EUROSPINE Annual Report 2010/11 · EuroSpine Annual Report 2010/11 Dear Members, Friends and...

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EuroSpine Annual Report 2010/11

Future EuroSpine dates 4

Welcome from the President 5

General Assembly 2010 Vienna, Protocol 7Financial statement 2009/budget 2010 13EuroSpine 2010 Vienna (fi gures, facts, fotos) 15Pre-Meeti ng day 18 Executi ve Committ ee, past Presidents 20Committ ees and Special Functi ons 21

Acti vity Reports:

Membership 22Spine Courses 2002 – 2010 24Educati on Committ ee 27Spine Tango 30Pati ent Line 33

EuroSpine Foundati on 35

Awards 38Contact, Imprint 39Internal Rules (for download in the member area)

Table of Contents


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EuroSpine 2011October 19 - 21, Milan, Italy

Local Hosts: M. Brayda-Bruno, C. Lamarti na

SpineWeek / EuroSpine 2012May 28 - June 1, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Local Hosts: B. van Royen, M. de Kleuver, W. Peul

EuroSpine 2013October 2 - 4, Liverpool, UK

Local Hosts: T. Pigott , M. Wilby, G. Findlay

EuroSpine 2014October 1 - 3, Lyon, FranceLocal Host: J.Ch. Le Huec

EuroSpine 2015September 2 - 4, Copenhagen, Denmark

Local Host: F. Christensen

Future Annual Meeti ngs

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Dear Members, Friends and Colleagues,

On behalf of myself and the executi ve commit-tee, welcome to the ‘new look’ annual report. I hope you will fi nd the new format useful and informati ve.

It has been our objecti ve over the last three months, and for the rest of my term to try to advance the society in three important areas.

Firstly to make the society more open and transparent to you its members. There is an enormous amount of work completed by the society every year in a number of key areas. It is important that members are aware of the ac-ti viti es of the society, it is aft er all your society!. While the web site is an excellent source of in-formati on, I hope that the new format annual report will add signifi cantly to the informati on available. Please feel free to provide feedback, positi ve or negati ve. The report contains sum-maries of the acti viti es of the various commit-tees’ throughout the year. If you have any in-terest or experti se that you would like to share please put your name forward for electi on to the area of your interest at the annual assem-bly. The Journal conti nues to grow. Every year we see an increase in submissions. This brings with it the need for more reviewers. If you have any interest in reviewing papers for the journal please submit your name and qualifi cati ons to the journal offi ce. There is a parti cular need for reviewers with a Neurosurgical, Paramedi-

cal and Basic science background.The strength of any society lies in its members. I am hoping that we can increase the parti cipati on of the members in the various day to day acti viti es of the society, and thereby increase the strength and relevance of the society as a whole.

Secondly to develop the society on a more professional platf orm. Over the last few years the society has grown signifi cantly in terms of infl uence and fi nance. Our annual meeti ngs conti nue to be an enormous success, both sci-enti fi cally and in terms of revenue. It is essen-ti al that the society develops in a professional manner. This includes the producti on of pro-fessional audited accounts, the establishment of proper employment contracts and contracts of associati on for the various acti viti es, inclu-ding the annual meeti ng. It also includes the development of a professional business plan to set out our goals and objecti ves as a soci-ety over the coming years. Hopefully this will be complete and presentable for rati fi cati on at our next assembly in Milan. The establishment of the Foundati on has been an enormous be-nefi t in this regard.

Together with the Foundati on we have had an extremely successful year in terms of our edu-cati on plan. The fi rst graduates of our modular courses have received their certi fi cates and the educati on programme is set to grow further with the establishment of ‘Educati on Week’. We plan on conti nuing to co-operate with the

Ciaran BolgerEuroSpine President 2011

Welcome from the President


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Foundati on in developing and progressing our other acti viti es, including ‘Spine Tango’ and ‘membership’ over the coming months.

This brings me to the third area I hope to see progress in, that of increasing our membership. We can all play a role in advancing our society. I would ask all of you to encourage friends and colleagues to join our society. Please feel free to circulate this Annual Report within and wit-hout your departments to adverti se the acti vi-ti es of our society, and thereby inform others of the importance of the society to their pro-fessional development and the development of our speciality. We hope also to increase the collaborati on with the various nati onal socie-ti es. There has been signifi cant progress in this area within the educati on programme. Various modules of our courses have been successfully delivered by nati onal societi es in their own lan-guage. We would hope to build on this colla-borati on with the involvement of the nati onal societi es in other areas of our acti vity, including the possibility of reciprocal membership. We would also hope to broaden the appeal of the society, to increase the diversity of our mem-bership parti cularly to Basic Science and non surgical colleagues. To this end, for the fi rst ti me, we have negoti ated reduced registrati on fees for the next annual meeti ng in Milan for basic scienti sts. Encourage your non surgical colleagues to take advantage of this off er, and join us in Milan.

Finally I would like to thank all of you for your support, encourage you to become involved in any areas you have an interest in and ask you to block out the dates of October 19th to 21st 2011, for Milan. See you there!.

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60 members present

Welcome (Wilke)1 Approval of the last protocol (published in the Annual Report 2010)

Approved unanimity

Society Business2 Finances of the Society: balance 2009, and budget 2010 (Ogon)

• 2009 fi nal balance (Annex 1) agreed • 2010 budget (Annex 1) agreed

3 Adaptati on to statutes / 3.1 Internal Rules (Berk)

Following a decision of the Executi ve Commit-tee in May 2008 an amendment to the statu-tes is proposed in order to obtain the offi cial tax-free status from the Swiss Authoriti es. The General Assembly is asked to agree on the oc-casion of the upcoming Meeti ng. A two third majority is needed for approval. The adapted document is mailed together with this agenda.

Arti cle 1 The registered name of the Society is “Euro-Spine, the Spine Society of Europe” (abbrevi-ate “EuroSpine”) . The Society is consti tuted in conformity with the laws of Switzerland con-cerning Internati onal Societi es with scienti fi c and educati onal objecti ves. EuroSpine pursu-es a non-economic purpose and is a non-profi t making society. The life of the Society is unli-mited.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEArti cle 19 The Executi ve Committ ee administers and re-presents the Society. The members of the Exe-

cuti ve Committ ee act on an honorary basis and are enti tled to reimbursement of their out of pocket expenses and cash expenditures. In the event of excepti onal services rendered by cer-tain members of the Executi ve Committ ee ade-quate compensati on may be paid. Only Acti ve, Senior and Honorary Members may be elected to it.

Arti cle 27Any assets remaining aft er the dissoluti on of the Associati on must be allocated to a tax ex-empt insti tuti on pursuing the same or similar purposes. Distributi on of such assets to the members of the Associati on is excluded.

Arti cle 27 28The offi cial term starts on the First of January and runs to December thirty-fi rst every year. The fi rst offi cial term starts on 23 June 2007 and fi nishes on 31 December 2007.

Arti cle 28 29For all points not solved by the present statu-tes, the Society refers to the Swiss law concer-ning Internati onal Societi es with scienti fi c and educati onal objecti ves.

Agreed unanimity

3.1 Adaptati on to Internal Rules(Berk)

Proposed to be added to the internal rules, which regulates the relati onship between the society and the foundati on.

Arti cle 15 (new)15.1 On 13 December 2007 the Society foun-ded EuroSpine Foundati on („Foundati on“) to assist the Society‘s mission of fostering excel-lence in spinal care. The purpose of the Found-

Thursday, September 16, 2010, 17:30 – 18:30 hVienna, Reed Messe - Conventi on Centre, Plenary Hall

General Assembly


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ati on is to improve, promote and opti mise me-dicine and surgery concerning the spine and its care at all levels. The Foundati on, receiving do-nati ons from its founder, private or public do-nors, will use its assets to achieve the purpose. It is the willingness of the Society to closely in-teract with the Foundati onwhich does provide support for or is acti ve in the areas of postgra-duate trainings, educati on, clinical practi ces, researches, pati ents and publicati ons concer-ning the spine.

15.2 As the Foundati on is acti ve only in the oc-cupati onal fi eld of the members of the Society, the Society, pursuing non-economic purposes, is willing to periodically contribute donati ons to the Foundati on.

15.3 The President of the Board of Trustees and the CEO of the Foundati on shall be invited to the meeti ngs of the Eurospine Executi ve Com-mitt ee meeti ngs.

15.4 The President, Past President, Vice-Presi-dent and Secretary of the Society shall be invi-ted to the Foundati on Board of Trustees mee-ti ngs.

15.5 Eurospine executi ve board and Eurospi-ne Foundati on Board of trustees shall meet at least once a year.

15.6 The President, Past President, Vice-Presi-dent and Secretary of the Society are members of the Scienti fi c Advisory Board of the Found-ati on.

