometown radio interview sessions offered during the meeting. Each member’s neurosurgical message was broadcast to two or three radio stations in each of his or her own hometowns. The interviews were broadcast on over 1,300 radio stations nationwide, with a combined total audience of over 22.3 million listeners, helping to hone the public’s favorable impression of neurosurgery.
Several AANS members additionally participated in media training sessions held during the meeting. The sessions covered the basics of how to become effective advocates by developing and staying with a message and learning what attire and movements add to and detract from the message. Guided by an experienced media consultant, participants were able to practice interviewing on camera to prepare for “speaking out” on behalf of neurosurgery.
Two Firsts Add Luster to a Stellar Event
Two additions to the 2002 Annual Meeting further enhanced the scope of the event.
For the first time the AANS invited an international neurosurgical society to take part in the meeting. The Société de Neurochirurgie de Langue Française participated in a symposium on April 5 that initiated the scientific program. Chaired by Gail L. Rosseau, MD, who moderated the educational event with Yves Keravel, SNLF president, the program featured 15 speakers and was attended by 80 AANS and SNLF members. Dr. Keravel remarked that the symposium was a good example of collaboration and looked forward to future fruitful collaboration between the AANS and SNLF.
On the entertainment front, world-renowned performer Ray Charles took the stage in a benefit concert for the Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation. More than the audience of nearly 1,500 benefited from the consummate entertainer’s performance: research and education were the real winners, with concert proceeds helping to fund NREF fellowships.
AANS 71st President Sets the Tone for the Meeting
Dr. Pelofsky used the platform of his presidential address to speak out against alienation and promote the importance of interconnectivity and human values in the neurosurgical profession. In an artful presentation titled “The Voice of Art of the Art of Medicine,” he drew upon the paintings and writings of Vincent Van Gogh and other visual artists, as well as darkly humorous film clips from Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” to illustrate his theme.
Van Gogh, Dr. Pelofsky noted, was not a privileged man in the common sense, but in an uncommon sense that has to do with expressing an honest human voice. He said, “Van Gogh’s paintings and letters reveal a complexity and spiritual depth that I will metaphorically call the ‘Voice of Art.’ ” He urged those who enjoy the privilege of being neurosurgeons to call upon that voice in their lives and in their work as a base for being able to fully connect with patients. “Science and technology are meaningless unless placed within a human context,” he said.
While being a neurosurgeon may be a privilege, working daily with the risk to patients of injury or death can be lonely, while the same technology that allows neurosurgeons to help patients can serve also as a tool of alienation, he said. Dr. Pelofsky used Woody Allen’s character, Mickey Sachs, to portray both the portrait of a person who is afraid of facing death but who must face it when he is told he has a brain tumor, and the unnecessary anxiety that Sachs experiences as a result of his doctor’s unwitting insensitivity.
Sachs eventually finds that he is in fact physically healthy, but he experiences difficulty returning to his old life. “If he returned to the life he had before without reordering his values, he would succeed in distracting himself for a while, but he wouldn’t find the meaning he so desperately needs,” explained Dr. Pelofsky. “By the same token, if we left this scientific meeting thinking only of science and technology and not of our own humanity, we would fail our patients and our profession.”
Raina Pelofsky introduced her husband with an original videotape that documented his life and career from his early years in Brooklyn to his current practice with Neuroscience Specialists, of which he is president, and Oklahoma Spine Hospital, the planning and construction of which he has been a driving force.
World Events Influence Two Special Speakers
Recent world events, particularly the tragedy of Sept. 11, influenced the subject matter of two special speakers. In keeping with the meeting’s “Speaking Out” theme Cushing Orator Benazir Bhutto and Richard C. Schneider Lecturer Patrick J. Kelly, MD, brought their individual perspectives, based on their respective personal histories, to discussion of a post-Sept. 11 world.
Benazir Bhutto: Cushing Orator Speaks Out on the Need for Leadership in a Dangerous World
A standing ovation greeted Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, at the 70th AANS Annual Meeting in Chicago. The Cushing Orator spoke to a full house at McCormick Place’s Arie Crown Theater, directly addressing the Sept. 11 tragedy from her unique perspective.
“Don’t let the horror [of terrorism] distract you from being a beacon of freedom,” she implored. She stressed that terrorism is a corruption of Islam, which she said is committed to tolerance and equality: “It grieves me that included in the list of innocent victims of the perfidy of Sept. 11 is the image of Islam across the world.”
She provided a historical context for terrorism, including her personal experiences on the front lines of democracy not only during her terms in office, but as the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who led Pakistan in the 1970s and was hanged in a military coups. “The world walked away from Afghanistan, sowing the seeds of tragedy through the Taliban,” she said.
Elected Pakistan’s prime minister twice, in 1988 and 1993, Bhutto-educated in the West at Harvard and Oxford-was both the first woman and youngest chief executive to lead a Muslim nation. Bhutto said that while she was in office she closed sham schools and universities that cloaked the Taliban agenda, restored law and order, and had terrorists on the run such that “they were unable to plan a single act of internal terrorism during my two terms as prime minister of Pakistan.”
She offered some alternatives to the path of destruction upon which the world finds itself today, as well as a glimpse of the fundamental principles and values that sustain her in her quest for freedoms for Pakistan. A key initiative is building bridges of understanding, in the broad sense between East and West and developing and developed nations, and closer to home for her, between Pakistan and India, which were on the brink of war over Kashmir as she spoke. Her dream, she said, is to create a free-trade zone between Pakistan and India, as well as other countries in Southeast Asia.
In a brief interview following her talk she discussed some of her ideas in more detail. She stated that global politics is interwoven with healthcare and noted that the healthcare delivery system in Pakistan is very poor at the moment. To offer people choices she said she would like to deregulate Pakistan’s hospitals to open up the private sector and establish private health insurance. She advocated measures that could improve the country’s healthcare delivery, including reallocating some military dollars to healthcare and encouraging some of the many Pakistani doctors to return to Pakistan.
Echoing Dr. Pelofsky’s premise that a base of strong values and a meaningful connection to humanity are essential to success as a person and as a professional, Benazir Bhutto credited her faith, the ethics reinforced by the convent school she attended, and the lessons she learned from her father-among them that life offers one chance to lead, to serve humanity dedicated to a larger objective-as anchors in her own life. And she acknowledged passion-“all consuming passion that drives one to go beyond the call of duty, to go the extra mile”-as a force that further sustains her in trying times.
Dr. Kelly’s Vietnam Tale Hits Home for Many
Richard C. Schneider Lecturer Patrick J. Kelly, MD, was inspired by the Sept. 11 tragedy and ensuing war on terrorism to try on his Vietnam-era uniform. When his daughter, catching him in the act, asked about his campaign ribbons, he found himself trying to explain the concept of war. The rest is history: “Vietnam 1968-1969: A Place and Year Like No Other,” is his personal memoir of one year that defined the rest of his life. “There has never been any other time in my life that I felt I did as much good as I did that year,” he said.
In a presentation intercut with the sites and sounds of the time-helicopter rotors beating the air; Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”; a young Vietnamese girl, clothes burned from her body, running down a road-and interwoven with history, Dr. Kelly pulled no punches in recounting his Vietnam experience. “Sin is the cause of all wars, but war itself is amoral; I never understood this until Vietnam,” he said.
With a telling quote attributed to Hippocrates visible on the screen-He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war-Dr. Kelly said, “I wanted to be a surgeon … I volunteered for Vietnam.” He joined as a general medical officer and was stationed at National Support Activity Station Hospital in Da Nang, where he said there were 14,000 operations in the year he was there, and 95 percent of those who arrived alive survived.
Of his first day in triage he remembered, “I had never felt so useless in my entire life, but uselessness motivates you to do better and teaches you humility and to be willing to learn.” He said his residency after Vietnam seemed tame in comparison.
He summarized: “We as neurosurgeons do what we’ve been trained to do: We take care of [patients] to the best of our ability and we are stronger for our experience as neurosurgeons and as people.”
AWARDS AND HONORS
Cushing Medalist Edward R. Laws, Jr., MD, was honored with the AANS’ highest award, the Cushing Medal. “Each of us who has enjoyed life and work as a neurosurgeon enjoys common sources of sustenance: teachers, colleagues, and families … I’ve been incredibly blessed,” he said.
The Cushing Medalist is recommended by the AANS Awards Committee from nominations submitted by voting AANS members and selected by the Board of Directors for displaying unparalleled and distinguished service to the entire field of neurosurgery. Dr. Laws was noted as the only neurosurgeon to achieve the “neurosurgical triumvirate,” having served during his career as the president of the AANS, Congress of Neurosurgical Societies, and World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. During the Annual Meeting, Dr. Laws also delivered the Hunt-Wilson Lecture.
2002 Distinguished Service Awardee John A. Jane, MD, PhD, said, “It makes me proud to be a member of this organization,” upon receiving the award from 71st AANS President Stan Pelofsky. Dr. Pelofsky cited Dr. Jane’s 10 years as editor of the AANS Journal as one of the many accomplishments of an “amazing man.” He explained, “One earns this weighty distinction through years of exceptional and dedicated service to our association. [Dr. Jane] has gone beyond the highest expectations of service to the organization.” The Distinguished Service Awardee is chosen by the AANS president with consent of the Executive Committee.
Volker K.H. Sonntag, MD, presented the 2002 Humanitarian Award to Edgar M. Housepian, MD, in grateful acknowledgement of Dr. Housepian’s extensive volunteer work with the Armenian Academy of Science and particularly for his relief efforts following the Armenian earthquake of 1988. “Neurosurgeons all are generally self-motivated,” said Dr. Housepian. “They say they’re going to get it done, and they do. For this reason I never have considered any of my extracurricular activities as warranting special recognition.” The Humanitarian Award is presented to an AANS member for activities outside the art and science of neurosurgery that bring great benefit to mankind. Nominations for the 2003 award are being accepted by Oct. 15, 2002. Contact Adriane Lewis at AANS for information.