by Zuzana Gdovinova and Jan Kuks, EAN Quality Assurance Subcommittee
At the first EAN Congress, held in Berlin in June 2015, more than 3000 participants attended the 25 Teaching Courses and 5 Hands-on courses:
http://www.eaneurology.org/berlin2015/Scientific-Programme.1868.0.html
The courses with the most attendance were on new advances in the treatment of immune mediated neuropathies (TC 3), novel insights in stroke etiologies (TC 7) and imaging in clinical decision making (TC 11) all having more than 200 participants, with a satisfaction rate of 75% for each course.
In order to get their Certificate of Attendance all TC participants had to fill in an evaluation form. This procedure is most useful for us to improve future meetings and it is also needed to get accreditation.
The evaluation rates per session differed considerably, most teaching courses have been evaluated by 70-80% of the attendees but unfortunately in 8 out of 25 courses the response rate was below 70%, leaving us with questions what could be improved.
The most over-all appreciated Teaching Courses have been Parkinson’s disease treatment: infusion therapies and DBS (TC 13) and the spectrum of neuro-oncology (TC 25) with satisfaction rates around 80%, while speakers of movement disorders associated with auto-antibodies (TC 19) were highly appreciated by 90% of their 150 attendees.
We congratulated Angela Vincent, Joseph Jankovic, Davide Martino and Uwe Schlegel as best speakers in our August issue, three of these having been involved in movement disorders associated with auto-antibodies (TC 19) and the fourth in the spectrum of neuro-oncology (TC 25).
Apart from the teaching courses, 273 participants broke their neck for developing their skills in the 5 Hands-on Courses with the topics Neurophysiology and Neuro-otology. A preliminary report on these sessions has been published in July by Dr. Hannah Cock, chairing the Education Committee, who allowed some tilting of her steadfast person, keeping an eyelet on her balance. Mean over-all satisfaction of hands-on courses was slightly higher than for the teaching courses in general with 80% compared to 75% for the latter.
Many remarks from the attendees concerned the theoretical level of the teaching courses. More practical cases, practice in small groups, discussion of guidelines, better hand-outs, more interaction and questions to test understanding were desired. These issues will be dealt with by the Teaching Course subcommittee, chaired by Prof. Theodore Landis. I am sure, they will also pay attention to the wish expressed by one of the participants: “Please provide some chocolate/sweets”. This request makes clear that, quoting the American author Jack Kerouac, all neurological beings are also dream beings, thus tying mankind together.
Thank you to all participants who evaluated our Teaching courses, we highly appreciate this and do hope this article, as well as the prize for the raffle encourages you all to continue to help us with this task.
Winners of the 2015 TC-evaluation raffle:
Alessia Pellerino, M.D., Turin, Italy
Prof. Dr. Martin Hecht, Kaufbeuren, Deutschland
Dr Olivier Bodart, Liege, Belgium
Dr. med. Jürg Karlen, Basel, Schweiz
Yuliya Rushkevich, Minsk, Belarus
Hesham Awn, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Gerard Plaza, Bonn, Germany
Andreia Filipa Gomes da Costa, Porto, Portugal
Zuzana Gdovinova is Professor of Neurology a the Faculty Hospital in Kosice, Slovakia. Jan Kuks is Professor of Neurology at the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands
