Abstract
Full speed ahead
Dear Colleagues,
It is an immense privilege for me to assume the role of President of the International Headache Society (IHS). I do it with gratitude for the faith bestowed on me by the Membership, enormous enthusiasm for a cause to which I have dedicated most of my life, vivid emotion and a strong sense of responsibility for the importance of the role.
The past two years have been hard for the entire world, and for the 2019-2021 IHS Board the road has started uphill. And yet I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work and learn from these brilliant, visionary, hardworking leaders who, supported by the strong and illuminated guidance of Messoud Ashina, strived relentlessly and successfully to achieve their goals and to make IHS even stronger and more respected in such difficult times. To them goes all my admiration and gratitude for handing me a Society that is scientifically solid, politically authoritative and financially prosperous.
Yes, IHS is a strong, independent Scientific Society. This is the result of the vision and dedication of those who preceded me, those who, in four decades (IHS was founded in 1981), have worked together and sequentially to bring headaches from an almost neglected area of medicine to a respected and stimulating field of science. Today, IHS is a modern and strong scientific society that has been ahead of times in many ways: its international outreach, the importance of multidisciplinarity in research and in the care of affected people, the attention to young scientists, the recognition of the role of women in science with a female President (the late Marcia Wilkinson) already in the 80s.
Much has been done, which needs to be carefully preserved, but the ‘headache people’ are an energetic and brilliant community that wants and deserves more. The rate of scientific publications on headaches in peer-reviewed, top-class, scientific journals has indeed increased progressively over the past years, even through the COVID-19 pandemics. This has been paralleled by a progressive improvement in patients’ care, but also an unrelenting and growing effort in the field of basic research.
We cannot stop and we do not want to stop! Several important objectives are ahead of us and at reach, if not in the next two years, definitely in the long term, if properly planned. The migraine pathophysiological puzzle is far from being solved. Further research is strongly needed to finally complete it, thereby bringing additional effective therapeutic options to patients. To this end, it is also vital to prepare and nurture new generations of clinicians and scientists. The recognition of migraine among the highly disabling chronic conditions is fundamental to attract research resources for scientists and for improving the care of people affected; to this end, it is important to engage and sensitise stakeholders and decision makers, also liaising with other scientific societies and patients’ associations. Increased focus on neglected primary headaches and on selected secondary headaches is needed to expand the IHS field of action. Inclusivity and gender equality are key to foster wider access to headache science and headache medicine, and to ultimately improve the lives of those living with headache across the world.
All this can be accomplished with a collaborative effort from scientists and clinicians, an effort that will also need to include the patients’ perspectives. IHS is positioned for this global leadership opportunity with its growing membership, with over 50 affiliated national societies and the close collaborations with strong supranational entities such as ARCH (Asian Regional Consortium for Headache), AHS (American Headache Society), and EHF (European Headache Federation). IHS has already produced multiple examples of its role as a global guidance in the field of headache (Classification, Clinical Trial Guidelines, iHEAD, just to mention a few) and it is important to continue down this road
IHS needs to focus on the roadmap to achieve these objectives and to put in place the required strategies. To this end, the new Board will meet, hopefully in person, in January for a strategic planning where people, priorities and resources will be framed into an operative implementation plan.
The global leadership needs the input from all the different “worlds” that live inside the IHS, to be effective and representative. For this reason, your help, collaboration, and guidance will be of the utmost importance in supporting the work of the Board. I welcome and encourage all of you to express your point of view and suggestions that will be collected in a dedicated mailbox (cristina4IHS@gmail.com) that I expressly created for this purpose.
Thank you