Program and Continuing Medical Education
Committee Report

Sarah J. Gaskill, MD

The Pediatric Section had a great turnout for its programs at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons meeting in September. Interestingly, the spasticity program drew a large audience with active audience participation. The highlight was Alan Cohen, MD (singing), and Jonathan Miller, MD (on keyboard), presenting Extreme Neuroanatomy; the standing ovation was well deserved.

Our first Integrated Medical Learning session was "Arrested Hydrocephalus: To Treat or Not to Treat." Despite being held late on Wednesday afternoon, attendance was good and our data showed that the expert speakers (Arthur Marlin, MD, Corey Raffel, MD and Hugh Garton, MD) did change the treatment decisions in a large number of participants; these data will be presented in the future. We hope more section members will participate in IML, a new method of learning, because it is not only here to stay, it will likely be expanding.

The Pediatric Section will be holding its first Web-based continuing medical education program this fall. The topic will be "Management of Arachnoid Cysts." It is being organized by Mark Krieger, MD, so watch for further e-mail messages about this new modality for education, and please consider helping to fill our virtual classroom.

David Gruber, MD, has certainly worked hard, and the 2009 Pediatric Section meeting in Spokane promises to be a great one with a wonderful scientific program and social activities.

Again, anyone who wishes to participate in the meetings or has suggestions about future talks or programs (or suggestions about eliminating tired old topics) please contact me at sgaskill@mac.com.

Sarah J. Gaskill, MD, FAAP, FACS, is chair of the Program and Continuing Medical Education Committee of the AANS/CNS Section on Pediatric Neurological Surgery.