The AANS’ Board of Directors approved the slate of 2001 officers presented by the Nominating Committee at their meeting Nov. 18 in Chicago. AANS members will vote on the slate at the Annual Meeting in April in Toronto.
Roberto C. Heros, MD, is slated as president-elect of the AANS, Volker K.H. Sonntag, MD, as vice president and Arthur L. Day, MD, as treasurer. The slated directors-at-large are Steven L. Giannotta, MD, L.N. Hopkins, MD, and Richard A. Roski, MD. The slated Nominating Committee members are Howard M. Eisenberg, MD, Robert L. Grubb Jr., MD, and Christopher M. Loftus, MD.
Stan Pelofsky, MD, president-elect and chair of the Long Range Planning Committee, announced that two members, Albert Rhoton Jr., MD, and Robert Maciunas, MD, have made significant contributions to support two new endowed Annual Meeting lectureships.
The Awards Committee announced that Julian Hoff, MD, will receive the 2001 Cushing Medal at the Annual Meeting in Toronto. Frank Smith, MD, and Donald Stewart, MD, will be jointly presented with the Distinguished Service Award. Robert Martuza, MD, will receive the 2001 Farber Award.
The Professional Conduct Committee presented two cases for review and action by the Board of Directors. Upon recommendation of the committee, the Board suspended one member, a Florida neurosurgeon, for six months for improper advocacy and for failing to present the broad spectrum of neurosurgical thought and practice in his testimony. In the other case, on the recommendation of the Professional Conduct Committee, the Board dismissed the charges against an Arizona neurosurgeon on the basis that the evidence did not establish a prima facie case of unprofessional conduct. In both cases, respondents had testified as plaintiffs’ experts in medical malpractice cases against other neurosurgeons.
Regarding membership:- Per sanctions specified in the Bylaws, the BOD approved dropping 105 members from the AANS membership in the U.S. Active and Associate and International Associate categories for non-payment of dues. A member can be dropped for failure to pay two years’ worth of dues-current and immediate past year dues. Members can be reinstated if the amount in arrears is paid.
- As part of the overall effort to recruit International members, the BOD directed the Membership Committee to identify ways to streamline and simplify the membership application process.
- The Board approved 527 new candidate (resident) members, 12 Active members, 30 Active Provisional members, 15 International Associate members and three Associate members, bringing the total organizational membership to 5,884.
- The Board approved changing the AANS resignation procedure to offer Lifetime member status to eligible resigning members. Also, the Membership Committee will contact a member to urge him or her to continue their membership. The Board also approved:
- a proposal to track CME credits for members only for CME activities sponsored or jointly sponsored by the AANS or sponsored by the CNS.
- a recommendation from the Coding and Reimbursement Committee that Jeffrey Cozzens, MD, be appointed as the AANS CPT Adviser in lieu of Richard Roski, MD. n Additionally, Samuel Hassenbusch, MD, will serve as the CPT Subcommittee Chair, also in place of Dr. Roski. Others are prepared to become advisers or alternates once Greg Przybylski, MD, moves over to the RUC in place of Robert Florin, MD. These members include Pat Jacob, MD, Jaime Metcalf, MD, and Michael Nosko, MD. The Board also approved:
- a request by the American Medical Association to include the AANS code of ethics in a Web-based database of codes of ethics.
- a position statement from the Section on Cerebrovascular Surgery on coiling aneurysms. The Section holds that there is not enough evidence to advocate either coiling or clipping but approves the FDA guidelines declaring that coiling is advised in very high risk or inoperable situations.
AANS Wins Major Victory in Court Case
On October 20, 2000, Judge Elaine Bucklo of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted the AANS summary judgment in the lawsuit brought by former member Donald C. Austin, MD. Dr. Austin had sued the AANS after the Professional Conduct Committee found that he had testified unprofessionally as a plaintiff’s expert in a medical malpractice case that permanence of a recurrent laryngeal nerve injury was necessarily the result of surgical negligence in an anterior cervical fusion procedure.
The Professional Conduct Committee recommended, and the Board of Directors concurred, that Dr. Austin be suspended for six months, and Dr. Austin’s appeal to the General Membership was denied by a vote of 194 to 5 at the AANS’ Annual Meeting in Denver in 1997. Dr. Austin resigned from the AANS and then filed litigation claiming that not only was he deprived of due process in the AANS proceedings but that the entire proceedings were improperly skewed against plaintiffs’ experts. Dr. Austin complained that the “unfair” disciplinary action by the AANS had caused his income as a plaintiffs’ expert witness to drop substantially, that his reputation was sullied and that he was entitled to damages as a result.
In granting the AANS summary judgment, Judge Bucklo ruled that “Dr. Austin received as much due process as anyone might hope for.” Russell Pelton, General Counsel for the AANS, who handled the matter throughout, stated that this was a major victory not only for the AANS but for all organized medicine as it reaffirms the right of an association to discipline its members for unprofessional conduct, including inappropriate testimony as a plaintiffs’ expert witness. Dr. Austin has decided to appeal this decision to the United States Court of Appeals.