NCS Well Represented at AAN 2018 in Los Angeles
By Kassi Kronfeld and Alexis Steinberg
The Neurocritical Care
Society made a strong
showing once again at
this year’s AAN Annual
Meeting in Los Angeles,
with several events and
lectures featuring NCS
members. The Resident
and Fellow Committee,
in conjunction with
the support of the executive board and Drs. David Hwang and
David Freeman, helped to coordinate and publicize these events,
allowing for the strong neurocritical care presence at AAN.
The highlighted NCS sponsored event at the AAN was the
Neurocritical Care Society Mentorship Luncheon. For the last
three years, the Mentorship Luncheon has been a staple at AAN.
The luncheon was well attended by mostly residents, fellows
and even a few medical students, all interested in neurocritical
care. Appropriate for the Los Angeles setting, the event started
off with a delicious taco bar. Then, a speaker panel featuring
Drs. Tom Bleck, Dave Freeman, Holly Hinson and Asma Moheet
provided their thoughts on different aspects of neurocritical care.
Topics of discussion ranged from identifying successful mentors,
choosing a career path, research, early career development, quality
improvement and work-life balance.
Next, panel members broke into small group discussions for
attendees to ask more specific questions and have more in-depth
discussion. There were even guest appearances from Drs. David
Hwang and Neeraj Badjatia, who also provided input about
neurocritical care to the various trainees. After the event, Dr.
Holly Hinson stated how she “hopes the event continues each
year.” Dr. Asma Moheet said that “being able to connect with
people who are just discovering neurocritical care and hungry
to learn more is one of the most exciting and fulfilling things
I’m privileged to do.” Overall, the event was very successful and
hopefully was able to provide insight to the many trainees who are
interested neurocritical care.
The “Navigating your Career” session by Dr. Matthew Maas is
another staple neurocritical care event at AAN and has been at
the AAN for the last several years. A large audience attended
the session, with many participants standing in the back. The
event is an open forum, where Dr. Maas discussed different
aspects of neurocritical care, from the structure of different
fellowship programs to what it means to be a neurointensivist.
He provided useful information to the audience and,
unsurprisingly, made the entire crowd laugh with his wit.
Afterwards, many of the participants even stayed back to ask
him more individualized questions.
Numerous neurocritical care related lectures were part of AAN’s
schedule. The most unique session was by Dr. Tom Bleck, who
gave a HeadTalks presentation on neuro-bioterrorism. Naturally,
Dr. Bleck’s interest in neuroterrorism started because many
biochemical warfare agents can cause status epilepticus. He taught
the audience about these different agents and their effects on
the nervous system, helping physicians with early recognition of
various toxidromes.
Additionally, a full day was dedicated to the essentials of
neurocritical care. Drs. David Greer, Kristine O’Phalen and
Lori Shutter each organized one of the sessions, which
informed the audience about general neurocritical topics
including neuroprognostication, multimodality monitoring,
medical treatment of subarachnoid hemorrhage, management
of neuromuscular diseases and many more. Different
neurointensivists also had dedicated sessions on specific subjects
within the neurointensive care units, from Targeted Temperature
Management to Status Epilepticus. Dr. Muehlschlegel created an
informative session on “Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: From ICU
to Rehabilitation.” She taught the audience about management
and prognosis of TBI patients. Dr. Brian Edlow went through
different imaging in TBI, including unique research modalities
that will hopefully allow us to better understand TBI and coma.
Lastly, Dr. David Brophy discussed the pharmacological and
rehabilitative approaches to neurological sequelae of TBI. The
entire session was well attended with inquisitive questions at
the end. Besides a formal lecture on TBI, the topic also made
an appearance in the Clinical Trials Plenary Session, where the
BOOST 2 trial was presented and further discussed.
Kassi Kronfeld Alexis Steinberg
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