EDITORIAL

Welcome to the second issue of the journal for 2012. The Society of British Neurological Surgeons holds its spring meeting in Aberdeen – the most northerly unit in the British Isles and perhaps curiously – as it is so far into Scotland – with such an obviously Welsh sounding place name! For those with linguistic interest I understand that Aber is the brythonic form of the goidelic word Inver (inbhir) both seemingly referring to the confluence of waters – in this case the rivers Dee and Don. The presence of the brythonic form this far north is blamed by some on the Welsh speaking peoples themselves, or by some on the picts (allegedly brythonic types) – both groups present before the Scots invaded the land and seemingly drove its native people out – the Welsh (Cumbric) speakers south to Strathclyde, then Cumbria – a word itself suspiciously like ‘Cymru’. I shall now expect a series of letters – I hope erudite - correcting my English version of history, and I am happy to confess to being an English monoglot!

In any event I am sure all will be welcomed to Aberdeen, and at the start of the journal are to be found the abstracts to be presented at the meeting.

There is one other matter of business which I hope will not be found too tedious by the international readership. The Royal College of Surgeons is running a program to provide accreditation of fellowships. Many colleagues in virtually all units now provide fellowship posts designed to provide experience in a given subspeciality; although not mandatory, often consultant posts recommend applicants have completed a fellowship in the relevant subject. The proposal therefore is that fellowships can be accredited by the college, and the possession of such a fellowship thereby given independent credibility – in particular that it is not just a job designed to fill a rota driven by the demands of the dreaded EWTD! It can be regarded as a successor to the system whereby the SAC in Neurosurgery used to grant approval for fellowships – there maybe even some such posts that still exist with such approvals. You will find an advert carrying a link to the college website where details of the scheme can be found.

Finally to the content of the issue itself – it's the usual mix of articles representative of the different subspecialities. I'd draw to your attention the article regarding the time taken to deal with a simply phoned referral¹ – how often have we heard the statement – “it won't take any time it's just a phone call”, or its loathsome paper equivalent – “it's just a simple form to fill in”. However perhaps not everyone has my psychopathic hatred of forms. Remember also on this topic a previous article in the journal, also on the time, the cost and charging for these simple phone calls.²

I was also interested by the incident of the bungee run³ having myself seen a fatality from this practice many years ago, but was too lazy (or perhaps too busy filling in simple forms) to write it up myself.

As usual I do hope you will all find something of interest within the issue – enjoy!