Dakar, Senegal – 11-13 July 2013
by Erich Schmutzhard and Eveline Sipido
The 5th RTC in Sub-Saharan Africa returned to Dakar, Senegal and was hosted by Prof. A. Gallo-Diop at the Cheikh Anta Diop University.
This RTC was organised with the help of and in cooperation with several major scientific organisations:
- ENS – European Neurological Society
- WFN – World Federation of Neurology
- IBRO – International Brain Research Organisation
- WSO – World Stroke Organisation
- MDS – Movement Disorders Society
- AAN – American Academy of Neurology
The Dean of the Medical Faculty, Prof. Abdourrahmane Dia together with the head of the Neurological Department of the Cheikh Anta Diop University, Prof. Mansour N’Diaye opened the RTC and welcomed all back to Dakar. Prof. Amadou Gallo Diop invited all to be actively involved in the course and to voice questions through interactive work with the faculty.
The 2013 topics, officially voted in 2011-2012 by the African colleagues, and addressed in Dakar were:
- Stroke
- Movement disorders and mental health
- How to publish in an international journal?
Day one was dedicated to Stroke. The session was jointly organised with the World Stroke organisation.
The following topics were addressed:
Epidemiology of stroke in Sub-Saharan Africa – Thierry Adoukonou (Benin)
Aetiologies of stroke in Africa – Toure Kamadore (Senegal)
Acute care management of ischemic stroke, ICH and SAH – José Ferro (Portugal)Primary and secondary prevention of stroke – Peter Sandercock (United Kingdom)
A trainee from Tanzania, Sarah Japhet Urasa, presented a clinical case report.
In the afternoon rotating clinical case discussions were organised.
Day two addressed Movement disorders and mental health. The session was organised in cooperation with The Movement Disorders Society and the American Academy of Neurology.
The following topics were addressed:
Epidemiology of movement disorders in Africa and worldwide – Chafiq Hicham (Morocco)
Genetics of PD in the tropics – Rufus Akinyemi (Nigeria)
PD and related disorders including Tremor: diagnosis, assessment and therapy – Joaquim Ferreira (Portugal)
A movement disorder overview – James Bower (USA)
Dementia in neurodegenerative disorders – Raj Kalaria (United Kingdom)
A trainee from Cameroon, Yannick Fogang Fogoum, presented a clinical case report.
Also in the afternoon of day two, rotating clinical case discussions were organised.
On the morning of day three an open session “Meet the professors: questions and answers” took place. Questions were addressed to the faculty members according to their specialty. The discussion was very animated and here, too, time resulted to be too little.
Amadou Gallo Diop (Senegal), Riadh Gouider (Tunisia) and Raj Kalaria (UK) jointly ran the crash course “How to write a scientific paper”. The participants followed the lesson with great interest and participated very actively.
Thanks to the unrestricted grants received, trainees from 17 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa other than Senegal could be invited to the RTC.
The meeting was organised to a very high standard, and the quality of the lectures was outstanding. However, the most striking aspects of the course were the quality of the questions, the lively discussion, and the very active participation of the trainees in both French and English.
Several very positive reactions were received from the trainees as well as from the faculty following the RTC.
A few examples of such responses:
From trainees:
I would like to thank you again for the opportunity you gave me to participate in such a fantastic experience!!
Thank you very much for all you did to make our trip and stay in Dakar fruitful and enjoyable.
I learnt a lot in one day that I would have otherwise not had the opportunity to learn…
From the faculty:
For me it was a great pleasure and honor to participate in this project. I found that my educational effort was much more useful than all the talks I give in Europe.
Thanks for the perfect organization and kind hospitality.
It went extremely well, was very well attended, and with 23 African Countries represented . It was also very educational for me as a member of the Faculty!
The programme for the 6th RTC in Sub-Saharan Africa will be available in late 2013.
Erich Schmutzhard is chair of the Task Force responsible for RTCs in Africa and Professor of Neurology at the University of Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria.
Eveline Sipido is EFNS Branch Office Manager in Florence, Italy and responsible for the organisation of the RTC in Africa.
