San Francisco Neurological Society Newsletter - November 2008

Presidents Letter

Oscar N. Abeliuk, M.D., President, San Francisco Neurological Society

The upcoming Annual Meeting of our Society will take place on February 27-28 and March 1, 2009 at the Casa Munras Hotel in the heart of Monterey.  As I submit this newsletter, the final schedule has been completed and the program has been forwarded to all our members.  The keynote speaker for Saturday nights dinner will be announced soon. 

We are very excited about the terrific program that we have been able to assemble.  Aside from the usual features, which include the Boldrey Lecture to be given this year by traumatic brain injury expert Alex B. Valadka, M.D., FACS, Professor, Vice-Chair, Research, Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and the Young Investigator Research Awards; Boldrey Award, Newman Award and Kaiser Award, there are three mini-symposia.  On Friday, the full day will be dedicated to the spine.  Among others, we will have Dr. Phil Weinstein, UCSF, Professor of Neurosurgery, speaking on Lumbar Stenosis: a 30-Year March for the Cure.  Dr. Weinstein will share his rich clinical acumen developed over the last 30 years as a leading clinician and academician in the field of spine surgery.  Other speakers of similar caliber will discuss advanced treatment, surgery, diagnosis and other new developments related to spinal disorders.

For Saturday, we have scheduled a mini-symposium on the rapid new developments in neuroimaging.  Dr. Murray Solomon, a leading neuro-radiologist from the South Bay, has arranged this very promising and educational program, which I can assure you, will be an excellent opportunity for learning about the most advanced available imaging techniques, such as 3-T MRI of the brain and spine, and other similarly important topics.  I would like to highlight the lecture to be given by Dr. Michael Moseley from Stanford, about the future of MRI of the brain.  It is a real jewel! 

The final day will be dedicated to epilepsy.  A mini-symposium will be led by Dr. David King-Stevens, who has been at the forefront of epilepsy management for many years at California Pacific Medical Center. 

An added feature of this years Annual Meeting will be our first Neuro-Cinema Festival, at which participants will have access to presentations and discussions of movies that relate to neurological illness, and the impact such movies have on the diagnoses and treatment of  these anomalies.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a movie released in 2007 and directed by the acclaimed American artists and cinematographer Julian Schnabel, was an important triggering factor for my own decision to  launch this new feature of our Annual Meeting.  An excellent review of this wonderful movie appeared in the March 6, 2008 issue of Neurology Today. Hopefully the author, neurologist Anne McCammon, MD from San Diego, will be present to participate in the discussions. 

There are many other important cinematographic works that have been based on neurologic illnesses. Dementia has been the topic of several recent movies.  We have chosen Away From Her, whose director Sarah Polley is a young woman who in my view has provided some excellent insight into the life of the caregivers and relatives of people with this devastating disease.  Fortunately our esteemed colleague, Dr. Bruce Miller, Director of the Memory Clinic at UCSF, is a movie buff, and is hoping to participate in this discussion. Reviews of this film adaptation of Alice Munro's short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain, have appeared in Neurological publications such as The Lancet Neurology, Volume 6, Issue 8, Page 675, August 2007 and Neurology Today. 7(12):20,22, June 19, 2007.

I could go on at length about my personal interest in this new event, but I must recognize that I am somewhat biased, being involved together with my son in a small documentary film production company.  Fortunately, as I talk with many of the members, there appears to be lively interest in this, and I am confident that once again this will be a great Annual Meeting for our Society. 

 Annual Young Investigator Research Awards

All residents and fellows in the neurosciences are invited to submit original research papers for consideration for the San Francisco Neurological Society's annual Henry Newman, Edwin Boldrey and Kaiser Awards.

Submission Deadline:  January 11, 2009 For More Information

AIRD Dinner Meeting, Thursday December 4, 2008
Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, CA co-sponsored by UCSF, Department of Neurology
"Understanding multiple sclerosis: some answers, more questions", Alastair Compston, PhD, FRCP, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge Neurology Unit, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UKThe 2007 winner of the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation's biennial Charcot Award for a lifetime achievement in research into the understanding or treatment of multiple sclerosis

For all matters related to the Society please contact the NEW Executive Director:

Amanda Pacia, Executive Director
San Francisco Neurological Society
2226A Westborough Blvd. #409
South San Francisco, CA  94080
NEW Phone: 510-685-1187 NEW Fax:  650-347-4975
E-mail: apacia@sfneurological.org