ISSUE 3 /// FRIDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2013 /// EUROSPINE2013.EU
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK GARDNER Eurospine 2013 is a conference dedicated to the discussion of spinal injuries and conditions like yours. What was the main appeal for you with regard to speaking at the conference?
Usually I get asked to talk about the Middle East, security: my normal line of work. I don’t often get asked to talk about spinal injuries so felt it was an original topic to contribute to. I’ve gone from knowing nothing about medical matters and spinal injuries to, whilst not being an expert, knowing a bit more than most people in the street.
annoy me, is lumping everyone in together. There’s a huge difference in capability and lifestyle between somebody who’s got a complete cervical neck injury and somebody with a low lumber injury like me who can still move their legs and has more mobility. As a journalist yourself, have you ever felt that spinal injuries or disabilities are overlooked by the media? Prior to the Paralympics, I would have said yes. Not only did they make the sight of someone in a wheelchair commonplace, but for a brief moment last summer we had almost hero status. However, Paralympics aside I think probably because diseases like cancer are such big killers, and because people rarely die straight away from spinal chord injuries (it’s a life ruiner rather than a killer), inevitably it doesn’t get as much attention or funding.
INTERVIEW WITH FERRAN PELLISÉ 9/11 played out in the middle east. It was obvious from the beginning that this was a jihadist attack on the US, so it was incredibly important to go around the region, literally the very next day, canvassing opinion on the backstreets of Cairo. Then, taking that further and going in to Saudi Arabia, the heartland of where the attackers came from, talking to people there, trying to understand why the people did what they did and why they had supporters. On a lighter note, you have a sizeable social media presence. Have you ever posted something that got you in trouble? Not so far. A few times I’ve thought twice about something after posting it and deleted it, but of course with Twitter and retweet your post whether you like it or not.
of the Society”: relevant young persons from all over Europe representing all the countries. of our paper and they did a critical analysis of it, and with their insight and opinions, we If you look back over the year of your presidency, would you say there have been major challenges and would you also say there have been major changes and shifts in the society? I think this has been a very, very important year for the society. In fact, it is our 15th anniversary – the society was founded in 1998 – and in 15 years the society has grown a lot. Just in terms of the meeting, the attendance has number of abstracts has been multiplied by three, which is a huge increase. After that, the executive thought that it was time to do a review process and to
Is your injury something you ever tire of explaining to people? Not at all, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be asked to explain it. The
As someone who’s had almost two decades of experience in the world media, what would you say event you’ve ever witnessed
the strategy of the society. Based on that, we had a plan to develop what could be our future strategy. We did several workshops where all the members of the executive committee were involved, and
and
Inevitably it’s got to be how
that we called “Young Leaders
something
that
does
of the society, which is very important. We established several priorities: e.g. our members. We will focus to increase the number of members and try to attract young people, people with talent: the elite, but without being elitist. We will also try to get agreements with national societies to get what we call “institutional members”, where members of national societies automatically become members of the EUROSPINE society, simply because their To watch the full video-interview, please scan this QR-code with your smartphone or browse to www.youtube.com/eurospineorg
INTERVIEW WITH JÖRG FRANKE
Dr. Franke, you are Chair of
the Programme Committee. What were the challenges in selecting the best articles? First of all, we always have a lot of articles: 785 this year, so we had to select the authors who did the most objective reviews. We accomplished this by having every abstract read
by four people, and from their results generated an average, thus allowing us to select the right abstracts. Another challenge was to make an interesting programme. We have almost 2,000 people here with different interests, so we have to ensure that the
programme represents a good mixture of spine related topics. I think we have accomplished this, and so far I’m happy with the programme and I hope it is well perceived. To watch the full video-interview, please scan this QR-code with
your smartphone or browse to www.youtube.com/eurospineorg