2010-2011 ASSR Executive Committee Elections
Vice President
Allan L. Brook, M.D., Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
Dr. Brook has been an active member of the Society, participating in the Annual Symposium for many years. He has participated as a Moderator and has given numerous lectures. Dr. Brook has previously been elected and served on the Executive Committee as a Member-at-Large, as Secretary/Treasurer, and on the Nominating Committee. His other responsibilities for the Society include being a member for the Corporate Support Committee, which is responsible for fostering relationships that help to support our research and fund the Annual Symposium. He was selected to be the representative for the NASS Summit meeting for our society, which brought together all spinal specialists to pursue similar goals of education and political foresight as well as reimbursement issues.
In addition to serving ASSR, Dr. Brook has been active in the ASNR and ASITN/SNIS, and SIR. He has served as Program Chair for the annual Practicum ASITN meeting 2007 and Program Chair for the 2008 SNIS Annual Meeting. He has enjoyed planning and putting together the numerous workshops and courses. For almost the last decade, Dr. Brook has been the Symposium Chairman for over 10 years, of an annual Advanced Interventional Management meeting in NYC, which emphasizes state of the art spine imaging and therapeutic options. He has directed numerous hands on cadaver courses, on image-guided pain management.
Dr. Brook’s current role as Associate Professor of Radiology and Neurosurgery at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine involves organizing and educating numerous residents from radiology, neurology, and neurosurgery on a daily basis. The prior 15 years of leadership has developed many young colleagues who now pursue careers in this special field.
The balance of running an active clinical practice and having academic responsibilities is similar to leading an evolving society, with diverse needs, one which has a growing membership with interests in state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging as well as understanding and learning the interventional skills necessary to manage these challenging cases.
Statement of Goals: We have a very unique society based on the highest quality of imaging and image-guided interventional skills. Continuing to improve our education on newest imaging modalities for both the spinal cord and the surrounding musculoskeletal structures is a must. We need to be the leaders in developing research protocols along with our clinical colleagues.
Learning new ways to approach the same diseases is useful and insightful. Basic science and clinical evaluation of the patient needs to be incorporated into our understanding disease and utilized in protocols. Newer MRI methods such as DTI, and furthering our capabilities with 3T, can be emphasized as an area to distinguish our society as the leader in diagnosis of all spinal disorders. There are still many disorders we still struggle with long differential diagnosis, and need to develop improved sequences.
We have colleagues in the medical and surgical fields that can be utilized to partner and further our goals of research, education, and clinical excellence. We need to be the society setting guidelines for the highest quality image-guided procedures. I will continue to make it a goal to encourage our international colleagues to participate and encourage them to invite their peers to be a part of this society. We need to continue to be the leaders in minimally invasive therapies involving the spine and in pain management.
Meng Law, M.D., M.B;B.S., F.R.A.C.R, USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
Meng Law, M.D. is Professor of Radiology and Neurological Surgery, Director of Neuroradiology at University of Southern California (USC) Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.
Dr. Law has been on faculty at USC Medical Center for the past year and prior to that was on faculty at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. After medical school at the University of Melbourne and residency at Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, he completed a fellowship at NYU Medical Center, where he was also Associate Professor of Radiology and Neurosurgery. He has been an Active member of the ASSR and has been an invited speaker and moderator for several years at the annual symposium of the society as well as the ASSR section of the ASNR Annual Meeting. He currently serves as a member of the ASSR Executive Committee, Program Planning Committee and chairs the ASSR Research Committee. He has also served on the Corporate Support Committee. He is a member of the ASNR Technical Exhibits Committee, the ASNR Research Committee and the ASNR Evidence Based Medicine Committee. He has also been on the Program Committee for the ASFNR for the past few years.
Dr. Law has been actively involved in numerous societies including the RSNA, ISMRM, ARRS and the ENRS (Eastern Neuroradiological Society), recently serving as the President of the ENRS. Besides reviewing for more than 16 peer reviewed journals, he is also a frequent grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the MRC (Medical Research Council) and the Department of Health NHS (UK). He also has extramural grant support for his research from a number of different agencies and societies.
Dr. Law’s special areas of interest are in advanced MR imaging techniques such as MR Spectroscopy, Diffusion Tensor Imaging and MR perfusion/permeability imaging. He has authored or co-authored more than 66 peer-reviewed publications and 16 book chapters, some of which have explored advanced imaging techniques in the spine. Dr. Law has attended the ASSR annual meetings regularly for many years. He is an avid teacher and mentor having given more than 360 lectures and presentations. He has received a number of awards and was recently presented with the prestigious Award for Excellence by the Society of Neuro-oncology (SNO) as well as the Outstanding Teacher Award at the ISMRM.
Statement of Goals: My goals on ASSR Executive Committee have been and will be to ensure the Society remains a pre-eminent organization in the imaging and medical community for spine imaging and intervention. I seek to encourage collaborations with both national and international societies with similar goals such as SNIS, NASS, ECR (European College of Radiology), ESNR (European Society of Neuroradiology) both to increase and enrich its membership. One mechanism would be to provide first year’s complimentary membership to first time participants at the annual symposium.
