A message from the Chair: Shaping the future of MDS-AOS together 

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Dear Colleagues and Friends, 

It is a profound honor to connect with you through this newsletter as the Chair of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society’s Asian and Oceanian Section (MDS-AOS). Our region represents an extraordinary mosaic of cultures, geographies, and medical landscapes. Reflecting on our recent, highly productive regional action plan meeting in Cebu, I am deeply inspired by the energy, dedication, and clinical expertise that define our community. 

The profound insights and consensus reached during our discussions in Cebu have provided us with a clear direction forward in our support of the MDS Strategic Plan. The MDS-AOS will support the four strategic pillars designed to elevate our clinical impact, educational reach, and scientific collaboration across the region through the following priorities and initiatives.

Key Priorities and Initiatives 

• Fostering an Inclusive, Collaborative Community: 
  Our diversity is our greatest strength, but it also presents barriers. A top priority is to build an organic networking infrastructure that bridges distances. Moving forward, we will deliberately embed small-group work and interactive forums into our virtual and in-person courses. Crucially, we are expanding our outreach to Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and non-specialist clinicians, while prioritizing the Visiting Trainee Grant program for historically underserved sub-regions — including Indochina, the Indian Sub-Continent, Central Asia, and Indonesia. 

• Driving Educational Innovation: 
  The way we share knowledge must evolve. We will actively modernize our teaching methods by integrating flipped classrooms, micro-learning formats, and high-interaction debates into our regional courses and the Asian Oceanian Parkinson and Movement Disorder Congress (AOPMC). Crucially, our educational programs will be tailored to reflect regional clinical realities, local workforce compositions, and the therapies genuinely available to our clinicians. 

• Empowering the Next Generation and Global Advocacy: 
  We must look to the future by actively lifting up our younger members. I am particularly keen to expand the Affiliate Case Series for virtual regional case presentations and to highlight undergraduate student abstract submissions at AOPMC. By engaging local affiliate societies and patient organizations, we will create a robust, regional network of advocacy and awareness. 

• Commitment to Sustainability: 
  True leadership means looking after our environment. Following our discussions, we are taking deliberate steps to embed eco-responsible practices into our governance and events, from utilizing hybrid delivery models to minimize travel emissions to prioritizing paperless digital programs and environmentally certified venues when feasible. 

A Message to Our Members 

The success of the MDS-AOS does not rest on a committee; it lives within you. Whether you are a senior researcher, a frontline neurologist, a therapist, or a student just entering the Movement Disorders field, your voice and your unique local insights are indispensable to our shared mission. 

The targets we have set for the coming years are ambitious, but entirely achievable if we work in unison. I invite each of you to actively engage with our upcoming programs, step forward as community mentors, and help us shape an equitable, innovative, and deeply connected future for movement disorder care across Asia and Oceania. 

Thank you for your trust, your passion, and your unwavering commitment. 

Warmest regards, 

Yih-Ru Wu, MD 
Chair, MDS-AOS 

 

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