 Dear Colleague and Chapter President: Greetings from the IASP, which continues to be very busy as we reach the close of 2009. I write for several reasons, foremost to thank you and your membership for supporting the IASP in its activities and also to bring you up to date on developments related to you and your members.
 Let me begin by first thanking you for your support of the Global Year Against Cancer Pain, which concluded a very successful year last month. An important highlight during that year was the IASP-sponsored research symposium "A Global Problem: Cancer Pain from the Laboratory to the Bedside" (a summary of which will be available in 2010 thru IASP Press). The theme for the current year (2009-2010), which I know many of you have already taken up, is Musculoskeletal Pain. The IASP web site already contains numerous fact sheets about musculoskeletal pain. This Global Year theme will be emphasized through October 2010. Fact sheets are available for all without cost in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German and Spanish and we also anticipate, through the efforts of many of our members, that these fact sheets will be available in additional languages as well. The next Global Year theme (2010-2011) will focus on post-operative pain. At its meeting in Buenos Aires, the IASP Council identified potential future Global Year themes, including: * Headache * Visceral Pain * Depression/Anxiety * Opioid Awareness/Legislation * Oral Facial Pain * Culture and Pain I write to seek your advice about these and other future Global Year themes, which we must select well in advance to organize efforts to advance knowledge and information in these important areas of pain management. Please let me know which theme(s) above, as well as any themes not on the list that you and your members believe should be considered for future Global Year themes. I am also pleased to report that the Task Force on Pain Schools chaired by Dr. Cynthia Goh has begun the development of short term (one week) schools for the education of physicians and other health care practitioners in South East Asia, Latin America and Africa. This task force is composed of IASP Councilors and members knowledgeable about the needs of physicians and others in those areas of the world. IASP intends to aggressively develop educational initiatives to improve the understanding of pain mechanisms and management of pain throughout the world. This Task Force is working closely with the Developing Countries Working Group chaired by Sir Michael Bond and the Education Working Group chaired by Dr. Phillip Siddall. In addition, the IASP has developed a relationship with the long-standing European Pain School held annually in Siena, Italy. This summer school is more heavily focused on pain mechanisms and translating mechanisms into improved strategies for pain control and thus has a different, but still principally an educational, focus.  Meeting. From left to right: Nadia Fella, S. General of the Societé Algerienne D'Evaluation et de Traitement de la Douleur (SAETD); Dalila ben Moussa, Treasurer of SAETD; Brahim Griene, President of SAETD; Maged El-Ansary, President of ESMP; G.F. Gebhart, President of IASP; Akwasi Kussi, S. General of Ghana Association for the Study of Pain; Magdy Iskander, Vice President of ESMP. I recently attended the Egyptian Society for Management Pain (ESMP) meeting in Cairo where I had the privilege of meeting and interacting with IASP members and others from Algeria, Ghana, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in addition to Egyptian IASP members. Recent Past-President Troels Jensen similarly participated in a meeting this past October organized by the Myanmar Society for the Study of Pain, which was held Yangon and included a large number of very active and interested physicians and health care providers. In October, the IASP Council had the opportunity to have its meeting in conjunction with the Argentine chapter's annual congress. As many Latin American chapter presidents attended the meeting, the IASP Executive Committee had the opportunity to meet with chapter presidents from Argentina, Chile, Venezuela as well as a representative from Colombia to discuss how IASP and the chapters could work together.  IASP in Buenos Aires. From left to right: Noemi Rosenfeld, Past-President of the Asociacion Argentina para el Estudio del Dolor (AAED); Fabian Piedimonte, President of AAED; Julieta Arroyo, President of the Asociacion Venezolana par el Estudio del Dolor (AVED); Kathy Kreiter, Executive Director of IASP; Patricia McGrath, Secretary of IASP; Beverly Collett, Treasurer of IASP; G.F. Gebhart, President of IASP; Juanita Jaque Garcia, President of the Asociacion Chilena para el Estudio del Dolor (ACHED); German Ochoa, Colombia. I also remind you to encourage your members to plan to participate in the next World Congress on Pain to be held in Montréal, Canada, from August 29 to September 2, 2009. A call for abstracts and for applications for financial aid was recently distributed to the IASP membership. The IASP has developed guidelines for aid and set aside significant funds to assist trainees and others to attend the Congress. The Montreal Congress promises to be an exciting and very successful one. The program developed by the Scientific Program Committee is exceptional in its breadth and depth and I look forward to seeing you and many of your colleagues there. Financial Aid applications and abstracts are due February 1, 2010. I encourage you to also share this news with your chapter members who are not members of IASP. Lastly, I would be grateful to hear from you about how IASP can strengthen its relationship with you and your members, please do not hesitate either me contact me ( Esta dirección electrónica esta protegida contra spam bots. Necesita activar JavaScript para visualizarla ) or Kathy Kreiter in Seattle ( Esta dirección electrónica esta protegida contra spam bots. Necesita activar JavaScript para visualizarla ) if we can be of help to you. Let me close by taking this early opportunity for best wishes in the New Year. I will be in communication again in the early part of next year to update you on new developments in IASP. Please remember to get back to me about Global Year themes and to encourage your membership to contribute to the World Congress on Pain. Sincerely Yours, 
G.F. Gebhart, PhD President, IASP |
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