Congratulations to our WINS VISA awardee for spring 2019, Silvia Hernández Durán, MD, who was presented with the award during the 2019 AANS Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego, in April. She completed her medical training at the Universidad de Costa Rica, Facultad de Medicina, and is currently in residency training at Universitätsmedizin Göttingen, Germany.
During the application process Dr. Durán said that the award would be beneficial in the following manner:
“Attending the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting provides the opportunity for one-on-one networking with female leaders in neurosurgery. Through the exchange with role models, I hope to gain great inspiration and motivation to further advance my own academic career. As excellence in neurosurgery is a dynamic, constantly evolving goal that requires keeping up-to-date and contributing to scientific development, I believe this interaction to be of vital importance to also foster relations with global experts who might be interested in participating in multi-centric studies.”
In regards to how she plans to contribute with respect to international collegiality, education and collaboration, she expressed:
“As a Latin American woman training in Germany, I have been exposed to the multicultural environment of European neurosurgery. In this context, I have also witnessed the prevailing gender inequalities in our field. Therefore, in collaboration with my hospital’s gender equality office, I have launched a project to create a committee for female neurosurgeons within the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS). The mission of this committee is to foster career development and mentoring for female neurosurgeons in Europe through an online-based platform and scholarships to attend leadership courses. By attending the AANS meeting, I hope to learn from the pioneers of WINS and their experience in creating and maintaining this organization, so that our sister society in Europe can flourish and provide European females in neurosurgery with the tools they need to advance their professional careers in a more balanced and diverse work environment. Ultimately, I would like to establish a close relationship between WINS and the EANS Committee for Women in Neurosurgery, with the long-term goal of academic exchange programs between these sister societies. Having WINS would constitute a step forward in multinational networking, international collegiality and collaboration.”