With the historic and record-breaking 75th AANS Annual Meeting still fresh in my mind, I find it easy to feel optimistic about the intertwined futures of neurosurgery and the AANS. While our profession currently is facing many ills, and the AANS is addressing them diligently at every level, the diamond jubilee celebration in April served as welcome reminder of the many facets of which our profession justifiably can be proud.
Almost all aspects of the meeting centered on neurosurgical education, an area in which the AANS excels. Among the new and successful aspects of this meeting were the new plenary session lecture named for the first woman AANS president, Louise Eisenhardt, and the expansion of the socioeconomic sessions from one to four days.
Reflecting on this gathering of colleagues — superlative individuals focused on obtaining the latest information and techniques that will help their patients — I am reminded of a AANS founder’s account, located in Fulton’s Cushing biography, of the first meeting in 1932: “[Cushing] then operated in the large amphitheater before the entire group, exposing a third-ventricle tumor through a transcortical incision and removing a large part of it.” Fulton noted that the patient was married a short time after her surgery and was “living and well with a family of two children” in 1945.
While the drama of the surgery at that first meeting is only echoed in today’s hands-on practical clinics, some things haven’t changed in 75 years: We still have the privilege of doing important, intellectually stimulating work that matters greatly to our patients and their families.
To enable the best of the best to continue performing at the highest level, the AANS today offers its members top-notch learning opportunities, including meetings, courses, and now four scientific journals. Two of the newer educational offerings are the Neurosurgical Online Learning Sessions and the Medical Student Summer Research Fellowships.
The Neurosurgical Online Learning Sessions, developed by the AANS and the Society of Neurological Surgeons, offer AANS and SNS members free and convenient courses in the cognitive core curriculum of neurosurgery. Designed principally for resident education, the 30-to-60-minute courses also can be a valuable learning tool for physician assistants, nurses, or neurosurgeons who wish to review areas they might not see regularly in their practice. Introduced as a pilot program, the early success of the online sessions bodes well for the future development of additional modules.
The AANS Medical Student Summer Research Fellowships seek to interest top medical students in neurosurgery careers. Students in the United States or Canada who have completed one or two years of medical school can spend a summer working in a neurosurgical laboratory mentored by a neurosurgical investigator who is a member of the AANS. In this, the program’s inaugural year, the AANS received an overwhelming amount of applications and awarded 10 fellowships, a number expected to expand to 15 next year.
As in neurosurgery’s early days, mentors play an integral role in attracting and retaining highly qualified physicians. Those who doubt this truth need only spend a few moments remembering their own training or reading colleagues’ reminiscences recorded in the AANS Bulletin’s “Inspirations and Epiphanies” features during the AANS 75th anniversary year. The AANS formalized mentoring in 2005 through its Resident Mentoring Program, which pairs residents with seasoned neurosurgeons who offer fresh perspectives on the practice of neurosurgery.
AANS neurosurgical education thus is concentrated on the core of members and now is broadened to medical students. To attract the greatest number of qualified candidates and to enhance the climate for practicing neurosurgery, educating the general public about the many ways neurosurgeons are helping patients also is necessary.
The 75th AANS Annual Meeting and the concurrent National Neurosurgery Awareness Week generated media attention that brought neurosurgery to a record audience of nearly 900 million people. Keeping positive messages about neurosurgery alive is important all year long, and individual neurosurgeons can further this cause by contributing patient success stories to the AANS public Web site, www.Neurosurgery Today.org and by taking part in local media opportunities. The AANS offers members media assistance in the Resources area of www.MyAANS.org and is planning more tools as well.
I am proud to say that in its 76th year the AANS is focused on and dedicated to its core mission of education. I hope you will plan now to join me for the premier educational event in 2008: the 76th AANS Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 26–May 1. The meeting will cap a year in which the AANS will work diligently to give neurosurgery reason for optimism.
Jon H. Robertson, MD, is the 2007–2008 AANS president. He is a practicing member of the Semmes-Murphey Neurologic and Spine Institute in Memphis, Tenn.