15.7 Nominati on of new candidates for changing SSE members of the foundati on:

15.7.1 Foundati on shall prepare nominati on criteria for the candidates

15.7.2 Society executi ve committ ee will nomi-nate two candidates for each vacant positi on. Foundati on will appoint one of the candidates presented by the Society.

Agreed

Proposed: to change arti cle 8 in order to ensu-re conti nuity in the committ ee work:

8.1 Special committ ees and task forces may be formed for specifi c tasks. The members of the-se special committ ees will be proposed by the Executi ve Committ ee and elected by the Gene-ral Assembly. The members of task forces will be selected by the executi ve committ ee. The special committ ee or task force will operate within any standing or special instructi ons that may be laid down by the Executi ve Committ ee

8.2 Each Committ ee of the society will have a chairman, who will be selected from the exis-ti ng members of the committ eeby the execu-ti ve committ ee. The chairman will serve for no longer than three years and then step down. The past chair of the committ ee may serve in the committ ee with no voti ng rights at the dis-creti on of the executi ve committ ee. The chair-man will be responsible to the Secretary and the Executi ve Committ ee. His or her reports will be submitt ed to the executi ve committ ee and to the General Assembly.

8.3 The Chairman of the next Annual General Meeti ng as cited in arti cle 19 of the Statutes, President and Secretary shall be in the Program Committ ee .

Agreed

Arti cle 1616.1 The Internal Rules shall replace the Inter-nal Rules rati fi ed in October 2009.16.2. Proposed by the Executi ve Committ ee in accordance with arti cle 22.3 of the Statutes on

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September 16, 2010 and approved by the Ge-neral Assembly on September 16, 2010.

The GA agreed (with one vote against) that the adaptati ons can be applied with immediate va-lidati on.

4 Past Presidents Working Group (Pellisé)

All past presidents were approached an initi ally agreed to parti cipate. The second meeti ng’s ve-nue was changed on short noti ce from London to Zurich (ash cloud), this was the cause why several of PP could not att end. Both meeti ngs were accompanied by a lawyer (Marcel Stein-egger) and a mediator (Marco Marty).

Conclusions and proposals were sent to the ExCom members and boards of ESF trustees in July. The following was discussed and agreed at the ExCom meeti ng (Sept 14)

1 - to install a scienti fi c advisory (supervisory) board:It is agreed, that president, past president, vice president and secretary (without vote) shall at-tend the ESF board meeti ngs. As there are four meeti ngs per year, the meeti ngs can also be arranged as video-conferences. As the ExCom meeti ngs will have to be increased to three per year, at least one meeti ng on spring could be a joint ESF Board and SSE Executi ve Committ ee meeti ng. This is accepted and the internal rules will be adapted. Compare 3.1

According to the statutes, ESF board members are elected by the ESF board themselves, the society can only propose. Proposal and electi on process, including a job descripti on, should be regulated in the internal rules in order that the society is able place their proposed candidates into the ESF board.

The ExCom nominates two candidates for each vacancy, one is the primary candidate, the se-cond one in case the Foundati on doesnt’s ag-ree with the primary candidate. Compare 3.1

2 – donati on of a fi xed fi nancial contributi onThis was not accepted by ExCom, however a way to hand over assets directly to the found-ati on from the annual meeti ngs, which ESF can claim themselves will be discussed with our lawyers.

3 - Annual meeti ng organisati on to ESFIt is decided, that the organisati on of the Annu-al Meeti ngs remains in the realm of the society, as stated in the internal rules and the affi liated meeti ng guidelines.

This PPWG Think tank was created and appro-ved in Warsaw 2009, with the task to open a discussion regarding the renewal of our legal texts, which should refl ect more accurately the present situati on (and future goals) of the so-ciety and its assets and the internal organisati -on of committ ees. These topics were not dis-cussed within the group.

Ferran Pellisé thanks the members for all their support in the past years through his term as secretary. Plenum thanks in return and acc-laims his work with applause.

Annual Meeti ngs5 EuroSpine 2010 Vienna, report (Ogon)

Excellent organisati on by and cooperati on with this years PCO, Mondial. Fully booked: pre-courses, sponsoring. More than 1250 regular parti cipant registrati ons (85 nati ons present), 1300 industry representi ng 135 companies, 34 industry workshops, 5 own workshops with ex-cellent recepti on.


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New this year: invited nati onal societi es, who got free booths: Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, E-CSRS, NASS. Press conference with nati onal TV and internati onal media present.

Budget is presented and explained, expected income according is close to one million Euros.

6 EuroSpine 2009 Warsaw, fi nal report (Berk)

Deferred. An offi cial report is not available.

7 Up-date next meeti ng Milan 2011 (Brayda-Bruno, Lamarti na)

Preparati on according to schedule. The lo-cal organising offi ce is represented in Vienna, doing promoti on and contacti ng industry. Call for papers is printed and distribued.

8 Site Applicati ons 2015:• Copenhagen (Christensen) • Berlin (Wilke)

Both sites have supplied bids which show that they are adequate to host an EuroSpine mee-ti ng. They were introduced by their potenti al local hosts and voted by the plenary:

• Copenhagen 30 and Berlin 26 votes.• Copenhagen is selected and Christensen

congratulated to be local host for 2015.

Committ ees, Projects9 EuroSpine Foundati on (Bolger)

First projects were realised. Together with the EduCom four module courses were organised in 2010. Some funds were raised, however not yet enough to support the Educati on project. The foundati on CEO, G Vanacker is thanked for his eff orts.

10 Program Committ ee (Alanay)

There were six core reviewers, one per catego-ry, representi ng the core program committ ee and three 3 co-reviewers per category (18 to-tal). The whole program committ ee is thanked for a very good collaborati on.

The Progam 2010 consists of 88 oral, 60 special poster, 90 e-posters, 462 rejecti on. Special pos-ters are again run parallel with short presenta-ti ons.Special prize session introduced on Friday morning to att ract audience. Disclosure and copyright statements are now included with submission already.

11 Membership (Pigott )

546 members with 36 applicati ons to join for 2011.

There are 44 non-payers who will be expelled if payment is not received subject to approval by ExCom.

We expelled 19 last year and had 7 resignati ons and one death. Names of newly accepted members are dis-played (ref-> membership committ ee report).

12 Educati on Committ ee (Christensen) In 2009 the SSE decided to initi ate a new Eu-ropean Educati on program focusing on estab-lishing European educati on standards, both for coming spine specialists and as part of conti -nuous educati on:

Modules completed:• Barcelona 1+4 (English, ES-fi nanced – 40 par-

ti cipants)

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• one Master Course in Barcelona (20 parti ci-pants)

• Copenhagen modules (Module 1: 23 parti ci-pants, Module 2: 49 parti cipants)

Modules planned:• Milano October module 1+3 (Italian and Eng-

lish)• Module 5 late 2010 or January 2011 (de-

pends on number of att endees)

A new European Educati on Program can only be implemented and be successful through the involvement and support of Nati onal Spine Societi es of Europe and cross border Societi es with spine focus. SSE should positi on itself as a major driving force in Spine Educati on within Europe to act as a reference point and resource for all Spine Societi es.

Planned in 2011: Educati on Week:Concept proposed in order to save travelling, expenses. Focusing on the spine diploma and on conti nuing Educati on. Parti cipati on of mul-ti ple industry workshops should cover the costs.

13 Task Force Research (Nordin)

New Research web page introduced. Applica-ti on procedure and –form is explained, also available on-line.

Budget:3 pilot studies à Euro 30.000. Applicati on dead-line is January 31, 20113 pilot studies funding @ Euro 30.000 and 1 study @ Euro 100.000 for 3 years deadline is January 31, 2012In 2012 there is a research course planned, which might be held in the Eastern Europe.

14 Spine Tango (Munti ng)

Presently Parti cipati ng: • Over 40 clinics, over 200 contributors• In 14 countries (10 diff erent nati ve langua-

ges), on 5 conti nents• Over 30.000 surgeries in the data base• Over 20.000 surgeon’s follow-ups• 15.000 pre-op, 11.000 post-op back

COMIs• 2850 pre-op, 2430 post-op neck COMIs

Number of parti cipati on and acti viti es are ri-sing, the handling is mostly done by the Spine Tango team in Bern (development, mainte-nance, administrati on, communicati on, marke-ti ng, headed by Ch Röder.

Upcoming projects: install auti t- and control mechanisms. New forms and soft ware will be implemented end of this, beginning of next year.

15 Electi ons (Berk)

Proposed:Vice President: JC LeHuec, France

accepted • Executi ve Members [2] - Marco Teli, Italy - Marek Szaplski, Belgium

• Assistant Treasurer: Frank Kandziora, Ger-many

accepted

Educati on Committ ee: Marco Brayda-Bruno (chair)New members:Marti n Repko, Czech RepublicPeter Paul Varga, HungaryMarti n Gehrchen, Denmark

accepted


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Workshop committ ee:Pierre Roussouly, France

accepted

16 Miscellaneous

In view of the substanti al investment involved with a site applicati on and considering the marginal outcome of the votes, Bolger mo-ti ons to decide the venue for 2016 to be Berlin. Accepted.

