Plans for the CANS meeting are well underway. I hope that everyone in CANS will consider registering for the annual meeting and reconnecting with their fellow California neurosurgeons as we emerge from this historic and oppressive pandemic and re-invigorate our state neurosurgical society. I particularly wish to invite everyone to make reservations to join us for the Saturday pm annual CANS banquet which will preview 2022 under President-Elect Dr Javed Siddiqi, and allow our Secretary and Membership Committee Chair, Dr Joseph Chen, to formally present and introduce many new CANS members that have joined our ranks over 2020 and 2021. With the timely topic of the “Challenges of Corporate Employment”, the meeting program promises to be both timely and informative. Another key topic being planned includes a session on the use of telemedicine in neurosurgery, which has exploded since the onset of the pandemic, and carries with it unique challenges as well as opportunities going forward. In addition to important updates on state and federal health policy, business and regulatory issues facing California neurosurgeons, there will be a session where every residency training program can highlight the special projects going on in their individual programs through resident abstract presentations. Solicitation for residency program resident abstracts have gone out this month to California neurosurgery department chairs as well as residency training program directors. Continuing Medical Education, which has been difficult to obtain with all the meeting cancellations during the Covid pandemic will be offered for the CANS program.

The delta variant of Covid-19 has many understandably concerned. The August CSNS and AANS in-person meetings were cancelled at the last minute and transitioned to virtual meetings due to the state of the latest Covid surge in Florida. On the other hand, we have now witnessed the Neurosurgery Society of America (NSA) safely and successfully hold an in-person meeting in from June 20-23 in Stateline, Nevada, and the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Spine and Peripheral Nerves safely and successfully hold an in-person meeting in San Diego, CA from July 28-31. The Western Neurosurgical Society (WNS) is still planning on holding their annual meeting as an in-person meeting in Albuquerque, NM September 10-13, the Society of Neurological Surgeons (SNS) is still planning to hold an in-person meeting in Austin, TX October 15-16, and the President of the CNS during his CSNS address on August 21 assured everyone that the in-person CNS meeting in Austin, TX was still going forward as planned as an in-person meeting October 16-20. Currently, we are both hopeful and optimistic that the delta variant surge will have abated in time for our January 2022 CANS Annual Meeting.

The CANS Board of Directors met virtually on Saturday August 7 as a virtual “Zoom” meeting for approximately six hours. A great deal of society business was addressed with the charges to each standing committee making progress towards completing their formal charges. For most, it looks like their work should be completed by our January 2022 Board meeting. The exception will be the Long Range Planning Committee which will only be taking the first step in an ongoing, long-term process as well as possibly the Ad Hoc Policies and Procedures Task Force which did not present a progress report at the last board meeting.

The Counsel of State Neurosurgical Societies (CSNS) met virtually August 20 and 21, 2021. Dr Smith summarizes the resolution results as well as the CANS position on each resolution later on in this newsletter. The point that I want to emphasize to everyone in this message is that the CANS CSNS delegation, ably led by Dr Patrick Wade, once again, really did our organization proud at this recent meeting. The CANS delegate and alternate delegate representation and participation in testimony before the reference committee, during the Southwest Quadrant meeting early Saturday am, as well as during the plenary session was very active and contributed greatly to the resolution outcomes. We had nine delegates plus alternate delegates participating as well as other members of CANS present as CSNS officers, caucus members and even guests.I was very proud to see that CANS had the greatest presence and participation of any neurosurgical state society. Gone are the days from as recently as 2018 and 2019 where only a few senior delegates from CANS were showing up. Our new group of delegates is young, energized, and actively contributing in very positive ways. We even had a new California resident fellow and CANS member from UC Irvine in the Southwest quadrant, Dr Jordan Xu, co-author two important resolutions on telemedicine, each of which were adopted at the plenary session with votes of 59-1 and 56-3, respectively! In my 21 years serving in the CSNS, I have never seen anything similar happen before. The prospects for CANS future participation and position within the CSNS are very bright indeed.

I would once again like to take this opportunity to ask all CANS members to please consider getting involved. We need your thoughts, ideas and input to help plan the best meeting possible January 2022. Suggestions for speakers for the topics outlined in last month’s newsletter message as well as suggestions for possible additional topics are very welcome. We are always in need of concerned, aware, and engaged neurosurgeons. Please do not hesitate to contact me regarding our upcoming meeting, and/or let me know if you would like to get more involved with CANS at mlinskey@hs.uci.edu. Even if you cannot dedicate your own time and effort, please consider financially supporting CANS, the national Neurosurgery Political Action Committee (Neurosurgery PAC) (https://www.aans.org/en/Advocacy/NeurosurgeryPAC), and the CMA Political Action Committee (CalPAC – https://www.cmadocs.org/calpac/donate ). Please do whatever you can to support CANS, the NeurosurgeryPAC and the CMA, they are fighting for you.

All the best!