A letter from Peter Black, President of the WFNS
Dear Colleagues,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the
website of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies – www.wfns.org.
We are now a family of 109 member societies around the world; the “Executive Committee” tab on this website has the list of members. We are dedicated to increasing collegiality
among neurosurgeons everywhere, educating neurosurgeons of all countries and
trying to address the social inequities presently found in our specialty,
particularly in Africa, Asia, and Central America. Our complete mission statement can be found
under the tab “Mission Statement”.
Our leadership team for the next four years is
displayed under the tab “Administrative Council” ; it includes especially Hildo
Azevedo, our Secretary from Brazil; Miguel Arraez, our Treasurer from Spain; and Takeshi Kawase, our First Vice-President
from Japan.
We carry out our mission in several ways:
1) We
hold a World Congress of Neurosurgery every four years. The last one, in Boston in September 2009, was the largest
Neurosurgical meeting in history and a wonderful scientific and social
event. As a family of neurosurgeons, we
listened to the Boston Pops Orchestra, visited the
Kennedy Library, saw Boston,
and listened to and learned from more than 200 speakers from 80 countries. Dr. Jacques Brotchi, our WFNS President, Dr.
Roberto Heros, the Congress President, and Dr. Jacques Morcos, the Chairman of
the Scientific Program, were
particularly responsible for making this
Congress such a success.
We expect the next World
Congress will be even better. It will be
held in Seoul, Korea from Sept 8 to 13, 2013. Dr.
Hee-Won Jung, the President of that Congress, has selected a spectacular team
whose details can also be found on this website.
2) Through
our Education Committee, we give general neurosurgery education courses around
the world in developing countries; organized
by Dr. Atos de Souza from Brazil for the
past four years, these courses are living testimony to our commitment to
education in developing countries. Members
pay their own way to the country and spend two days discussing
neurosurgery. The list of the 40 sites
for the last four years is under the Education Committee tab. For the next four years Professor Yoko Kato,
the first lady professor in neurosurgery in Japan, will chair this Committee. We are already going to 10 different sites in
2010.
3) We
have a brand new journal called “World Neurosurgery” which will bring together
the science and social lives of neurosurgeons worldwide. Edited by Mike Apuzzo, the previous editor of
Neurosurgery, it is an exciting new venture for the WFNS and publishing will begin in January 2010. You
can learn more at
http://ees.elsevier.com/worldneurosurgery
(email: worldneurosurgery-L@usc.edu)
4) We
have the web site you are visiting now which contains our history, our mission,
and our future. Masterfully supervised
by Dr. Gail Rosseau, a neurosurgeon heading a group in Chicago, it contains a
world calendar of neurosurgical events, the documents that define us, committee
reports, a picture album, and a lot more.
It will soon have a worldwide list of neurosurgeons and on-line
self-learning modules. Stay tuned!
5) We
have scientific committees in all the specialties of neurosurgery which are
involved in developing continuing education programs, as well as giving
postgraduate courses themselves. They and their chairs are listed under
“committees”—if you are interested in serving on one, please notify the committee
chair or me.
6) We
have a particular interest in young neurosurgeons and in women in
neurosurgery. Our Young Neurosurgeons Forum has been very active under Dr. Rosseau and will now be chaired by Dr. Raji Mahmoud
from Nigeria. The Committee on Women in Neurosurgery (WINS)
includes women at all stages of neurosurgery training around the world. Professor Yoko Kato has chaired this Committee
in the past and it is now chaired by Dr. Ling Feng from Beijing, China.
7) Through our WFNS Foundation, we provide
education and equipment to neurosurgeons in developing countries. Dr. Armando Basso,
the President of our Foundation, has helped to
develop on-site training centers for African neurosurgeons in Rabat,
Morocco and Recife, Brazil; we also give
postgraduate training for 4 months in centers around the world. If you are interested in what these centers do
and how to apply for these fellowships, please see the fellowship section of
the web site.
The instruments we provide
include basic spine and cranial instrument sets from Aesculap, a high-speed drill from Aesculap, operating
microscopes from Zeiss, endoscopy
equipment from Storz, and shunts from Surgiware.
All of these companies have partnered with us to provide this equipment
for neurosurgeons in developing countries.
The website you are now reading
also contains the information for applying for such instruments.
8) We
have a number of other activities. During
his term of office as President, Professor Jacques Brotchi oversaw the creation
of an important code of ethics for neurosurgery with Dr. Felix Umansky’s help
from Jerusalem. We are now working towards having a textbook
of basic neurosurgery and we hope to eventually have self-learning modules on
the web. We hope to increase our work
especially with developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Central
America. We are planning to
develop a Partnership in Neurosurgery program to link up developing centers
with those already well developed.
Our Central Office is in Nyon, Switzerland,
just outside Geneva,
where Mrs. Jan Joseph, who has been with
the WFNS for more than 20 years, and her staff provide ongoing and careful
attention to our daily work. For
administrative questions, Mrs. Joseph can be reached at (janjoseph@wfns.ch).
Again, welcome to our
site. We hope you will find all the
information you may need there about “who we are” and “what we do”. If you have any questions about the web,
please contact Gail Rosseau (grosseau@cinn.org)
. If you have questions about the WFNS, please
feel free to contact Dr. Azevedo (azevedoh@uol.com.br)
or myself (peterblackwfns@gmail.com)
.
Best wishes,
Peter
Black President,
WFNS Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School
Peter Black
President, WFNS