Abstract
I am honored to become the 17th President of the International Headache Society and I ask for your support to make the next two years very special ones for our society at this transitional financial time in the world of Headache Medicine.
On behalf of the IHS, I want to thank Peter Goadsby for his excellent stewardship over the last two years. I learned from his effective style of leadership and he was quick to involve me in all significant ongoing programs of the IHS.
Having been closely involved with the IHS since the inaugural meeting in Munich in 1983, I have attended every meeting of the International Headache Congress save one. Some of my key mentors over the years have been Lee Kudrow, Jim Lance, Marcia Wilkinson, Ottar Sjaastad and Ninan Mathew. I have been a dedicated headache clinician for more than 34 years.
My main goal over the next two years is to greatly increase headache teaching and learning around the world during my term as President. To achieve that goal we need increased participation from headache specialists all over the globe. It is critical to have more interaction of major societies in their own countries and between members of societies in different countries, ideally under the umbrella of the IHS.
My involvement with the Education and Membership Committee of the IHS began when Marcia Wilkinson was Chairperson many years ago. I am so sorry that we lost Marcia this year at the age of 93, after many productive years in neurology and headache. She was a good friend of mine and my family, and a special mentor to me. I visited her in her cottage north of London often and usually took her for a pub lunch. I shall never forget her sharp wit, deep understanding of Headache Medicine, black sweater, quick step, smiling face and inviting personality in every circumstance.
Before becoming the President-Elect 2 years ago I had been the Chair of the Education and Membership Committee for several years. In recent years, this committee has started to foster headache education around the globe with in-person visits by headache specialists to many areas, including such diverse nations as China, Taiwan, Japan, Burma, India, Turkey, Finland, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, The Dominican Republic and others. We raised over $100,000 per year for our visiting professorship program, travel grants, clinical fellowships, Case of the Quarter, Core Curriculum and the expanding Online Learning Center. I hope to greatly expand the Visiting Professor program to 12 visits per year from our specialists to countries that request one. I would also like to help organize more country-wide headache symposia in those countries that do not usually have them.
Along with our friends at the American Headache Society and the Canadian Headache Society we have formulated a plan to continue the two recent, excellent IHS Headache Master Schools around the globe. The plan will be to do several Master Schools to train future leaders in headache in South American, Asia, Europe and North America. If we can secure the necessary funding we will do four programs a year for the next two to three years in those areas. Vincenzo Guidetti proposed this program when he was on the Board of Trustees and it really did not gain traction at that time. I helped to organize the first IHS Master School program with Carlos Bordini and Allan Purdy which ran for a year in Brazil and it was a resounding success. It brought into the IHS 200 well-educated South American headache leaders, mostly from Brazil. The second Masters School just had its inaugural meeting in Japan, lead by Fumihiko Sakai and Nori Suzuki. It boasts 150 participants from all over Asia in conjunction with the ARCH group, and has thus far been a resounding success. I will strive to keep these programs going. I consider that training young doctors around the world is the way to insure the future success of Headache Medicine.
The Online Learning Center was launched in December 2008 with generous financial help from Merck. It contains multiple downloadable slide sets prepared by headache specialists from many countries. We have slides in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French. The site also contains all chapters from a popular case-based headache text and other headache textbooks (e.g. Advanced Therapy of Headache and The Headaches). We are continually adding new material for our members. But we need more of you to contribute one or two slide sets. Please send a slide set you would like to share to me or to Guus Schoonman.
We hope to re-launch the excellent Case of the Quarter, featuring a case report representing a specific type of headache paired with several recently published articles on the same topic available for downloading by IHS members. This is an interactive program set up by Allan Purdy that presents a patient’s history to the members who have signed up and asks questions of the participants. Many emails go back and forth between participants and the case consultant as we try to make this very interactive. Our previous programs kept the participants down to a small number. We will strive to increase the number of participants and still keep it valuable to all.
On the Membership side we have had an increase in members (from 700 to over 1200), many of whom are paying lower fees as they access Cephalalgia online now, not in print. Interestingly. we have not lost any membership fee income in spite of the fact that many are paying lower fees. That is because the number of new members has increased dramatically. We have increased the number of IHS affiliated societies, in which everyone who joins the local society automatically joins the IHS (such as the Brazilian, Italian, Danish, English, Estonian and Japanese Headache Societies). My plan is to add lots of new countries and new members because all doctors interested in headache treatment should be involved in the IHS. I have a plan that should add 200 members from India, now that the Indian Neurological Society has joined the IHS.
For the first time in many years we are offering both a Clinical and a Research Fellowship, which will be available to any junior member worldwide to work and study at any IHS affiliated Headache Center of his or her choice.
ICHD-3 beta is now available online and all clinicians should use it and do field-testing to confirm the validity of the new diagnostic criteria. In three years, after some minor changes, it will become permanent.
Having traveled frequently to Europe, South America and Asia, I am personally acquainted with hundreds of headache specialists worldwide. My hope is to pull them together to continue to advance the work of my predecessors in positioning the IHS as the renowned and effective organization envisioned at its launch in Munich 28 years ago. Everyone involved in Headache Medicine throughout the world, whether in or out of a national society, should be actively involved in the IHS, working on committees, teaching and learning.
Together let us help to expand our membership extensively, work to make the IHS prosper and be the leader in headache education around the world. We want to help and be helped by all local societies to spread the word about headache. After all, our business here is simply teaching and learning about headache.
Sincerely,
President The International Headache Society
Clinical Professor of Neurology The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Los Angeles, California, USA
Founder and Director-Emeritus The New England Center for Headache Stamford, Connecticut, USA
Board Certified in Neurology and Headache Medicine
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