In May of 2019, CNF staff attended the 71st American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting (AANAM), which was held in Philadelphia. This is the biggest neurology conference that we attend every year, and it’s a great opportunity for our team to connect with the larger neurology community. The 2019 Meeting conference had over 14,000 attendees!
To keep you up to date on everything CNF, we’d like to share a few highlights from our 2019 AANAM experience.
Meeting with Industry Partners
Throughout the week, we met in 1:1s with members of our Executive and Presidential Councils of our Corporate Advisory Board (CAB) to discuss partnership opportunities for the year ahead, and brainstorm new ways to collaborate that serve the child neurology community. We also held a larger CAB meeting hosted by our Executive Director/CEO Amy Brin, and our Board of Directors President, Dr. Ann Tilton.
Here, we updated our CAB on some of our recent initiatives, collected data on unmet needs and gaps in the child neurology community, and broke out into groups to start talking about potential solutions.
Hosted a Transitions of Care Networking Event
We held an event to bring together adult and child neurologists to discuss some of the largest challenges that they face when transitioning their patients from child to adult care. Both groups also had the chance to meet with experts on transition of care to discuss common pitfalls.
Transitions of Care is near and dear to our hearts, and we’ve been asked by both child and adult neurologists alike to shine more light on this important topic. This event was the first of many that CNF will host to exchange knowledge and build bridges between child and adult neurologists to make transitions smoother for our community.
Our Director of Collaborative Programs and Initiatives, Rebecca Penfold Murray said that, “It was heartening to see so many physicians and patient advocates come together at a fun event with a very serious mission: figuring out how best to help our pediatric patients transition successfully into adult neurology. This event was essential to creating many new relationships in the world of providers who are passionate about good transition of care, and I am looking forward to providing support to all our transition leaders to create better support for physicians, caregivers, and patients alike.”
Spoke with the Public at the Brain Health Fair
The Brain Health Fair (BHF) is an annual free event, “connecting neurology patients and caregivers affected by a brain disease, as well as students interested in brain science and the general public interested in brain health.” CNF had a booth at the BHF where we invited the public to talk with us about our programs, and participate in an interactive art project that brings people together to show the interconnectedness of the child neurology community. We try to incorporate a piece of the city we’re in whenever we host this kind of activity at our booth. In Philadelphia, we thought that incorporating Robert Indiana’s Love Statue was fitting. We had so much fun!
Spent Some Quality Face Time Together as a Team
While CNF has offices in Minneapolis, MN and Lexington, KY, our team members work from home offices across the country. The AANAM is one of the few times every year that we all come together in person as a team. And while most of us are happy to not have to commute to an office every day, it sure is nice to get to catch up in person every now and then.
Thanks for coming along on our AANAM Meeting journey. We met some new faces, had some great conversations, learned a lot, and now we’re ready to take everything that we soaked up in Philadelphia and put it into our work.
As Dr. Ann Tilton said in her presentation to our CAB members, “It is not lost on ANYONE in the neurology community, that CNF is on a bold trajectory. While I am CNF President, as you know, I am also Vice President of AAN. And I can tell you, people are talking about CNF and the impact we are having on the whole community! Our programs are achieving incredible outcomes for children and their families. We are bringing stakeholders together to convene much needed conversations that lead to true impact.”
Onward!