Vienna, September 2010

the Secretary:Haluk Berk

Annex 1: Financial Report 2009, budget 2010

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Balance Sheet as at(in EURO)

31 December2009

13 September2010

ASSETS

Current assets

Cash 613 682 420 000

Prepayments 10 052 12 000

Accrued income 1 037 158 800 000

Total Assets 1 660 893 1 232 000

LIABILITIES & EQUITY

Liabiliti es

Liabiliti es to third parti es 0 31 000

Accrued expenses 343 477 176 000

343 477 207 000

Equity

Society capital 731 742 1 317 416

Annual profi t 585 674 (292 416)

1 317 416 1 025 000

Total Liabiliti es & Equity 1 660 893 1 232 000

Income statement for the period from(in EURO)

EURyear-to-date

EURBudget 2010

EUR

01.01.2009–31.12.2009

01.01.2010–13.09.2010

01.01.2010–31.12.2010

INCOME

Memberfees 66 920 48 000 50 000

Profi t, Spine Week Geneva 2008 475 620 0 0

Profi t, EuroSpine Warsaw 2009 800 000 0 0

Profi t, EuroSpine Vienna 2010 0 0 998 000

Returned Advance payment Warsaw 2008 97 098 0 0

Training Courses Liberec 0 8 000 8 000

Storno/returns 1 056 0 0

1 440 695 56 000 1 056 000

EXPENSES

Committ ees

ExCom 18 686 29 000 25 000

Membership 0 0 3 000

Educati on 16 777 8 000 21 000

eMedia 19 041 12 000 60 000

Working Group (Past President) 0 84 000 30 000

Research Task Force 0 0 100 000

Financial statement 2009/budget 2010


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Spine Tango 265 739 0 175 000

Annual Meeti ng 37 493 5 000 64 500

Spine Course

Training course Barcelona 37 978 5 000 0

Training course Liberec 15 465 30 000 35 000

2 Module Courses (Foundati on) 0 0 150 000

Subsiding for parti cipants Barcelona (Found.) 0 22 000 0

Oversea courses

Brazil 15 201 5 000 10 500

India 10 343 0 10 500

Projects

Awards 12 189 0 14 000

Medal 255 0 500

Fellowships 6 789 2 000 46 000

Pati ent Line 3 459 7 000 10 000

Foundati on (120k EUR salary contributi on CEO starti ng 2011)

0 0 0

Foundati on (profi t contributi on 20 % of annu-al meeti ngs)

160 000 0 199 600

Lawyer (projects and administrati on) 40 730 20 000 45 000

Various expenses (Subscripti on/Springer) 53 067 67 000 60 000

713 211 296 000 1 059 600

Gross profi t 727 483 (240 000) (3 600)

Company expenses

Personnel expenses 129 740 9 000 125 000

Offi ce and service expenses 22 602 43 000 74 700

Marketi ng expenses 788 2 000 3 000

153 129 54 000 202 700

Profi t before fi nancial expenses 574 354 (294 000) (206 300)

Financial and exchange income 3 513 1 584 1 000

Financial and exchange expenses (4 023) 0

EUR-translati on 12 611 0 0

12 101 1 584 1 000

Annual profi t 586 455 (292 416) (205 300)

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Dear members, colleagues and friends,

in a good mood we’re looking back on an ex-citi ng EuroSpine meeti ng 2010 in Vienna. To-gether with our EuroSpine president 2010 Hans Joachim Wilke, the whole EuroSpine board and administrati on as well as our local PCO Mon-dial, we had the great honour to host for the fi rst ti me in the history of EuroSpine more than 2.000 parti cipants from more than 80 coun-tries.

The Spine society of Europe was founded 1998 as a Union from the European Spine Society and the European Spine Deformity Society du-ring their meeti ng in Innsbruck, Austria.September 15th to 17th, our annual meeti ng was back in Austria, this ti me in Vienna, the capital of Austria. The meeti ng took place in

the Messe Vienna, a new and modern building, which off ered a perfect auditorium for our sci-enti fi c program as well as plenty of space for our industry partners right next to the plenary session as well as numerous rooms for EuroSpi-ne and industry lunch workshops.

For the fi st ti me EuroSpine 2010 was a full 3 day meeti ng, Wednesday to Friday. Thursday aft ernoon was not longer free but off ered a full scienti fi c program. Therefore, the meeti ng ended Friday late aft ernoon.

Additi onally, we held for the fi st ti me a Pre-Congress-Meeti ng on Tuesday with two cour-ses. One was conducted on complicati ons in adult thoracolumbar spine surgery, the other on challenges and controversies in paediatric deformity surgery.

EuroSpine 2010 - Vienna

September 15. – 17, 2010, Vienna, Messe WienAn exciti ng annual meeti ng with a new record of parti cipants

Michael Ogon Josef G. Grohs


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The courses were excellent organised and chai-red by F. Pellisé, Barcelona and E. Acaroglu, An-kara. With overall more than 200 parti cipants, both Pre-Meeti ng courses were fully booked.

The scienti fi c program covert all aspects of spi-ne treatments as well as basic research. Thurs-day morning there were 6 parallel special pos-ter sessions. During the congress there were

5 EuroSpine lunch workshops and 34 industry workshops. Thursday morning in the presiden-ti al address Achim Wilke gave us a nice and comprehensive overview of the history and achievements of our society. The medal lecture was given by Bernd Lötsch, Prof., E.m. director

general of the Natural History Museum of Vi-enna on The Mystery of Beauty – Darwinian Aestheti cs were he guided us to the common denominator for beauty in human percepti on.

For the fi st ti me we organized an internati onal press conference which covered especially the

issues: EuroSpine 2010, EuroSpine foundati on, SpineTango, Aging Spine and our Awards. As a result, our meeti ng was not only menti oned in the internati onal press, but also at the main

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news of the Austrian television in Vienna inclu-ding interviews with our new president Ciaran Bolger and the local hosts. The highlight of the social program was certainly our Gala-Diner at the Orangerie at Schönbrunn Palace. The Gala-Diner was fully booked and beside enjoying to meet colleagues and friends from all over Eu-rope and all over the world, we saw an exciti ng ballet dance, performed by the Associati on Vi-enna States Opera Ballet.

Overall we are looking back on a very successful EuroSpine Meeti ng 2010 in Vienna. We thank all people who were involved in the organisati -

on of this most important annually event of our society. We also thank all members and friends of our society who came to Vienna and helped with there scienti fi c contributi on, open minded

discussions, and personal parti cipati on to keep our society lively and constantly growing.

Best regards,

Josef Georg Grohs and Michael OgonLocal Hosts

For more details and photos, please see:www.eurospine.org/Vienna2010_report

Figures & Facts EuroSpine 2010

Total Att endance 3.490

Total Number Delegates 2.198

Total Number of Booths Personnel 1.292

Total Number Delegates Pre-Meeti ng Day 205

Countries represented 82

Scienti fi c ProgrammePre-meeti ng CoursesScienti fi c presentati onsSpecial Poster presentati onsE-PostersEurospine Lunch SymposiaLunch Workshops organized by the Industry

2> 80~ 60~ 90

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34

Total Number of Exhibitors, including Society Village 143


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Chairperson’s Report

Aim / Rati onale:Educati on within the fi eld of “Spine” is being delivered by a number of organizati ons throug-hout Europe, including but not limited to the Eurospine, other panEuropean NGOs and Foundati ons, Nati onal Societi es, and Medical Technology Companies and their subsidiari-es. The rati onale of organizing a premeeti ng course directly by the European Spine Society would be to provide totally unbiased educati on on a subject of the Society’s own selecti on cou-pled with the convenience of a venue already reserved. The possibility that most att endees would also be att ending the annual meeti ng is another potenti al mutual benefi t for the att en-dees as well as the Society.

Organizati on:The decision to organize these courses and al-locati on of the chairs as well as the topics were fi nalized in late 2009. The complete scienti fi c program was constructed by April 2010 and was not modifi ed aft er that date. Course Ve-nue was the same as the annual meeti ng; Reed Messe Vienna, Austria.

Executi on:Course faculty was truly internati onal from dif-ferent countries and geographical regions of

Europe consisti ng of: E Acaroglu MD (chair), M Yazici MD, Mr. H Noordeen, C Lamarti na MD, T Tsirikos MD, Mr. D Marks, D Jeszensky MD, F Perez-Grueso MD, M Teli MD, F Canavese MD, U Liljenquist MD, M Brayda-Bruno MD, Mr. P Sell, A Alanay MD and A Kaelin MD.

Att endance to the course was limited to 75 people due to physical restraints and this num-ber was achieved a couple of weeks before the actual meeti ng. The att endance stati sti cs re-veal that it ranged between 46 and 53.

The course started at ti me and was completed without any major problems. Adherence to ti me allocati ons was very good by the speakers, all faculty members were professionals who were highly experienced in such courses and behaved professionally throughout the event.

Catering services were more than acceptable in quality and were delivered without any ma-jor problems.

Feedback:Overall, the faculty members uniformly ex-pressed their sati sfacti on with the course as an educati onal experience. As for the parti cipants, a survey was performed using a form and the results reveal that the overall parti cipant sati s-facti on with the planning, content and execu-

Pre-Meeti ng Day EuroSpine 2010 – Vienna

September 14, 2010, Vienna, Messe WienEurospine Premeeti ng Course on “Challenges and Controversies in Pediatric Deformity”

Emre Acaroglu Chairperson, Course 1

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ti on of the course was very high. The rates of favorable answers in the survey may be sum-marized as below:• Arrangement convenience: 87,5 %• Speaker quality: 95,83 %• Content quality: 87,5 %• Presentati on ti mes: 54,17 %• Relevance of topic: 95,83 %• Discussions: 79,17 %

Parti cipants of the survey also suggested pos-sible topics and formats for future courses to be taken into considerati on. In general, positi ve sides of the course as well as areas in which im-provements may be needed are listed below:

Positi ve sides:• The decision to have these courses at that

specifi c ti me appears to be a very good decis-ion if we consider the number of registrants to the two courses as well as the overall sati s-facti on rates.

• The secretarial services I received were very sati sfactory,

• Topics selected appear to be appropriate. As for the course chaired by myself, my tar-get number of registrants was 70 was easily achieved.

• Faculty members behaved very professio-nally and have to be given the credit for the high sati sfacti on rates. We also have to consi-der that no compensati on was off ered to the faculty members for their parti cipati on in this course.

Room for improvement:• It may b a good idea to have larger spaces

allocated for these courses. It would have been very diffi cult and stressful to try to fi t all people into the room that had been allocated had all the registrants att ended the course.

• The number of people who had registered and did not att end is relati vely high when we

consider the highest number of att endance as being slightly over forty people. Personally I am not parti cularly sure whether this is a real problem, or a problem unique to these courses as the same phenomenon may be witnessed in the att endance stati sti cs of the annual meeti ng as well. However, it may be-come a problem when we start turning down people who would really have been att ending the course. Controlled overbooking (or, using fairly larger meeti ng rooms) may be advisab-le.

• One criti cism on the evaluati on forms was about the ti me allocated to discussion, espe-cially case discussions. I think this is right, be-cause I realize that there was a level/format confl ict in this course. The scienti fi c level of the presentati ons was very high, to the ex-tent that faculty members including myself learned a lot from each other. Given this, in retrospect, it might have been more advisa-ble to narrow the scope of the course and allow some ti me for the att endees to discuss cases relevant to sessions.


20

Executi ve Committ eePresidentCiaran Bolger, Dublin, IrelandVice PresidentJean Charles LeHuec, Bordeaux, FrancePast PresidentHans Joachim Wilke, Ulm, GermanySecretaryHaluk Berk, Izmir, TurkeyTreasurerFrank Kandziora, Frankfurt a/Main, Germany Assistant TreasurerMichael Ogon, Vienna, Austria2011 Program Committ eeAhmet Alanay, Istanbul, TurkeyExecuti ve MembersMarco Teli, Milan, ItalyMarek Szpalski, Brussels, Belgium

Chairs:Membership Committ eeTim Pigott , Liverpool, UKEducati onal Commmitt eeMarco Brayda-Bruno, Milan, ItalyWorkshop Committ eeClaudio Lamarti na, Milan, Italy Local Hosts EuroSpine 2011Marco Brayda-BrunoClaudio Lamarti na, Vienna, AustriaResearch Task ForceMargareta Nordin, New York, USASpine Tango Committ eeEverard Munti ng, Biez, BelgiumESJ Editor in ChiefMax Aebi, Bern, Switzerland

Past Presidents of EuroSpine Past Presidents of ESDS

Hans Joachim Wilke, Ulm, Germany 2010 Rudolf Bauer, Austria 1996–1998

Federico Balagué, Switzerland 2009 Alan Gardner, U.K. 1994–1996

Robert Gunzburg, Belgium 2008 Charles Picault, France 1992–1994

Charles Greenough, UK 2007 Ben Veraart, the Netherlands 1989–1992

H. Michael Mayer, Germany 2006 G. Monti celli, Italy 1986–1989

Max Aebi, Switzerland 2005 Alf Nachemson, Sweden 1983–1986

Petr Suchomel, Czech Republic 2004 Pierre Stagnara, France 1982–1983

Dieter Grob, Switzerland 2003

Norbert Passuti , France 2002 Past Presidents of ESS

Gordon F.G. Findlay, UK 2001 Jürgen Krämer, Germany 1997–1998

Jiri Dvorak, Switzerland 2000 Franco Postacchini, Italy 1995–1996

Carlos Villanueva, Spain 1999 Alain Deburge, France 1993–1994

Michael Sullivan, U.K 1991–1992

Offi cers

21


Membership Committ eeTim Pigott , Liverpool, UK (chair)Remi Cavagna, Ploemeur, FranceAdrian Rymarczyk, Warsaw, PolandChristoph Siepe, Munich, Germany

Educati onal and Fellowship Committ eeMarco Brayda-Bruno, Milan, Italy (chair)E. Acaroglu, Ankara, TurkeyJean Charles LeHuec, Bordeaux, FranceMarti n Repko, Brno, Czech RepublicPeter Paul Varga, Budapest, HungaryMarti n Gehrchen, Copenhagen, DenmarkPhilip J Sell, Leicester, UK (e-media)

2011: Program Committ eeAhmet Alanay, Istanbul, Turkey (chair)Rune Hedlund, Stockholm, SwedenKeita Ito, Eindhoven, the NetherlandsPhilip J. Sell, Leicester, UKBarend van Royen, Amsterdam, the Nether-landsJörg Franke, Magdeburg, Germanyinsti tuti onal:Ciaran Bolger, Dublin, IrelandHaluk Berk, Izmir, Turkey

Workshop Committ eeClaudio Lamarti na, Milan, Italy (chair)Hans Joachim Wilke, Ulm, Germany (insti tuti onal)Ralph Kothe, Dortmund, GermanyLuis Alvarez Galovich, Madrid, SpainPierre Roussouly, Lyon, France

Awards Committ eeJean Charles LeHuec, Bordeaux, France (chair-insti tuti onal)Max Aebi, Bern, Switzerland (insti tuti onal)Antonius Rohlmann, Berlin, GermanyErich Kast, Winterthur, SwitzerlandDietrich Schlenzka, Helsinki, Finland

European Spine Journal: EditorsMax Aebi, Bern, CH (editor-in-chief)Norbert Boos, Zürich, SwitzerlandRobert Gunzburg, Antwerp, BelgiumFerran Pellisé, Barcelona, SpainMarek Szpalski, Brussels, BelgiumHans Joachim Wilke, Ulm, Germany

Research Task ForceMargareta Nordin, New York, USA (chair)Federico Balagué, Fribourg, SwitzerlandKim Burton, Huddersfi eld, UKChristi ne Cedraschi, Geneva, SwitzerlandMarek Szpalski, Brussels, BelgiumPierre Côté, Toronto, CanadaBjörn Rydevik, Gothenburg, Sweden

SpineTango Committ eeEverard Munti ng, Biez, Belgium (chair)Christoph Röder, Bern, SwitzerlandJeremy Fairbank, Oxford, UKAnne F. Mannion, Bristol, UKKarl-Stefan Delank, Köln, Germany

Site Committ eeHaluk Berk, Izmir, Turkey (chair-insti tuti onal)Ciaran Bolger, Dublin, Ireland (insti tuti onal)Michael Ogon, Vienna, Austria (insti tuti onal)

Committ ees and Special Functi ons


22

Membership

The membership committ ee is responsible for reviewing all applicati ons for membership of the society. Our aim is to respond within four weeks, but all applicati ons do have to be rati -fi ed at the General Assembly, which occurs at the annual meeti ng.

Membership is open to all medical, para me-dical and scienti fi c workers who spend a signi-fi cant proporti on of their ti me in the area of spinal practi ce.

All potenti al members need to fi ll in an online applicati on form and be supported by an up to date CV and a lett er of recommendati on from their head of department, full member of the

society or their professional associati on. They should be resident of the geographical area of Europe.

Current stati sti csWe now stand at 546 members with 36 appli-cati ons to join for 2011. Members are required to keep their annual payments up to date. Any-one not paying for 3 consecuti ve years will be expelled from membership.

