Abstract
My focus in this President’s Corner is my visit to China at the end of March to attend the opening of the Headache Centre of the Chinese PLA General Hospital in Beijing, during which the Centre was accredited as an International Headache Society (IHS) International Headache Centre.
The PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Hospital has 4600 beds and cares for 14,000 outpatients per day; the neurology department sees around 1000 outpatients per day, many of those with headache. The China International Medical Foundation has initiated 31 local headache centres across China, the directors of which attended the inauguration ceremony and the day-and-a-half educational symposium in person. The lectures were also shown via video link to around 5000 physicians throughout China.
I had the clear impression that China is setting up a very good system of headache care, and future research is supported by the government. Epidemiological data on headache were recently collected, were reported at the meeting and will be published in the near future.
The opening of the centre follows the launch and first meeting of the new IHS Special Interest Group, the Asian Regional Committee for Headache (ARCH—also Asian Regional Conference for Headache), which was held during the International Headache Conference (IHC) in September 2009. The committee, chaired by Professor Fumihiko Sakai, comprises members from China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan, and all Affiliate Member Societies of IHS in the region of Asia are eligible to become members of ARCH.
The first ARCH Conference was held in November 2009 at Utsunomia, Japan, in conjunction with the Japanese Headache Society’s Annual Congress, and welcomed delegates from China, Korea, the Philippines and Japan. The conference was a half-day programme in which two speakers from each country presented an update of clinical and scientific research. The second ARCH Conference will be held in Seoul, Korea, in October 2010.
During my visit to China I met with the presidents of the Chinese Headache Society (Professor Shengyuan Yu), the Japanese Headache Society (Professor Fumihiko Sakai), the Korean Headache Society (Dr Kwang-Soo Lee), the Taiwan Headache Society (Dr Shuu-Jiun Wang) and the Singapore Headache Society (Dr Siow Hua Chiang). It became clear that one of the key disadvantages for Asian headache specialists is the limited amount of data and teaching materials available in their local language. The number of physicians outside of Singapore who speak English and read international journals is small; therefore, it is vital that IHS uses its international status to provide and disseminate quality research in these languages. Some countries already have information on headache in their national language on the Internet and IHS will establish internet links from the IHS website to these national websites.
Another important initiative is the establishment of a three-day headache school held in Asia, the first likely to be held in 2011, and IHS plans to assist and support this school and will arrange for key speakers to participate.
IHS accreditation of International Headache Centres is a new initiative, and the Chinese centre is the first centre to receive accreditation. We welcome proposals and applications from other centres worldwide; if your centre is interested, please contact us.
Hans-Christoph Diener MD, PhD