The AANS/CNS Joint Section on Pediatric Neurosurgery is a thriving organization with hundreds of energetic and engaged active members and a popular and well-attended annual meeting. The section leadership engages members in volunteer and leadership roles in education, advocacy, research, mentorship and training. At the same time, finances have been a priority of the Executive Committee Pediatric Section for the past few terms. We have been working to build our reserves by carefully managing meeting expenses while enhancing partnerships with corporate sponsors and private entities to increase revenue. In addition to general fiscal responsibility, we have been working to enhance funding for research and education opportunities for our active members.
The Pediatric Section has two new committees aligned with innovation and industry. The Industry Relations committee partnered with KLS Martin in 2023 to offer the “Pediatric Section Innovation Challenge Grant,” in which the section matches a $10,000 grant from an industry partner to support early work toward developing innovations that could enhance the neurosurgical care of pediatric patients. The Industry Relations committee is also developing another funding opportunity to support early medical start-ups with neurosurgeon co-founders. The second newly formed Committee on Innovation and Technology’s Mission Statement reads: “The Committee on Innovation and Technology (CIT) is dedicated to advancing the use of innovative technology in the field of pediatric neurosurgery. The CIT seeks to develop and promote the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in improving clinical outcomes and patient care.” This committee is working on a number of project ideas and hopes to partner with industry to help support these initiatives:
- Development of an AI-based system to predict the risk of surgical complications in pediatric neurosurgical patients.
- Implementation of ML algorithms to aid in the accurate diagnosis of pediatric brain tumors based on radiological imaging.
- Development of a mobile application to improve communication and coordination between healthcare providers, patients and families during the perioperative period.
- Establish a data repository for video and imaging data which could be used for collaborative research in computer vision and machine learning.
In addition to our new committees working with industry partners, we have created a new committee (the Non-Profit Advisory Council) working to work with various non-profit organizations aligned with pediatric neurosurgical disorders. One such partner, the Meghan Rose Bradley Foundation, is supporting a $50,000 annual grant to support pediatric brain tumor research, facilitated through the pediatric Section Research subcommittee of the standing Education Committee. We anticipate awarding this $50,000 grant annually, starting this fiscal year.
The Pediatric Section has also been working with the NREF/AANS to promote, support and supervise several of the Honor Your Mentor Funds. Three of the funds are stewarded by the section. The A. Leland Albright HYM fund has achieved its funding threshold and has been actively disbursing funds to support the training of a neurosurgery resident in Kenya. The Sanjiv Bhatia fund has also reached its funding threshold, and has begun awarding an annual global travelling fellowship by selection of the International Relations Committee. The goal of the Bhatia fund is to support an international pediatric neurosurgery travelling fellowship or a pediatric epilepsy surgery travelling fellowship. The first awardee was announced at the AANS annual meeting in April 2023. The Jack Walker HYM fund is well over half-way to its funding goal, and the Peds Section continues to promote and solicit additional donations to these funds while helping to manage the disbursements.In addition to the NREF HYM funds, the Pediatric Section makes an annual contribution of $20,000 to support NREF young-investigator research grants and plans to continue to do so.