My goals on the ASSR Research Committee have been and will be to continue to generate hypothesis driven research, particularly in areas of controversy that address important questions pertaining to patient care and evidenced based outcome. This will ensure that the ASSR remains at the forefront of spine imaging and intervention. In these difficult economic times, my goals on the ASSR Corporate Support Committee have been to maintain important corporate relationships with industry and to ensure there is continued corporate support for the Society by reaching out to new industry members. As the economy improves, the support of industry in both education/training as well as research as outlined above is also critically important. The training, education (and re-education) of trainees and experienced practitioners in new imaging techniques as well as spinal procedures is important so that the ASSR can continue to establish and maintain itself as a pre-eminent resource in the standards of spinal imaging and intervention.
To ensure these goals are met, a new strategic plan for the ASSR will be developed with the members of the Executive Committee.
Secretary/Treasurer
Adam E. Flanders, M.D., Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Adam E. Flanders, M.D. is Professor of Radiology and Rehabilitation Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He serves as co-director of the Division of Neuroradiology/ENT and Director of Radiology Informatics Research at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He is also an active member of the Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center of the Delaware Valley. Dr. Flanders has been on faculty at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital since 1989 after completing fellowship training at Thomas Jefferson University and Residency training at the University of Illinois. He has been an Active member of the ASSR since 2003 and has been an invited speaker and moderator for several years at the ASSR Annual Symposium as well as the ASSR section of the ASNR Annual Meeting. He currently serves as Treasurer on the ASSR Executive Committee, as a member of the Ad Hoc Clinical Practice Committee and Ad Hoc Informatics Committee, and as chair of the Research Committee. He is also Chair of the Electronic Education & eCME Subcommittee for the ASNR, and serves on the Radiology Informatics Committee (RIC), the Imaging Informatics Coalition Subcommittee and Education Editorial Board (RadioGraphics) for the RSNA. He also serves as chair of the Medical Imaging Resource Center project for the RSNA and he is a member of the American College of Radiology Informatics Committee. Dr. Flanders is Neuroradiology subcommittee chair of the RadLex and Reporting initiatives for the Radiological Society of North America and Associate Editor (Informatics) for RadioGraphics. Dr. Flanders research has focused on the utility of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the evaluation and treatment of spinal cord injury.
Johan W. M. Van Goethem, M.D., Ph.D., Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium
Johan Van Goethem is Professor of Medical Imaging at Antwerp University, Belgium and Vice Head of the Department of Neuroradiology at the Antwerp University Hospital. He has published a number of peer-reviewed papers on spine imaging as well as a highly regarded textbook entitled “Spinal Imaging: Diagnostic Imaging of The Spine And Spinal Cord”.
Johan Van Goethem is an Active member of the ASSR and has attended 9 out of the last 10 ASSR Annual Symposia and was/is invited speaker in Scottsdale (2003), Miami Beach (2004), Marco Island (2007), Palm Springs (2008), Orlando (2009) and Las Vegas (2010). He also attended the last 8 ASNR annual meetings where he moderated several sessions, presented several oral and poster communications and was invited speaker both at the Symposium and at the Annual Meeting.
He currently serves his fourth year as a member of the ASSR Executive Committee and is a member of the Program Committee.
Johan Van Goethem is also actively involved in the European Society of Neuroradiology where he presently serves as Treasurer. He is also a member of the ESNR-ASNR Liaison Committee. During his appointment as Treasurer, the ESNR net financial incomes increased by 30% each year, and the return on investments was 3.7% in 2008, the year of the peak of the Global Financial Crisis.
Member-At-Large
Dan Thach Dam Nguyen, M.D., Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA
Dr. Nguyen’s career in academic Neuroradiology has taken him through two great institutions. He is currently at Penn State in Hershey, Pennsylvania where he serves as the Chief of Neuroradiology and the Fellowship Director.
Recent time, Dr. Nguyen has participated in the establishment and advancement of his local Neuroscience Institute and the Spine Center. He serves on the Executive Committee in the Neuroscience Institute to forward important issues and services to the regional population in terms of clinical care, research, and education. As a co-Director in the Spine Center, Dr. Nguyen works along side in clinics, conferences, and outreach with the orthopedic and neurosurgical spine surgeons, pain management service, and rehabilitation to improve outcomes to the patients with spinal disorders. With such shoulder-to-shoulder effort, he has broken down traditional turf wars where increasing mutual respect occurs for each other. His hope is to demonstrate the increasing relevance as Radiologists in Neurologic and Spine care from our diagnostic and interventional skills in this arena.
Dr. Nguyen’s main research interest lies in the spine. Time and funding can be challenging in today’s environment. However, the pursuit of building knowledge is worth it in which he has received several grants for such endeavor. He hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the degenerative and dysfunctional spine with some of the current multidisciplinary work he has undertaken in a multidisciplinary approach.
R. Sean Pakbaz, M.D., UCSD Medical Center, San Diego, California
Dr. Pakbaz’s medical career started in Internal Medicine with plans to become an intensive care physician. During his second year of training in internal medicine, he did a rotation in the interventional radiology department and his career path changed. Dr. Pakbaz did continue to moonlight in the ICU for the next four years while finishing his radiology residency.
After radiology residency, Dr. Pakbaz completed a Neuroradiology fellowship at William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit Michigan. Following that, he had the privilege of completing a Neurointerventional fellowship with Dr. John Hesselink and Dr. Charles Kerber at University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center.
Upon completing his fellowships, he developed a private practice program, one of the first in the country. Not only caring for the community and practicing at multiple hospitals but also actively educating physicians as to the minimally invasive procedures that can benefit patients, shorten hospital stays and minimize side effects. As HMOs’ are significant part of our community, he has also been very successful in establishing a busy neurointerventional practice at Kaiser Hospital. This has involved starting from the very basic concept of patient care: office setup, teaching support staff, establishing protocols, acquiring equipment, designing angiogram rooms, and of course patient treatment and follow up. This private practice experience allows him to understand the obstacles of practicing in a non-academic setting.
Dr. Pakbaz is currently Associate Professor of Radiology and Neurointerventional Surgery and Associate Section Chief of Neurointerventional Surgery at UCSD. He has the privilege of training physicians. By providing them the opportunity to have hands on experience yet the security of knowing there is a strong back up present to guide and help them. Physicians can ask questions and analyze techniques in safe environment. Teaching is an art, and experience only makes it better.
One of his active areas of interest is research in spine interventions. This involves basic laboratory, animal and clinical research both locally and internationally. Spine interventional procedures are a rapidly growing area requiring all of us to not only maintain the highest skill level but to continue to expand the art of spine intervention to help patients obtain the best possible outcomes. To that end over the past few years, Dr. Pakbaz has become an Active member of ASSR, of the ASSR Research Committee and the current chair of the Education Committee.
According the Dr. Pakbaz, as medicine continues to change and evolve so do the practitioners. ASSR and its members must remain at the forefront of leading the change. Dr. Pakbaz hopes to continue to do research, teach the new and up and coming physicians within the university and private practice, and remain a dedicated physician.
Andrea Rossi, M.D., G. Gaslini Children’s Hospital, Genova, Italy
Dr Andrea Rossi graduated cum laude in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Genoa in 1991 and specialized cum laude in Radiology at the University of Florence in 1998.
Consultant Neuroradiologist at the Giannina Gaslini Institute, Genoa, Italy since 1999, he has become the Head of the Department of Pediatric Neuroradiology in March, 2007.
Dr Rossi is a current member of the ASSR Nominating Committee. He also serves on the Executive Committees of the Italian Association of Neuroradiology (AINR), the European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Neuropediatrics (ESMRN), and the European Society of Neuroradiology (ESNR), where he is chairman of the Pediatric Neuroradiology Committee. He is Chairman of the Neuro Subcommittee of the European Society of Radiology for 2010. He also serves on the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of Neuroradiology and Neuroradiology.
He has authored 130 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals of which 94 are listed on Pubmed, 131 congress abstracts, and 38 book chapters. He is co-editor of the book “Pediatric Neuroradiology” published by Springer Verlag in 2005.
Dr Rossi has been invited to present at several international meetings, including the ASSR Annual Symposium in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, where he has presented on neuroimaging of spinal dysraphisms, infection/inflammation, and tumors in children, and also presented case-based imaging reviews.
Majda M. Thurnher, M.D., Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Dr. Thurnher attended Medical School in Croatia and earned her medical degree (MD) in 1989. After two years of Neurology Residency at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and Medical University of Vienna (Austria), she continued with the Radiology Residency at the Medical University of Vienna and was named an Austrian Board‐certified radiologist in 2000. In 2001, she was appointed Associated Professor of Radiology at the Medical University of Vienna, where she is currently working.
Dr. Thurnher spent one year as a visiting fellow at the University of Miami L. Miller School of Medicine. She is an editorial board member of AJNR, European Radiology, and Neuroradiogy. One of her scientific areas of interest is spinal imaging, and she has served as a guest editor on this topic for special issues of the Neuroimaging Clinics of North America, Seminars in Roentgenology, and the European Journal of Radiology. She has been a Member of the Programme Planning Committee for the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) for the past four years and a Categorical Course Director of “Spinal Imaging and Intervention” at the ECR.
Dr. Thurnher is currently Chair of the Subspecialty Committee, “Diagnostic Neuroradiology,” and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Neuroradiology (ESNR). She is also active in the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) as a Member of the Scientific Program Committee. She has given 120 invited lectures at international meetings, such as RSNA, American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), American Society of Spine Radiology (ASSR), International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), and ECR. Dr. Thurnher speaks and lectures in four languages (Croatian, German, English, and Italian).