European Association of Neurosurgical Societies
The European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) is an independent, supranational association of national European neurosurgical societies and individual members which arranges congresses, scientific meetings and symposia, including the biennial European Congress of Neurosurgery, the Annual EANS Meetings (formerly Vice-President Winter Meetings) and the European Training courses.
Website
Membership
It is open to neurosurgeons, medical students, and those in related specialties worldwide.
Mission
The aim is to enable our members to enhance the care they deliver to their patients by facilitating the exchange of scientific information at the highest level.
Programms
Legislative Body
The legislative body of the EANS is its Open Executive Committee which consists of representatives from national member societies and individual members. The Open Executive Committee meets at least annually and further extraordinary meetings of the Committee can be called. The Board of Officers (Board) of the EANS implements the decisions taken by the Open Executive Committee; if the Open Executive Committee is the “Parliament” of the EANS, the Board of Officers can be considered as its “cabinet”. The Board meets at least once a year, during the EANS Annual Meeting, and often more frequently.
Officers are elected for a term of 2 years, which runs from one Annual Meeting to the next. The future President and Chair of the Training Committee are elected by the Open Executive Committee, two years before their term begins. All other officers are elected at the meeting of the Open Executive Committee which takes place during the Annual Meeting.
Committees
Global and Humanitarian Neurosurgery Committee
In addition, much of the work of the EANS is carried out by its Committees, and the Association also employs five professional salaried members of staff, who are responsible for the day to day running of the organisation.
The EANS is constituted in Belgium and its constitution has been filed in Gent, Belgium.
The European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) was founded in Prague by 18 national societies, during the 4th European Congress of Neurosurgery in 1971. Since then, the Association has grown into a professional association of 40 national societies, representing some 6500 European neurosurgeons, plus more than 800 individual members based both within Europe and beyond.
The motto of the 1971 congress was „Present Limits of Neurosurgery“; it’s both amusing and amazing to consider that one of the worst attended sessions of the meeting was the one which focussed on the use of microscopes in surgical settings.
The European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) is a fast-growing, independent association, both of European neurosurgical societies and of individual neurosurgeons all over the world.
European Congress of Neurosurgery
Education
The European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) and the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) hold regular meetings with the goal of evaluating and improving neurosurgical education throughout Europe.
The UEMS is responsible to guarantee quality and improvement of medical specialties in Europe, whereas the EANS is an independent multinational association of both European neurosurgical societies and individual members. Despite these efforts, it remains difficult to establish a consensus and find a commonly accepted concept for the education of European neurosurgical residents.
EANS Academy
see EANS Academy
Journal
The official journal of the EANS is The European Journal of Neurosurgery: Acta Neurochirurgica.
Congresses
JOINT-RESIDENCY ADVISORY AND ACCREDITATION COMMITTEE
The Joint Residency Advisory and Accreditation Committee (JRAAC) is a joint committee of the EANS and the UEMS, whose primary aim is to improve the quality of neurosurgical training programmes throughout Europe by acting as a pan-European accreditation and monitoring body.
The work of JRAAC is based on the guidelines set out in the European Neurosurgical Training Charter.
European Accreditation of neurosurgical training programmes and units
Visiting and evaluating training institutions and the provision of constructive feedback offers an important opportunity to enhance training standards, and most of JRAAC’s activities therefore focus on these areas.
The accreditation procedure is based on the UEMS Training Charter in Neurosurgery, and those considering application should refer to this document in order better to understand the criteria against which their unit and training programme will be assessed.
If a training institution demonstrates that it complies with the standards for residency programmes in neurosurgery as set down in the UEMS Training Charter, it will receive JRAAC accreditation -certification by the UEMS and EANS as a Center of Excellence in Neurosurgical Training.
European Monitoring of neurosurgical training programmes and units
National professional bodies (responsible for the recognition of medical specialists in individual countries) can monitor and recognise neurosurgical training programmes using UEMS standards based on the Training Charter. In the interest of developing common standards, cooperation with JRAAC is recommended.
To learn more about the accreditation of the European Accreditation of Training Programmes and to obtain the application form please click here.
To see tools, which JRAAC provides to help organisation of training programmes please click here.