Tim Pigott Chair, Membership Committ eeLiverpool, UK

New Members Specialised in Sponsored by

Andrychowski Jaroslaw, Warsaw, PL Neurosurgery P Jurkiewiez

Aoyama Takeshi, Sapporo, Japan Neurosurgery D Grob

Balsano Massimo, Schio, Italy Orthop/Spine Surgery M Teli

Bassani Roberto, Milano, Italy Orthop/Spine Surgery C Lamarti na

Bateman Toni, Morden, UK Trauma & Orthopaedics AJ Hammer

Bernasconi Juan Pablo, Buenos Aires, Argenti na Spine Surgery D Grob

Börm Wolfgang, Flensburg, D Spine Tumors HJ Wilke

Braybrooke Jason, Leicester, UK Orthop. Surgery P Sell

Cabezas Daniel, Rome, Italy Neurosurgery T Greggi

Côté Pierre, Toronto, Canada Epidemiology F Balagué

Damian Hugo, Mexico CD, Mexico Orthopaedics HP Vidales

Disch Alexander, Berlin, D Spine Surgery A Rohlmann

El Banna Sabri. Monti gny, BE Orthop Surgery R Gunzburg

Engel Itzhak, Herzelia, ISR Orthop Surgery Y Leitner

Fuhrhans Marti n P., Kassel, Germany Neurosurgery HJ Wilke

Gehrchen Marti n, Copenhagen, DK Orthop Surgery P Fritzell

Giudici Fabrizio, Milan, I Orthop Surgery M Teli

23


New Members Specialised in Sponsored by

Jacobs Wilco, Leiden, NL Epidemiology W Peul

Krepler Petra, Vienna, A Orthop & Spine Surgery J Grohs

Leisser Marti na, Vienna, A Orthop & Spine Surgery M Ogon

Meyer Frerk, Oldenburg, Germany Neurosurgery J Herdmann

Morgenstern Walter, Uster, CH Orthopaedics J Dvorak

Nardi Pier Vitt orio, Rome, I Neurosurgery/Pathology

T Greggi

Nnadi Colin, Oxford, UK Paediatric/Adult deformity

J Fairbank

Palaoglu Selcuk, Ankara, Turkey Neurosurgery A AlanayE Acaroglu

Pichas Stefanos, Arta, Greece Neurosurgery Polythodorakis

Pinto Rodrigues Marcelo, Concordia, Brazil Orthop Surgery J Fairbank

Potaczek Tomasz, Zarkopane Orthop Surgery D Zarzyki

Repko Marti n, Brno, CZ Orthop. Surgery R LukasR Chaloupka

Saidbegov Dzhalaludin, Rome, I Neurology G De Giorgi

Scheufl er Kai-Michael, Zürich, CH Neurosurgery R Hedlund

Schultz Christi an, Augsburg, D Orthop Surgery P Sell

Souza Fabiano, Goiania-Goias, Brazil Spine Surgery Microsurgery

AC de Castro

Tavallaee Seyed GE, Arak, Iran Neurosurgery M Erfani

Tuschel Alexander, Vienna, A Orthop & Spine Surgery M Ogon

Van Lerbeirghe Johan, Ghent, Belgium Orthop/Spine Surgery Zacheevanden Berghe

Wilby Marti n, Liverpool, UK Neurosurgery T Pigott

Yamazaki Akiyoshi, Niigata, Japan Spine Surgery N Passuti

Yang Jiao-Chiao, Taipei, Taiwan Degenerati ve spine disorder

S-W Ling

Welcome!


24

EuroSpine Instructi onal Courses 2002 - 2010

FINAL REPORT

The fi rst Instructi onal Course run by the Spine Society of Europe was held in Barcelona in Sep-tember of 2002. The Courses were designed by Professor Greenough and the fi rst module was chaired by Professor Greenough and Pro-fessor Krismer.

Barcelona was chosen as the locati on for the courses. Carlos Villenueva was instrumental in providing excellent faciliti es in the hospital at the Valle Hebron with faculty being able to stay in the City, connected to the hospital by a di-rect underground line. Barcelona proved to be an extremely popular venue with the faculty and delegates alike, and subsequently Ferran Pellisé provided much appreciated logisti cal and social support.

A great deal of work was put into the curriculum which was then divided into four modules. The intenti on was to provide one module each year and delegates who att ended all four modules would have covered the enti re curriculum. The standard of knowledge was appropriate to a trainee about to take fi nal examinati ons.

The four modules in the fi rst cycle were Chronic Low Back Pain; Deformiti es and Compression Syndromes; Cervical Spine and Fractures and Destructi ve Diseases. For the second cycle, a considerable amount of work was underta-ken including taking the advice of educati onal specialists. The modules were redesigned and

the four modules of the second cycle were Low Back Pain; Deformiti es; Cervical Spine and Seri-ous Spine Disorders: Occiput to Sacrum.

A considerable amount of considerati on and work were put into the educati onal aspects of the course. Colin Coles, Educati onal Consul-tant, att ended the courses in Barcelona in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Federico Balague produced a strategy document in January 2004 outlining model improvements in the Educati onal Struc-ture of the courses which were implemented in the next two courses under the supervision of Dr Coles.

One of the recommendati ons was that all lec-turers should have completed a “Training the Trainers” course and a database of trainers who had completed such courses was compiled. In 2003 and 2004 the Spine Society of Europe ran “Training the Trainers” courses in London and elsewhere. Lecturers on subsequent courses had all undergone training courses in educati -on in their own environments.

Over the second cycle of courses the new in-teracti ve teaching with increased emphasis on problem solving, case based discussion and in-teracti ve teaching resulted in extremely high scores on delegate feedback.

In April of 2006 the course delivered in Barce-lona in September 2005 was repeated in Libe-rec in the Czech Republic. Subsequently each of the courses from Barcelona was repeated in

Charles G. GreenoughMiddlesbrough, UK

25


Liberec the following spring. This proved extre-mely popular with delegates from Eastern Eu-rope who were able to parti cipate in the course at considerably reduced expense as compared to Barcelona. The faciliti es in Liberec, with its beauti ful 19th century buildings, were very sati sfactory. Support from local hosts Richard Lukas and Petr Suchomel, themselves acti ve members of the Spine Society of Europe, ensu-red smooth running.

In total 728 delegates registered for the cour-ses; 443 for the courses in Barcelona and 285 for courses in Liberec. For all courses the num-ber of delegates att ending were somewhat less than the delegates registered, even in some cases those delegates who had pre-paid. The att endance fi gures are shown in table 1.

Twenty two delegates registered for all four courses, 33 for three courses and 97 for two courses. There were 304 delegates registered for one course and eight delegates registered for fi ve or six courses.

In all, 42 members of Society took part in the courses as instructors, to whom I am deeply grateful.

The instructors dedicated a large amount of ti me to the courses and committ ed to being present throughout the course. The discussion between the faculty during the course and the frequent use of case based discussion throug-hout the course in small groups with a mem-ber of the faculty, were two of the parts of the course which were most highly appreciated by the delegates.

The eight Barcelona courses cost the Socie-ty 320,298.91 Euros (table 2). Over the eight courses in Barcelona, 342 delegates actually att ended. The cost, therefore, to the Society per delegate for the Barcelona courses was 937 Euros.

The Liberec courses were considerably chea-per. For the fi ve courses the total costs were 118,272.18 Euros. In these courses there were 248 delegates who actually att ended at a cost to the Society of 477 Euros each.

Delegate fees were deliberately kept low and for the fee the delegate was provided with

the course itself, bed and breakfast, lunch and one gala dinner. The delegate registrati on fee for Barcelona was 350 Euros. For Liberec the

Registered Att ended

Barcelona Liberec Barcelona Liberec

2002 68 2002 55

2003 54 2003 48

2004 59 2004 52

2005 71 2005 58

2006 52 60 2006 40 44

2007 60 61 2007 42 55

2008 49 55 2008 32 44

2009 30 49 2009 15 45

2010 60 2010 60

443 285 342 248


26

delegates were charged a reduced fee of 250 Euros.

Finally the role of Judith Reichert Schild, the Society’s administrator and secretary can not be over-stated. The whole of the practi cal orga-nisati on of hotel accommodati on, faciliti es and room requirements and the venue, transport within the host City and delegate administrati -on were undertaken by Judith and I would like to express by profound grati tude for this assis-tance.

Conclusion

The Instructi onal Courses organised by the Spi-ne Society of Europe were run for two comple-te cycles to a total of eight courses. Over this period considerable experience was gained in running these courses and I believe the follo-wing points, disti lled from this experience, should be borne in mind when moving forward into the future.

1. Educati onal aspects of the course delivery are extremely important. All faculty mem-bers should have completed a Training the Trainers Course or similar qualifi cati on. Ad-vice from an educati onalist on the structure of the course should be obtained. The report

of Colin Coles, available from the secretariat, disti ls much of this advice.

2. The small group case based discussion was the single component most highly valued by the delegates.

3. Inter-acti on between the faculty in the dis-cussion was another aspect highly valued by the delegates.

4. Faculty should commit to staying for the en-ti re durati on of the course.

5. Provision for Eastern European colleagues is vital. The reduced fee and reduced travel cost are important, as is cost eff ecti veness for the society.

6. The local hosts have been extremely impor-tant in the provision of specialised faciliti es such as equipment and models for demons-trati ons. Their help in the social programme is also very welcome !

total Costs in EUR

Barcelona Liberec

2002 34,260.03

2003 39,452.73

2004 47,206.12

2005 38,533.00

2006 42,315.00 13,040.00

2007 33,846.00 38,175.20

2008 40,418.48 26,323.66

2009 44,267.55 18,026.38

2010 22,706.94

27


Educati on Committ ee Chairman Report 2008-2010

Educati on Committ ee Members 2008-2010: Emre Acaroglu, Marco Brayda-Bruno, Andreas Korge, Jean Charles Le Huec, Philip J. Sell, Anne Mannion, Finn Bjarke Christensen (Chair).

The ability to improve, restore and enhance pati ents’ lives is a privilege that is founded in public trust. Therefore, the importance of con-ti nuous medical educati on and conti nuous pro-fessional development is self-evident to spine professionals. For years the EuroSpine, the Spi-ne Society of Europe (SSE) has found the task of educati ng health care personal in spinal pa-thologies and developing treatment strategies of great importance. In 2009, the SSE decided to initi ate a new European Educati on program focusing on establishing European educati on standards, both for coming spine specialists and as part of conti nuous educati on. A new Eu-ropean Educati on Program can only be imple-mented and be successful through the involve-ment and support of Nati onal Spine Societi es of Europe and cross border Societi es with spi-ne focus. The SSE wants to positi on itself as a major driving force in Spine Educati on within Europe to act as a reference point and resour-ce for all Spine Societi es struggling with similar issues at local level, including Surgical Societi es such as Neurosurgery, Scoliosis but also non surgical European Societi es involved in the care of spinal disorders. To qualify this European Educati on Program, the SSE has the vision to deliver a Spine Diploma program at both Eu-ropean and Nati onal level. In a near future, it is expected that the European Community will

recognize the need to establish a Certi fi cati on on the basis of this SSE initi ati ve.

For that propose, the SSE wants to develop standards and policies in key areas of spinal postgraduate training, conti nuing spinal edu-cati on and professional development quality assurance in specialist practi ces. The objecti ve include the promoti on of quality pati ent care through the harmonizati on and improvement in the quality of spine specialist care and edu-cati on throughout Europe as well as encoura-gement and facilitati on of CME for European Spine Specialists. In the new “Europe” the health care labor force must have calibrated, standardized and recognized educati on stra-tegies enabling the workforce fl exibility across borders.

The SSE educati on curriculum acknowledge that there are many health care professionals involved in the management of spinal disorders. There is litt le doubt that progress in research and advances in practi ce have been hindered by a lack of common ground between profes-sions, which generally seem to use diff erent languages, att end diff erent scienti fi c meeti ngs, and maintain separate literatures with remar-kably litt le cross referencing between them.

The medical device industry and the phar-maceuti cal industry have over the last decade generated important educati on programs, but predominantly product orientated. However, their ability to bring products and therapies to

Finn Bjarke ChristensenEducati on Chair 2008-2010Aarhus, Denmark


28

pati ents who need them requires the trust of many diff erent groups: pati ents, pati ent associ-ati ons, physicians, hospitals, payers, other he-althcare insti tuti ons, regulators, policy makers and even media. One of the most important challenges faced by the device industry right now is preserving legiti mate collaborati on with physicians. Therefore, one goal of the following SSE educati on program is to minimize poten-ti al educati on confl icts (doctor/industry) and to foster an educati on culture of ethics and transparency, and conti nuously reviewing our practi ces and make them evolv as necessary to maximize trust and preserve innovati on.

To initi ate the process, the Nati onal Societi es have been proposed to contribute to desig-ning the content of the European Educati onal program hence to join this new European Plan Initi ati ve. The European diploma educati on program is now acti vated at the SSE level but also nati onal courses have taken place in 2010 and planned for 2011. We have now succee-ded having two Educati on Advisory Committ ee meeti ngs with representati ves from more than 20 European Spine Societi es.

It is clear from the surgical diploma program that in 2011 a task forces must be generated to defi ne and acti vate a non-surgical educati on program. To succeed with this new non-surgical

educati on program the SSE Educati on Commit-tee wants to open its doors for opinion leaders within the non-surgical fi eld.

The template addresses the general structure of the educati on program.

Setti ng a standard educati on template is ne-cessary to deliver consistent quality courses throughout Europe. Aft er successfully comple-ti ng all 5 diploma modules, the spine specia-list receives a “European Spine Diploma” from the SSE and EuroSpine Foundati on which is in charge of promoti ng and organizing the cour-ses. The Diploma target groups are physicians including the last year residents of the relevant medical specialti es, intending to acquire basic knowledge on the evaluati on of spinal disorders – disease processes, skills emergency approach to disorders of the spine. There is planed a Sur-gical educati on program (orthopedic and neu-rosurgeons) and a Non-Surgical program (other spine specialists desiring specializing in spine treatment). The Surgical program can be iden-ti fi ed on the homepage and the Non-Surgical program is under development.

A master course has in 2010 been linked to Di-ploma courses to provide further knowledge related to the subject.

We have also been working on a Surgical trai-ning program both for Future Spine Specialists (6 to 9 months fellowship programs) and Con-

Second Educati on Advisory Committ ee meeti ng in Vienna, 2010.

EUROPEAN SPINE DIPLOMA EUROPEAN SPINE DIPLOMA

Courses FellowshipMasterCourses

SymposiumSurgical training

Module 1

6 m

onth

s or

Pr

ofes

sor

Fello

wsh

ip

9 m

onth

s

Trav

ellin

g an

d O

n si

te

Module 2 Module 2Any sympo-sium

Module 3 Module 3

Module 4 Module 4SSE Annual Meeti ng

Module 5 Module 5

29


ti nuing educati on (Skills in Spine). In 2011 3 to 5 pilot fellowship programs should be imple-mented.

Implementati on of the Educati on Strategy:

In 2010, priority has been given to the imple-mentati on of the European Spine Diploma courses and establishing contacts with Nati onal and European Societi es. Module 1-4 has been delivered in Barcelona, Copenhagen, and Mi-lano. Module 5 is scheduled for January 2011, Vienna. Because module 1 is a prerequisite to other courses, it has been repeated routi nely before each course to off er new parti cipants the opportunity to enroll in the European Edu-cati on Plan at any ti me. The Med Tech Companies are controlled part-ners in the educati on program, meaning there workshop presentati on format is provided by the Foundati on (and input of SSE/Nati onal So-cieti es).The content brought by the Med Tech companies are only the products relevant to the topic that are introduced. The EuroSpine Foundati on helps and empowers the Spine So-ciety of Europe to achieve its goals.

Every Society delivering the 5 modules of the European Educati on Plan is free to adapt the SSE lectures as long as the key messages de-fi ning the Standard and the syllabus of each course respected.

A review committ ee will be validati ng and con-ti nuously improving the educati on program.

SSE courses 2011 and aft er

As the next steps, I fi nd it is important to keep on developing on two fronts:

Supporti ng the Nati onal societi es to develop the Educati on Plan locally and off er a long term

soluti on to deliver the European Educati on Plan without competi ng with the Nati onal so-cieti es.

At the European level, a yearly recurrent event is preferred, such as a “Yearly Educati on Week”, exclusively focused on Educati on and training during which the enti re curriculum of the edu-cati on program will be delivered, except of course for fellowship surgical training.

In conclusion:

• The initi ati on of the European Educati on Plan in 2010 was successful in regard of the evaluati on forms collected but also in regard of the number of att endees.

• It is important for a long lasti ng success of this European initi ati ve that the European Educati on plan is extended at Nati onal levels with the Nati onal societi es. However the SSE should conti nue to off er these courses at the European level to also off er spine specialists alternati ves to the Nati onal courses.

• The implementati on of this plan should opti -mize the chances to receive an offi cial reco-gniti on of the spine specialty in Europe from UEMS.

Acknowledgement: Implementi ng the present educati on program would not have been pos-sible without the ongoing support from SSE members, SSE ExCom and EuroSpine Founda-ti on. I would like to express my profound grati -tude to Gerard Vanacker (CEO, European Spine Foundati on) for his invaluable advice and sup-port in the process of implementi ng the educa-ti on program.


30

Spine Tango: Annual Report 2009-2010

News from Bern:

The missions, objecti ves and achievements of the SpineTango, the Internati onal Spine Regist-ry of EuroSpine, are shown in detail in the An-nual report 2009.

