Dear Neuroanaesthesia SIG member,

I have had the privilege of chairing the Neuroanaesthesia Special Interest Group for two years now – well overdue to touch base with SIG members! It is high time to bring you up to speed with Neuroanaesthesia SIG activities across Australasia.

When I took on this role from Dr Doug Campbell in May 2016, I was rather unaware of what the role would involve; Doug provided the carrot of one of his regular neuro lists at Auckland City Hospital as the benefit to taking the chairpersonship of the SIG off him.

However, I have enjoyed getting to know other neuro anaesthetists across both countries, have co-convened our joint SIG meeting with the Trauma SIG in 2017, and am enjoying the process of organising the next Neuroanaesthesia SIG stand-alone meeting. This time it will be co-convened with the Neurocritical Care SIG from the College of Intensive Care Medicine. We are planning on running this meeting in early 2020 on Australia’s east coast, and we hope you can join us there.

Other activities that have occurred were the excellent Neuroanaesthesia SIG concurrent stream at the ASA’s National Scientific Congress (NSC) in Perth last September, organised by Dr Holder Holldack, followed by an enjoyable SIG stream session at the Join RACS/ANZCA ASM in May in Sydney, which focussed on CSF leaks. Thank you to Dr Ben Olesnicky for putting that stream together.

Coming up this year at the ASA’s Adelaide NSC is a session focusing on pituitary surgery, put together by Dr Shona Osborn, while the programme at the Kuala Lumpur ANZCA ASM in 2019 will focus further on clot retrieval advances, including translating animal work into human benefits with respect to hyperactive stroke management. Our annual AGM will be held at the Adelaide meeting where I hope to be handing over the chair role to Dr Veronica Gin; I promise no sticks or carrots required!

Our current SIG executive membership include:

Dr Veronica Gin (Vice-chair), soon to be of Christchurch Hospital
Dr Nigel Robertson, ANZCA Councillor, Auckland City Hospital
Dr Hamish Gray, Christchurch Hospital
Dr Shona Osborn, Adelaide
Dr Holger Holldack, Perth
Dr Dean Cowie, Victoria
Dr Nathan Harper, Macquarie Hospital, New South Wales
Dr Jim Troup, Queensland

We welcome any feedback you have on the Neuroanaesthesia sessions you have been to at major meetings, as well as any ideas for future presentations or workshops. If you are interested in joining the executive or helping to convene local meetings, don’t hesitate to contact our SIG secretariat Kirsty O’Connor.

I hope to see many of you in Adelaide or Malaysia, and of course don’t forget to look out for further information on our combined SIG meeting with the Neuro-intensivists in 2020!

Dr Kathryn Hagen
Neuroanaesthesia SIG Chair

* Joint Neuroanaesthesia/Trauma SIG meeting in Byron Bay, September 2017