Quarterly News Magazine
of the
Neurocritical Care Society
December 2018
Volume 13 - Number 4
Editor-in-Chief
Saef Izzy, MD
Boston, MA
Editorial Board
Jose Suarez, MD
Baltimore, MD
Wade Smith, MD, PhD
San Francisco, CA
Masao Nagayama, MD, PhD,
FAAN, FJSIM
Shizuoka, Japan
Kyle Hobbs, MD
Palo Alto, CA
Audrey Paulson, DNP
San Jose, CA
Kimberly Levasseur-Franklin,
PharmD
Boston, MA
Fawaz Al-Mufti, MD
New York, NY
Raimund Helbok, MD, PD
Innsbruck, Austria
Peter J. Papadakos, MD
Rochester, NY
Ciro Ramos-Estebanez MD, PhD
Cleveland, OH
Michael Reznik, MD
Providence, RI
Lauren Koffman, DO, MS
Chicago, IL
Yasser B. Abulhasan, MBChB,
FRCPC
Kuwait City, Kuwait
Sara Stern-Nezer, MD
Irvine, CA
Deepa Malaiyandi, MD
Toledo, OH
Alexis Steinberg, MD
Pittsburg, PA
Note from the Editor
Dear Colleagues,
I want to welcome you to the final issue of Currents in 2018, the official
quarterly news magazine of NCS. As we are approaching a new year, I would
like to wish our readers happy holidays and express my genuine appreciation
to our editorial board members and to everyone who participated in
supporting the Currents spirit and advancing its exciting mission.
Over the last year, our Currents team has been working hard to grow this
quarterly magazine nationally and internationally. In 2018, we built a
thriving network of members who contributed significantly to the international sections of
Currents. With the help of our outstanding managing editor, Alexa Schlosser, we reinvented the
Currents electronic website design and made it more engaging, interactive and reader friendly,
which increased our newsletter browsing traffic significantly. To check out the Currents website,
go to currents.neurocriticalcare.org.
We started a research column with the help of Shraddha Mainali, Sara Hocker and Andrew
Naidech from the NCS Research Operations Subcommittee to boost the research content of our
newsletter. In addition, we expanded our editorial board to achieve the educational mission of
this newsletter. Please join me in welcoming two new editorial board members:
• Editor of Ethics section: Deepa Malaiyandi, MD, who is an assistant professor of neurology
at the University of Toledo, Ohio.
• Co-editor of NEWS Review section: Sara Stern-Nezer, MD, who is an assistant professor of
Neurology at University of California, Irvine.
Our plan for 2019 is to continue this global newsletter success, keeping our content valuable,
scientific and educational. Remember, it’s all about teamwork, so please stay involved!
This issue of Currents has many international news articles that provide you with a panoramic
view of the motivational growth of our specialty. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn about
Neurocritical Care in Singapore and Zambia, as well as the first neurocritical care unit in Abu
Dhabi. Highlights from the Seventh International Hypothermia and Temperature Management
Symposium in Sydney are also available.
In addition to our regular columns, this issue of Currents features many motivating news articles
that I highly recommend on topics such as the future of neurocritical care research article,
growing mentorship within neurocritical care and caring for the post-procedure mechanical
thrombectomy patient.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn the Road to Career Development Awards! We
launched this new initiative to motivate our NCS members and boost the research section of
our newsletter by featuring our society National Institute of Health career development grant
awardees. In this issue, Lauren Koffman interviewed Christopher Anderson, from Massachusetts
General Hospital, Jonathan Elmer from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Raj
Dhar from Washington University, who told us about their research background and grant
application experience, which I found very inspiring.
On the cover: The cover art was submitted by Lauren Koffman, DO, MS, a neurointensivist at
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The view is along a path within Morton Arboretum,
located in the suburbs outside of Chicago. The colorful foliage was reminiscent of fall back
home in New England.
I hope you enjoy this issue. As always, if you have ideas on improving Currents or wish to
contribute, please email me at sizzy@bwh.harvard.edu.
Happy Holidays!
Saef Izzy, MD
Editor-in-Chief
2
/currents.neurocriticalcare.org
link
