Abstract
The ARCH marching together with the IHS on the BOARDWALK
Professor Fumihiko Sakai (left) and myself at the time of the leadership switch in 2016.
As a new Co-opted member of the IHS Board of Trustees representing the Asian Regional Consortium for Headache (ARCH), I am pleased to share my visions with the readers of Cephalalgia. Considering that almost 60% of the world’s population lives in 46 Asian countries, I feel a great sense of responsibility for the problems of Asian headache sufferers. I became the president of the ARCH in 2016, after Professor Fumihiko Sakai – the founding president – who devoted himself to finding, fostering, and networking the headache experts in Asia. The official startup point of the ARCH was the first Japanese-Korean joint conference in Seoul, Korea, in 2006. Now the ARCH has 14 member countries, including 12 Asian – China, India, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, and two Oceanian – Australia and New Zealand. So, it is necessary to make efforts to bring more Asian countries to the forefront. I would like to share three of my visions on the Board Walk.
1. Raising awareness of headache in Asia
Many Asian countries have been suffering long-standing prejudices about headache disorders originating from their own cultural and historical backgrounds. But with the introduction of the ICHD Classification and new therapeutic modalities, nowadays there is an increasing requirement to enhance diagnostic accuracy for headache disorders in the Asian people and to provide them with opportunities for more proper management. To meet the requirements, headache disorders must be more widely recognized in the public as well as in medical fields. In addition, headache medicine and science must also be established more firmly in Asia. The ARCH will work with the IHS to solve these problems together.
2. Creating a platform to foster headache specialists and exchange their expertise in Asia
Since the inauguration, I have been preparing an internet-based communication platform and the official ARCH homepage is now just open with its brand-new logo (http://www.ARCH-Asia.org). The website will not only help us to share knowledge and expertise and to build up solid friendship among ARCH members but will also become an important tool for collaboration with the IHS. I hope to provide an open internet journal of Asian headache medicine in the near future. I would also like to have a more Asia-specific educational programme for the young people, like the Headache Master School.
3. Enhancing the partnership with the IHS
The ARCH members, including myself, are truly grateful to the IHS for sharing its human and financial resources for the ARCH activities. The 7th ARCH meeting, to be held in Seoul this November, will have a number of key figures, including Professors Lars Edvinsson and Messoud Ashina, the current and future presidents of the IHS. The financial support has also made it possible for many members from the economically difficult Asian countries to join the meeting. It is truly a fruitful investment for headache patients in Asia and in a bright future for the ARCH.
I would like to finish my Board Walk by quoting an African saying: “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, you have to go together”. Like the song, “Bridge over troubled water”, the joint action of the IHS and ARCH will serve as a strong BOARDWALK over many harsh headache issues ahead of us in Asia. The ARCH and IHS should march together forever!
Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
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From regional to global and vice-versa
I graduated from Tartu University’s Faculty of Medicine in 1999. After finishing my medical internship in 2000 and residency in neurology in 2006, I started working as teaching neurologist in Tartu University Hospital, where I moved up to the position of senior neurologist from 2014. In 2010, my PhD thesis was successfully defended.
My interest in the field of headache is longstanding. In 2011, I and my colleagues established the Estonian Headache Society (EHS); I was elected President and still hold this position today. EHS has now become recognized worldwide as a solid international partner contributing to advancing collaboration and focusing on regional developments. This work has led to positions of board membership in the European Headache Federation (EHF) and International Headache Society (IHS). I was honored to lead the IHS Task Force on a World Headache Day that preceded the now very successful project, the IHS Global Patient Advocacy Coalition.
My contribution to an international collaboration includes not only organizing regional (Baltic) events, such as the EHF’s European Headache Summer School, the IHS Visiting Professor initiative, and annual Baltic Headache Days in collaboration with the IHS, but also pan-European headache-related educational activities (EHF’s Congresses, the EHF School of Advanced Science).
My research concentrates on clinical headache topics. Cooperation with Lifting the Burden (the Global Campaign against Headache, in official collaboration with the World Health Organization) resulted in published scientific data. At the present time I lead young researchers, including PhD students, in their clinical headache-related projects.
Being appointed as a co-opted trustee of the IHS Board of Trustees was and is an honor, commitment and responsibility I accepted. Despite the considerable advances the IHS has achieved, there are regions that have to be more involved in IHS-related activities, such as Eastern European countries where there is a huge need for a substantially higher level of awareness and availability of diagnostic and treatment options. This region is also in need of research developments, from building up or enhancing the infrastructure to increasing appropriate motivation of present and new researchers. Bringing knowledge and research options to this region will not only expand the evidence we so often lack but also raise interest, bring in additional resources, and improve headache-related healthcare. The IHS has to play a major role in educating and attracting young colleagues, not only for those with a special interest in headache, but at a broader level, because headache is a large and often interdisciplinary field. The forthcoming International Headache Congress 2021 is planned to take place in Helsinki, Finland. Being geographically close to Eastern Europe, it will be a great opportunity for physicians and researchers from the region to present themselves to the field, and to each other – to get to know the IHS better and consider their membership in the IHS as valuable and mutually beneficial.
Tartu University Hospital, Tartu, Estonia
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