ISSUE 3 /// FRIDAY, 7 OCTOBER 2016 /// EUROSPINE2016.EU
WELCOME NEW PRESIDENT We would like to congratulate Margareta Nordin on her election as EUROSPINE President for the Term 2016-2017. She plans to continue the path which has led EUROSPINE to become a fast growing, broad-minded society. As a society lives with its members, it is especially important for the organisation to fulfil members’ wishes. Precisely, she is convinced that members and the society are seeking more and more specialised education with a diploma as a spine specialist. A spine surgical diploma is in place and a non-surgical diploma is being started. The comprehensive education programme is one of the aspects of EUROSPINE that is looked at with envy from other societies. This is also the reason why it is important for her that the spring meeting will continue as a specialty meeting with a narrower focus which explores specific issues in depth.
MEDAL LECTURE Furthermore she wants to expand the opportunities for research, for example with specialist fellowships in medical centers. Also the new opportunity for the accreditation of spine centers will bring treatment of spine related issues to a new standard so that all healthcare providers can deliver their excellence in treatment. The regionalisation of the services of EUROSPINE will also play an important role. On the one hand Spine Tango will be continually developed so that the goal of having it in every country in Europe implemented except where there are already national registries in place will be met. On the other hand Patient Line should and will also be translated into several other European languages. The differentiation of memberships has brought a substantial
growth to the society which should be maintained with continued excellent service for the individual member. The continued importance of EuSSAB to EUROSPINE is shown as the voices of the EuSSAB national members are now represented through the observer at the Executive Committee of EUROSPINE Margareta Nordin hopes that all European countries will soon become members of EuSSAB. Her personal wish as a president is that “I can fulfil the members’ suggestions and requests for changes in the society and to attract more young members to engage actively in the society as much as possible as this is the future of the society. I am also extremely proud to be the first female president and I hope that more women will follow.”
PRESIDENT’S SPEECH At his presidential address Michael Ogon, President of EUROSPINE 2015-2016, presented “The Surgeon’s Time Capsule”. His speech started on the different aspects of time capsules and how little the chances of their content being ever read again are. Dr. Ogon reported on the history of anaesthesia, the base of modern surgery and the realizations of Ignaz Semmelweis as well as many other steps in medical history which lead to modern medicine as we know it today. After some inspirational stories of early orthopaedics, the audience
was lead to the to story of the set-up or an entirely new spine department in 2001 at the Hospital Speising in Vienna which eventually resulted in the new department for joint replacement in 2014. In his final conclusion Dr. Ogon explained the dramatic changes that have affected medicine in Austria and around the world from heavy regulation on working time, to more time having to be used for bureaucratic procedures. His points on the changes in patient advocacy and especially the one on overregulation were
listened to with high interest by the international audience. This will certainly lead to discussions among participants of EUROSPINE 2016 on how the relationship between patients and doctors as well as bureaucracy is handled throughout Europe. He finished with his personal wishes for EUROSPINE: ”When creating new standards, guidelines, position statements, or treatment recommendations, let us try to set the framework as wide as possible in order to allow for a liberal medical profession.”
This year’s Medal Lecture was given by Dr. Theo Sommer, the former editor-in-chief and editor-at-large of “Die Zeit”, one of the most renowned German newspapers.
like him, his successors never wavered in their commitment to the EU, as all of them also supported mooring the enlarged Federal Republic in the Atlantic Alliance.
Twenty-five years ago, Germany was reunified after forty years of division. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism and the disaggregation of the Soviet Union, the Germans were looking forward to a peaceful and prosperous future in a reunited Europe. They dedicated themselves to modernizing East Germany – a difficult and expensive task, given the dilapidated state of the area between the rivers Elbe and Oder. By now Germany has spent about 2.5 trillion Euros on lifting the “Neue Länder” out of poverty and tristesse. The task is not yet accomplished, but living conditions in East Germany, although unemployment hovers twice as high as in West Germany, have approached 90 percent of the Western level. Then the Germans went about restructuring and expanding the European Union.
During the past eight or ten years, however, the givens changed fundamentally. Germany’s economic strength has become a political liability rather than an asset. Its austerity policy and its enormous trade surplus, seen as a boon at home, weighed on the economically weaker EU countries. The global financial crisis triggered by Lehmann Brothers in 2008 and the Greek debt crisis compounded Germany’s dominance, causing an enduring rift between North and South in the EU. The Ukraine crisis shattered the hope for a peaceful Europe. The refugee crisis caused by the migration tsunami in 2015 opened another deep rift, this time between Germany and Chancellor Merkel’s “welcome culture” and Eastern Europe’s refusal to accept any refugees, especially Muslim refugees.
Rather than turning his back on Europe after reunification, Chancellor Kohl committed the country to the goal of an even closer union of the European peoples. He pushed for the speedy installation of the Euro, giving up the strong Deutschmark in favor of a common currency of the Brussels Community. He supported the accession of the eight ex-Communist countries in Eastern Europe to the EU and
The Brexit crisis, however, has catapulted Germany back to the top. Faute de mieux, it has become Chancellor Merkel’s task to trace out the future path of the EU-27 and to design the structures that will secure its survival. It’s work in progress, and the outcome is still quite uncertain. In his closing words Dr. Sommer pleaded for less bureaucracy in Europe but for a stronger Union overall.