Message from the President

Dear Members,

ACNS is at the cross roads, now it is the time to take ACNS to the next level and make it at par with other western neurosurgical societies. ACNS may not have a very long and illustrious history like many other societies. What is worth considering is contribution it has made towards the neurosurgical community in Asia.

The demographic study reveals that that half of world population lives in Asia but the contribution to world neurosurgery is no way near that. This fact was realised almost 20 years back and this led to the formation of ACNS. Since the inception society has contributed immensely. Fujita health university took the initiative to start fellowship programmes, which has trained numerous young neurosurgeons over the years from different parts of the world and continue to do so even now. My concern has always been young neurosurgeons especially from developing countries who do not have the access the best of neurosurgical training. This will continue to be the main area of interest in the future also. I have realised that most important limitation of fellowship programme is number of students who can be trained. Hence it is necessary for senior teacher to travel and conduct workshops. This goes long way in improving academic and surgical skills of neurosurgeons.

All of us are aware that future will be dominated by digital world and medical field will not be an exception to that. ACNS will to work towards having latest modalities in its teaching armamentarium. These will include e-learning which will have interactive modules. In the era of smart phones e-learning will soon take the shape of m-learning. Being a lady neurosurgeon, I am well aware of the problems faced by lady neurosurgeons. Family obligations often prevent them from attending conferences, workshops and even fellowships. I hope online teaching modules and locally conducted workshops will to an extent address these problems. Online programmes, conferences have their own limitations. They don’t impart any hands-on experience. So I feel hands-on workshop should be integral part of any pre-conference programme.

I’m happy to announce to AJNS has come out with new looks which is more user friendly. We are now trying to get it indexed in pubmed and hopefully it will be a reality soon. I foresee AJNS rich in contents in future and expect generous contribution from all over the world especially from Asia as it is our own journal. Considering the fact the Asian’s contribution to the world neurosurgery is small, I hope this journal will provide a platform to show case the scientific work happening in this part of the world. I wish all happy and prosperous New Year and hope that growth of ACNS continues unabated.