VOLUME 27, ISSUE 1 • MARCH 2023 Full issue »
MDS-AS School in Tunisia: Strong return of in-person activities in Africa
After the end of COVID restrictions, the MDS-AS organized its first in-person activity: The MDS-AS School for Young Neurologists in Tunis, Tunisia, from December 1-3, 2022, after 2 years of succesful virtual events. The school was directed by professors Samia Ben Sassi and Ali Shalash and included 75 participants from 20 different African countries. It was a great opportunity to train colleagues from African countries with a low number of neurologists and limited training resources in the field of movement disorders.
The school is characterized by distinguishable faculty from Africa and MDS international experts and leaders including MDS President Francisco Cardoso, Claudia Trenkwalder, and Kailash Bhatia. The students also had the opportunity to receive in-depth instruction from internationally-recognized Movement Disorders experts from Brazil, Germany, UK, Ireland, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria and Ghana.
95% of respondents intend to change their clinical practice or approach to research/education as a result of this program
The participants and faculty enjoyed the lectures with plenty of movement disorders videos and interactive sessions, including clinical rounds with patients, grand rounds and a botulinum toxin workshop. Students attended lectures and panel discussions, then had the opportunity to examine patients with movement disorders during clinical rounds (LRRK2 PD, Huntington Chorea, Wilson disease, ataxias, generalised and segmental dystonias, PSP, MSA) and engage in a differential diagnosis with the international experts. Students also presented their own cases videos within small groups for discussion and critique, and were involved in group presentations and cases discussions. Four students were awarded travel grants for the best oral clinical case presentations.
AS School for Young Neurologists Gallery
Clinical Examination Workshop Faculty K. Bhatia
The feedback from students and faculty was excellent, and they expressed interest in more in-person activities in the African Section.
Estabilishing annual MDS schools in Africa is one of the main goals of the MDS-AS, in addition to other in-person and virtual activites. We are glad to have this third successful MDS school in Africa after the first one in Cairo 2019 and second virtual achool in 2021. Providing education and traning to young neurologists, general practitioners and allied health professionals in Africa is the vision of MDS-African Section, which is in line with MDS vision to improve patients’ care worldwide in this field.
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