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Dear ANA Members: 2022 has been an exciting year for ANA, and I wanted to use this newsletter to highlight some of the successes and new directions that we initiated in this exceptionally active year. ANA2022 To start, we held our first in-person ANA Annual Meeting in three years! It was wonderful being in Chicago, reconnecting with so many friends and colleagues, and listening to the incredible neurology and neuroscience speakers at the event. ANA Committees Over the past year, the ANA Governance Council has made great strides in working to ensure that we continue to provide our members with valuable resources and support. The council has focused on creating better efficiency, removing overlap, and increasing opportunities for greater and more diverse membership engagement in the committees. I’d like to thank the ANA Governance Council Chair, Eva Feldman, MD, PhD, FANA, and all council members for the significant progress made to support our mission to develop a more inclusive and equitable culture and efficient and effective committee structures. In addition to revamping our committee structures, we will also be creating a Clinical Affairs Committee, which will examine opportunities for the ANA to participate in the national leadership of, and direction for, neurology departments in the very dynamic clinical landscape. This year, the ANA hosted a series of Global Neurology Workshops to foster collaboration and bidirectional learning with our international colleagues. The workshops, which included representation from the World Health Organization (WHO) and consisted of a well-rounded mix of presentations and panels, were an astounding success! Our speakers provided compelling information on topics like academic neurology and training programs in Africa, successes and lessons learned, and insights from the neurology trainee experience. Partnerships in the Neurology and Neuroscience Community Strengthening our partnerships with allies in the neurology and neuroscience community was another priority for 2022, and this will continue in the coming year. We were pleased to be a part of the American Academy of Neurology’s (AAN) Chair Summit in November. The ANA co-sponsored the opening reception, which was a lively event and great for networking. |
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During the summit, I especially appreciated the opportunity to describe the ANA’s mission and how we are rescoping and reimagining our programming to support academic neurology departments and their missions, faculty, and trainees more effectively. It was great to see so many ANA members participating in the panels, discussion sections of the main summit programs, and the breakout groups. I want to thank our new CEO, Brenda Orffer, for attending the meeting, where she was able to interact and develop relationships with AAN administrative leadership. |
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In rescoping ANA’s mission, we feel it is very important that we maintain close collaborations with other professional organizations in neurology and neuroscience-related domains. In addition to increasing our collaborative programming with AAN, we have also been active this year in our interactions with Society for Neuroscience (SFN). Neuroscience research is a critical component of many academic neurology departments. We are looking forward to increasing our participation and potential common initiatives with organizations that focus on fundamental neuroscience. SFN is the premier home for neuroscience research and faculty. We were very pleased to learn how successful and well-attended the “Advances in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis” Symposium conducted by ANA members during the SFN annual meeting, Neuroscience 2022, was. I’d like to thank our colleagues who presented on behalf of the ANA at Neuroscience 2022:
ANA Strategic Initiatives We have also worked hard over the past year to develop several other strategic initiatives including:
I want to thank the ANA committees and staff for their hard work, time, and talents in completing all these important initiatives! I am very proud of everything the ANA has accomplished over the past year. It’s a sign of great things to come, so make sure to renew your membership today! You do not want to miss out on all the great things we have in store for 2023! A Fond Farewell and Warm Welcome I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to John A. Kessler, MD, FANA, Ken and Ruth Davee Professor of Stem Cell Biology, Professor of Neurology (Comprehensive Neurology) and Pharmacology, Northwestern University, for providing incredible value to the neurological community as Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology (ACTN). His work building ACTN into an established journal has been invaluable, and we wish him well in all his endeavors! Please also join me welcoming Ahmet Hoke MD, PhD, FANA, FRCPC, Professor, Neurology and Neuroscience, Director, Neuromuscular Division Director, Merkin Peripheral Neuropathy and Nerve Regeneration Center, Editor-in-Chief, Experimental Neurology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as the new editor in chief of ACTN. We look forward to a successful 2023 as the journal continues to grow under his leadership! Happy New Year! Sending warmest wishes to you and your families during this winter season! I am looking forward to a productive 2023 and to welcoming you to my home city of Philadelphia in September for the 148th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association! Regards,
Frances E. Jensen, MD, FANA, FACP Arthur Knight Asbury, MD Professor of Neurology Chair of the Department of Neurology Co-Director Penn Medicine Translational Neuroscience Center Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania |
