Abstract
IHS in transition
It is now more than 4 years that I have had the honour of serving the International Headache Society (IHS) as Honorary Secretary (also called General Secretary). This has been a very active time, seeing some important changes in the work of the IHS. As Secretary, it is my job to deal with the ‘daily business’ of our society. This means a lot of email conversations all over the world and discussing new projects in close cooperation with the President and with Carol Taylor, the society’s administrator.
One of the most important developments in the last 4 years was the educational programme of the IHS. Several initiatives have been created; among others, Headache Master Schools, iHEAD meetings, support of the ARCH meetings, Visiting Professorships and grants for young colleagues to visit congresses and research facilities. Thanks go to many members of the IHS and, in particular, to Guus Schoonman, who initiated several of these campaigns as former Chairman of the Education Committee. These educational initiatives are mainly addressed to particular regions of the world where headache medicine is still in at its beginning (i.e., East Asia, South America and even Sub-Saharan Africa is considered for future activities). In summary, the IHS has become more global and international.
Another development is that the IHS has become an increasingly professional organisation. We made new contracts with SAGE (publisher of Cephalalgia), with our administrator, with the Migraine Trust (handling our finances) and we modernised our Articles and Bylaws. I think that we have also reached the point at which the IHS can only increase its activities with more professional co-workers.
All of these activities cost money, and the income of the IHS has not been increasing over the past years due to a lack of financial support from pharmaceutical companies. New strategies have to be developed in order to increase our income again (e.g. educational grants from companies).
I am looking forward to continuing this work for at least another 2 years together with the new President David Dodick and with Carol. So, any questions or ideas can be forwarded to me (email: everss@uni-muenster.de), and I will be happy to help.
Stefan Evers
University of Münster and Krankenhaus Lindenbrunn, Germany Email:
Building the IHS's future – supporting IHS trainees
It is with great pleasure that I am reporting on the activities of the Trainees and Residents Special Interest Group (SIG), also known as the Juniors’ Committee. I have been chairing this active IHS group for the past 4 years, and with the rest of my colleagues at the SIG, we aim to support IHS trainees so that we can build the headache experts of tomorrow and a better future for the IHS. We aim to promote training opportunities for junior members of the IHS, as well as offering networking opportunities and collaborations among the junior members of the IHS, while building bridges between trainees and established headache experts.
Our committee has traditionally offered a number of travel grants to trainees for attending international congresses. In recent years, we managed to increase the available budget for this purpose, and we are now in a position to offer a larger number of grants. For the International Headache Congress (IHC) 2015 in Valencia, we supported approximately 30 trainees, half of which came from developing countries. We envisage that we shall be offering as many grants for the European Headache and Migraine Trust International Congress (EHMTIC) meeting in 2016 in Glasgow.
Since 2013, we have also supported a new short-stay scholarship scheme for colleagues from developing countries. The scholarship involves a 6–8-week visit to a clinical or research setting in the country where the IHC or EHMTIC is taking place. We have so far supported seven colleagues and we are offering three new scholarships for EHMTIC 2016. This scheme aims to improve clinical practice and headache research in developing countries, as well as to offer further opportunities for collaboration to juniors from these countries.
For the past 3 years, we have also hosted a scientific session during international congresses, the Headache Trainees Excellence Tournament. This scientific session aims to provide an extra platform from which trainees can present their work. Trainees who choose to participate in the scientific session can do so through the abstract submission section of the congress website. The abstracts are then reviewed in a blinded fashion, during which the abstract body is reviewed by our SIG without knowledge of the authors’ names or affiliations. The authors of the abstracts with the six highest scores then have the opportunity to present their data during the Headache Trainees Excellence Tournament. What makes this scientific session unique is that the audience votes for the best two presentations, which will receive awards along with small grants.
Finally, our committee supports networking opportunities among trainees. Every year, we organise the juniors’ forum during EHMTIC or IHC, during which 100 juniors have the opportunity to meet each other and talk about their work in a friendly environment. We are also active users of the IHS’s social media, where we aim to promote further networking among all IHS members and communicate all of the opportunities that become available for IHS trainees.
I feel privileged to be chairing such an active committee and to be part of such an important organisation, and I look forward to continuing to support headache trainees and to contribute to building a future for the headache experts of tomorrow.
Anna Andreou
Chair of IHS Trainees and Residents SIG
Director of Headache Research
Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital
Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases
King’s College London
London, UK
Email: