COT-28 Questionnaire Survey Regarding Working Condition of the Members Belongs to the Japan Society for Neuro-Oncology (JSNO) by the Gender Equality and Diversity Committee of the JSNO, 2021

Gender Equality and Diversity Committee (“Women and Diversity in Neuro-oncology - WING”) of the Japan Society for Neuro-oncology (JSNO) was established in November 2020 with the aim of supporting and providing better opportunities for diverse members including women in JSNO. In order to achieve this goal, the JSNO and WING planned to conduct a questionnaire survey of all members in the fall of 2021 to investigate the actual situation of members. The targets of this study were clinicians, basic researchers, nurses and allied health professionals including medical social workers. The survey is conducted after obtaining the approval of the Ethics Committee and Academic Committee of the JSNO. Method: As of September 26, this questionnaire is currently underway online and anonymously. The questionnaire includes questions on work environment, home environment (including childcare and nursing care) for understanding work-life balance, existence of problems related to career development, support measures considered necessary, and expectations for WING. Results: As the results of the questionnaire were not available at the time of writing this abstract. However at the presentation we will present the statistical analysis of the survey. Various comparisons of the questionnaire items common to those of the Japan Neurosurgical Society and the Japan Pediatric Society, which were conducted several years before this survey. Conclusion: Respect for diversity is increasingly important in the field of neuro-oncology. Surveys are important for the future success of our diverse community, and we believe that this survey will be an important milestone.

Survival outcomes after traumatic brain injury during national academic meeting days in Japan

Surgeons and medical staff attend academic meetings several times a year. However, there is insufficient evidence on the influence of the “meeting effect” on traumatic brain injury (TBI) treatments and outcomes. Using the Japan Trauma Data Bank, we analyzed the data of TBI patients admitted to the hospital from 2004 to 2018 during the national academic meeting days of the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine, the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Japanese Association for the surgery of trauma, the Japan Society of Neurotraumatology and the Japan Neurosurgical Society. The data of these patients were compared with those of TBI patients admitted 1 week before and after the meetings. The primary outcome was in-hospital death. We included 7320 patients in our analyses, with 5139 and 2181 patients admitted during the non-meeting and meeting days, respectively; their in-hospital mortality rates were 15.7% and 14.5%, respectively. No significant differences in in-hospital mortality were found (adjusted odds ratio, 0.93; 95% confidence interval, 0.78–1.11). In addition, there were no significant differences in in-hospital mortality during the meeting and non-meeting days by the type of national meeting. In Japan, it is acceptable for medical professionals involved in TBI treatments to attend national academic meetings without impacting the outcomes of TBI patients.

Women In Neurosurgery: A Critical Assessment of The State of The Specialty in Turkey

BACKGROUND: Although at least half of medical students are women, neurosurgery is not often preferred by women, and the proportion of female neurosurgeons who can participate in the academic platform is very low. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to show the role of female neurosurgeons in the Turkish Neurosurgical Society.METHODS: We examined the age, academic rank, years of work in the profession, membership rate in society subgroups, h-index parameters, and relationships of certificated female neurosurgeons registered in the Turkish Neurosurgical Society. We examined gender rate differences between society subgroups using chi-square tests. A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.RESULTS: There are currently 94 board-certified female neurosurgeons between the ages of 31 and 92 years; 10 are full professors (10.6%), 16 are associate professors (17 %), 5 are assistant professors (5.3 %), and 63 are neurosurgery specialist physicians (67 %). Female neurosurgeons are present among six of the subfields categorized by the Turkish Neurosurgical Society: 7 in pediatric neurosurgery (11.47%); 8 in spinal and peripheral nerve surgery (2.4%); 3 in neurovascular surgery (2.02%); 7 in functional neurosurgery (5.8%); 11 in neuroanatomy (9.2%); and 23 in neurooncology (6.9%).CONCLUSIONS: The number of female neurosurgeons in Turkey continues to grow each year. To increase the proportion of women in this field, it is important to support female neurosurgeons and enable them to take on more tasks.

Resiliency of a perpetual optimist: neurosurgeon Dr. Linda Liau

It is not possible to capture all the depth that composes Dr. Linda Liau: chair of the Neurosurgery Department at the University of California, Los Angeles; second woman to chair a neurosurgery program in the United States; first woman to chair the American Board of Neurological Surgery; first woman president of the Western Neurosurgical Society; and one of only a handful of neurosurgeons elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Her childhood and family history alone could fascinate several chapters of her life’s biography. Nonetheless, this brief biography hopes to capture the challenges, triumphs, cultural norms, and spirit that have shaped Dr. Liau’s experience as a successful leader, scientist, and neurosurgeon. This is a rare story. It describes the rise of not only an immigrant within neurosurgery—not unlike other giants in the field, Drs. Robert Spetzler, Jacques Marcos, Ossama Al-Mefty, and a handful of other contemporaries—but also another type of minority in neurosurgery: a woman.