Thanks to the steady eff orts of the Bernese Team, important steps were made this year in terms of extension of the Spine Tango world-wide: two more nati onal modules were in-stalled: a Briti sh one in Oxford and the other one in Adelaïde, Australia.

The data base includes now over 30.000 sur-geries !

Contacts are made with NASS and other specia-list societi es like SAS or SOLA to try to convince them to become an offi cial partner of ST.

Conservati ve ST: aft er development and publi-cati on of the the fi rst draft version of ST conser-vati ve an internati onal consensus meeti ng was held in Bern on September 11th. The revised documentati on instrument will soon go into a validati on study. M Nordin is introducing it in New-York. Publicati on: “Development of a do-cumentati on instrument for the conservati ve treatment of spinal disorders in the Internati o-nal Spine Registry, Spine Tango” J.T.Kessler, M. Melloh, Th Zweig, E. Aghayev and C. Röder, Eur Spine J. 2010 Jun 9. [Epub ahead of print]

A 66 page “Spine Tango Pathways for Ente-ring and Querying Data” has been edited. This

user’s manual is online for all interested per-sons.

An advanced and improved new soft ware is to be released begin 2011. This will include tech-nical improvements, highest security standards but also new features and more comfortable handling for the user community.

1. Role of the ST Committ ee in the Spine Tan-go

The Spine Tango Registry exists because of the will and interacti on of a large array of highly skilled teams and individuals of various scienti -fi c, technical and medical backgrounds. The Insti tute for Evaluati ve Research in Medi-cine: Together with many other registries, the ST Registry is physically hosted on the Univer-sity of Bern Registry Platf orm: (www.memdoc.org ), at the Insti tute for Evaluati ve Research in Medicine and benefi ts from the major experti -se of the personnel of the Insti tute.

- IT specialists for maintenance and develop-ment of all documentati on projects

- Stati sti cians and data managers- Specifi c ST development, maintenance, admi-

nistrati on, communicati on, marketi ng… with Ch Röder, E. Röösli, T. Ambrose, M.Neukamp, G. Perler, …

Lobbying and fundraising, with Max Aebi and the EuroSpine Foundati on acti ng as the main players

Everard Munti ngChair, Spine Tango Committ eBiez, Belgium

31


Data contributors: Hospitals, departments and individual health care providers in the spinal fi eld, parti cipate by contributi ng their cases: now over 30.000 surgical procedures.

• Over 40 clinics • Over 200 contributors• In 14 countries (10 diff erent nati ve langua-

ges)• On 5 conti nents• Over 30.000 surgeries in the data base• Over 20.000 surgeon’s follow-ups• 15.000 pre-op and 11.000 post-op back CO-

MIs• 2850 pre-op and 2430 post-op neck COMIs

The Spine Tango Committ ee: Last year, when the Committ ee was re-installed at the Warsaw EXCOM, the precise place of this Committ ee in the Spine Tango project was not defi ned. The missions of the Committ ee could be con-sidered as fi tti ng exactly with the aims and ob-jecti ves of the Society as described in Arti cle 3 of our statutes:

“3.1 To sti mulate and off er a forum for the ex-change of knowledge and ideas in the fi eld of research, preventi on and treatment of all spi-nal disorders and deformiti es as well as their related problems.“3.2 To sti mulate fundamental and clinical stu-dies of these spinal disorders and their related problems.“3.3 To coordinate eff orts undertaken in Euro-pean countries and abroad for further deve-lopment in this fi eld in order to improve the health and fi tness of present and forthcoming generati ons.

“3.4 to promote best practi ce based on availab-le evidence in the management of spinal con-diti ons.”

These objecti ves are precisely what the Spine Tango is all about.

A major role of our Committ ee is to work on the ways to improve the quality of the contri-buted data, in close collaborati on with the Ber-nese team, represented by Ch Röder in the ST com, and with the EuroSpine Foundati on.

Improvement of Data Quality

Consistency in high quality data collecti on is not only dependent upon the good will of each contributor. What is also needed are common, clearly defi ned targets, using a common langu-age to easily fi ll in appropriate forms. An excel-lent, mature and reliable working tool for data gathering, transmission, storage, processing and exploitati on is available with the MEMDOC platf orm.

1. Dicti onary of TermsIn order to have a common language between over 40 parti cipati ng clinics, each involving several individual contributors, in 14 diff erent countries using 10 diff erent nati ve languages, we have produced a “Dicti onary of terms”. The exact meaning and interpretati on of each item of the basic ST forms ”Surgery 2006” and “Follow-up 2006” are explained in this docu-ment that isavailable on the web site.

2. Surgery 2011 and Follow-up 2011In the wake of this work, we did identi fy a num-ber of possible improvements of the forms. “Surgery 2011” and “Follow-up 2011” will be launched beginning 2011 and be largely com-pati ble with the previous forms regarding fu-ture queries.

3. Principles of ConductThe good will and enthusiasm of all contributors to the ST is of course a prerequisite to embark


32

and commit oneself to the eff ort of consistent contributi on to the database. We do however understand that the eff ort that can be asked is not the same for every parti cipant.

Ideal input is that of a contributor that includes all his or her cases in the database with all rele-vant informati on, including follow-ups and pre- and postoperati ve pati ent administered ques-ti onnaires like the COMI at diff erent follow-up ti mes. Those parti cipants who reach this level of contributi on will be part of a group of “Ac-credited Spine Tango Parti cipants”. A subset of the database will be exclusively consti tuted of these “pure” data including the full picture of the practi ce of these contributors. This will be of parti cular value for scienti fi c publicati ons.

The basic rules to which each parti cipant should adhere, the specifi c rules to become a so-called “Accredited Spine Tango Parti cipant” as well as the benefi ts inherent to these diff e-rent levels of contributi on to the ST have been writt en down. Starti ng next year, this agree-ment: “Principles of Conduct for Parti cipati on in the Spine Tango Registry” is to be signed by each single parti cipant.

The consti tuti on of an accredited data set will be a major step towards the fulfi llment of one of the goals of the ST: achieve large scale, mul-ti center collecti on of high quality data for bre-akthrough scienti fi c studies in the spinal fi eld.

2. Future Projects

Follow-up Agenda

With the new soft ware to be implemented soon, an automated follow-up agenda will be developed and included in the ST. This must vastly facilitate the day to day management of the data base for each individual parti cipant

and reduce also the administrati ve costs inher-ent to opti mal follow-up.

Implementati on of the principles of conductThe principles of conduct must be introduced to each acti ve parti cipants followed by the eva-luati on of their level of contributi on.

The future form of the SSE Spine Tango Regist-ry regarding its relati onship with the University of Bern and its long term fi nancing is a matt er that must be discussed and soluti ons are to be found. The EuroSpine Foundati on has an es-senti al role in this development.

33


The requirement for a pati ent informati on sec-ti on in the Web site of Eurospine, the Spine So-ciety of Europe, was discussed and became the main message of Dieter Grob’s 2002 Presiden-ti al address. Pati ent Line (PL) was born in 2005 to off er pati ents and general populati on the ac-cumulated experti se represented by the mem-bers of the society. The Society decided to have a reliable open window to the external world to provide up-to-date informati on related to spinal disorders based on the best-published evidence and expert opinion. Pati ent line is ac-cessible to everyone via the web site of Euro-Spine. In additi on to general informati on, Pati -ent Line provides a unique feature showcasing the opinions of our members on the various treatment modaliti es. Topic-related questi ons

are answered by members and the results of each inquiry are immediately available to the public on-line. Thus, in areas where evidence is scarce Pati ent Line provides a real ti me opinion of the EuroSpine membership, represented by the percentage of votes endorsing each treat-ment opti on (Figure 1).

Using the informati on available on PL, com-monly accepted procedures can be evaluated by the pati ents themselves. In additi on, pati -ents can evaluate the popularity or uncertain-ty among experts of specifi c treatments they have been off ered. This informati on should result in a bett er understanding of their own treatment, and involve them in the process of shared-decision making. The published data is

Pati ent Line

Dieter Grob Phil Sell Ferran PelliséZürich, Switzerland Leicester, UK Barcelona, Spain

The EuroSpine Pati ent Line Task Force

Figure 1


34

not meant to be the ulti mate truth, but refl ects the pragmati c and the common sense range of treatments off ered by the Eurospine member-ship.

Pati ent Line intends to be a link between evi-dence, daily practi ce and pati ents. The fi rst chapters have been dedicated to sciati ca, sco-liosis, cervical pain syndromes, low back pain, moti on preservati on surgery, osteoporosis and informed consent. The informati on is now available in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. For the last 4 years Pati ent line has been the most visited area of EuroSpine web-site, with 3000 to 5000 hits per month this inc-reased almost 10 fold (40000 to 50000 hits per month) in 2010 (Figures 2). This original idea is growing quickly and has been very well recei-ved. We are working to improve its structure

to reach as many pati ents as possible in a con-ti nent where English is sti ll unknown for a large percentage of the populati on. The goal is for Pati ent Line to become THE European pati ent informati on website on spinal disorders, pro-viding reliable, updated, best practi ce and evi-dence based informati on where the evidence exists.

Reference:Pati ent informati on and educati on with mo-dern media: the Spine Society of Europe Pati -ent Line.Pellisé F, Sell P; EuroSpine Pati ent Line Task Force.Eur Spine J. 2009 Aug;18 Suppl 3:395-401.

Figure 2

35


The EuroSpine Foundati on is the professional platf orm which helps and empowers EuroSpi-ne, the Spine Society of Europe to achieve its goals.

While the mission of the SSE is purely scienti fi c, the role of the Foundati on is to interact with all stakeholders to raise the necessary resources to implement the practi cal soluti ons as recom-mended by the SSE, in parti cular in the areas of educati on, research and quality assessment.To best achieve its mission, the foundati on is dedicated to:• building a professional support organizati on

dedicated to implement the programs of the SSE

o educati onal programs developmento spine research promoti on (an European

Spine Registry)o advocacy functi ono creati on of new tools and values for Euro-

Spine, the Spine Society of Europe mem-bership benefi ts

• raising funds througho industrial grantso public donati onso other sources of income from diff erent ser-

vices

The EuroSpine, the Spine Society of Europe and the EuroSpine Foundati on share the same mission:

Acti vity report EuroSpine Foundati on 2010

EuroSpine

Gerard VanackerCEO EuroSpine Foundati onLausanne, Switzerland


36

Foster excellence in spinal care by funding and implementi ng educati on, research and quality assessment programs and by sharing know-ledge and experti se both amongst spine spe-cialists, other healthcare providers, industrial partners, pati ents and third parti es.

To best achieve the mission of fostering excel-lence in spinal care, the EuroSpine, the Spine Society of Europe and the EuroSpine Founda-ti on must achieve 3 key objecti ves: Opti mize treatment outcomes, Opti mize pati ent ma-nagement, Promote and encourage best quali-ty spine centers. To meet these objecti ves, the strategic programs of the SSE are essenti al:

Research – Basic and Clinical Research - Eu-roSpine, the Spine Society of Europe establis-hed a Task Force on Research (TFR) in October 2009. The logisti c support provided by the ESF to the Research Committ ee helped the TFR to execute the fi rst phase of its plan which was to establish a “Request for Proposal” procedure to identi fy the actual fi elds of future research. When research projects are identi fi ed, ESF will further promote them.

Treatment outcome assessment: Spine Tango, the EuroSpine Registry - The EuroSpine Registry is a key strategic program necessary to achieve the main objecti ves of the SSE and ESF. To es-tablish the reputati on of the EuroSpine Regis-try, the quality of its anonymized Benchmark must not be challenged. Hence the process of data acquisiti on and data processing has been addressed by the Spine Tango Committ ee and the EuroSpine Foundati on. Principles of Con-duct guidelines, User’s Manual, and Dicti onary of Terms have been developed to guarantee the quality of the data base. In 2011, the ESF will implement these Principles of Conduct to a focused group of certi fi ed parti cipants to es-tablish the necessary Benchmark according to

the development plan which has been collec-ti vely agreed with the Spine Tango Committ ee and the Insti tute for Evaluati ve Research for Medicine (IEFM) directed by Max Aebi.

Educati on - The EuroSpine Foundati on with the support of EuroSpine, the Spine Society of Eu-rope wants to positi on itself as a major driving force in Spine Educati on within Europe. There-fore a European Educati onal Program has been defi ned with two main objecti ves and measu-rements:

In 2009, a European Educati on Plan Template has been created to establish standards with the opportunity to create internati onal interac-ti ons and networks between Health Care pro-fessionals focusing on spine. Aft er successfully completi ng all 5 diploma modules, the spine specialist receives a “European Spine Course Diploma” from the SSE and EuroSpine Founda-ti on which is in charge of promoti ng and orga-nizing the courses.

Objecti ves Measurements

Deliver consistent educa-ti onal program to future Spine Specialists

A European Spine Diplo-ma with recogniti on of UEMS (European Union of Medical Specialists)

Deliver conti nuous edu-cati onal program to Spine Specialists

A consistent Accredi-tati on delivered by the EACCME (European Accreditati on Council for Conti nuing Medical Educati on)

EUROPEAN SPINE DIPLOMA EUROPEAN SPINE DIPLOMA

Courses FellowshipMasterCourses

SymposiumSurgical training

Module 1

6 m

onth

s or

Pr

ofes

sor

Fello

wsh

ip

9 m

onth

s

Trav

ellin

g an

d O

n si

te

Module 2 Module 2Any sympo-sium

Module 3 Module 3

Module 4 Module 4SSE Annual Meeti ng

Module 5 Module 5

37


This above template has been promoted and communicated in 2010 to over 20 Nati onal Spi-ne societi es and federati ons of Spine Specia-lists; it has been generally well received. The original educati onal objecti ves of 2010 have been achieved: all modules of the European Spine Course Diploma have been delivered as well as 3 Master Courses within a year to parti cipants from 16 diff erent countries. Last module 5 will be delivered in Vienna, January 2011; the fi rst diplomas will then be delivered. At Nati onal level, GIS, the Italian Spine Society, delivered the fi rst module in local language in October 2010.

A formal review committ ee will be established in 2011. The two roles of the Review Commit-tee are to validate if nati onal courses contents (delivered in local language) comply with the established courses standard and to improve courses standards aft er the initi al experience of EuroSpine in 2010.

The agenda provided by the Edu Com for 2011 will be as follows:

The proposed dates and locati ons are feasib-le however sti ll need for some of them formal approval and clearance of the Nati onal Society depending on their decision making process in place.

Meanwhile, Educati on week concept will be fi ne-tuned to be launched in 2012.

Raising funds from Medical technologies com-panies to fi nance the 2010 SSE courses was challenging; nevertheless ESF succeeded to raise 225K€ from important contributors such as Medtronic, Stryker and J&J with no confl ict of interest whatsoever nor compromises.

Team work - All these achievements could ne-ver happen without a strong collaborati on bet-ween the ESF and the outstanding eff orts and dedicati on of all committ ee chairmen whom have shown full commitment and dedicati on in their tasks. Committ ee members and also members whom have been solicited as facul-ty members also contributed to this successful year!

Module 1 (English)

Module 2 (English)

UK/Dublin April 14-17, 2011

Module 1 (English)

Module 3 (English)

Eastern Europe

July 14-17, 2011

Module 1 (French)

Module 4 (English)

Lille (France)

May 26-29, 2011

Module 1 (Spanish)

Module 5 (English)

Spain September 22-25, 2011


38

Winner of 2010 EuroSpine Full Paper Award

ABNORMAL ACTIVATION OF THE MOTOR CORTICAL NETWORK IN IDIOPATHIC SCOLIOSIS DEMONSTRATED BY FUNCTIONAL MRI

J Domenech, G Garcia-Martí , L Martí -Bonmatí , C Barrios, JM Tormos, A Pascual-LeoneOrthopedic Surgery, Hospital Arnau de Vilanova, Valencia, Spain

Winner of 2009/2010 European Spine Journal/Grammer Award

DISC CELL CLUSTERS IN PATHOLOGICAL HUMAN INTERVERTEBRAL DISCS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH INCREASED STRESS PROTEIN IMMUNOSTAINING

CA Sharp, S Roberts, H Evans, SJ BrownEur Spine J (2009) 18:1587–1594

2010 Best Poster Award

SUITABILITY OF A CALCIUM ALUMINATE CERAMIC IN BALLOON-KYPHOPLASTY OF OSTEOPOROTIC VERTEBRAL BODY FRACTURES.

RESULTS OF A PROSPECTIVE CLINICAL TRIAL

TR Blatt ert, S Glasmacher, C JostenKlinik für Erkrankungen und Verletzungen der Wirbelsäule, Schwarzach, Germany

2010 Best Podium Award

INCIDENCE AND PREVALENCE OF SURGERY AT SEGMENTS ADJACENT TO A PREVIOUS POSTERIOR LUMBAR ARTHRODESIS

WR Sears, N Kazemi, IG Sergides, M Smith, B Osburg, GJ WhiteNeurosurgery & Spinal Injuries,

Royal North Shore and Dalcross Hospitals, Sydney, Australia

Awards 2010

39


Judith Reichert Schild

EuroSpine, the Spine Society of EuropeSeefeldstrasse 16CH-8610 Uster/Zürich, Switzerland

[email protected] +41 (0)44 994 14 04fax +41 (0)44 994 14 03

Editor: EuroSpine, the Spine Society of Europe

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Published: yearly

Distributi on: free copy including memberlist to all EuroSpine members

Print run: 1’000

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EUROSPINE Annual Report 2010/11 · EuroSpine Annual Report 2010/11 Dear Members, Friends and...

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