This year brings an exciting time to WINS and the neurosurgery community with the historic 30th anniversary of WINS. Since its establishment, WINS has fostered an environment and community centered around its mission: to educate, inspire and encourage women neurosurgeons to realize their professional and personal goals, as well as to serve the broader neurosurgical specialty by addressing issues related to training and maintaining a diverse and balanced workforce.
Given the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, many of the planned in-person celebratory events were postponed or canceled. This included the cancelation of the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting this spring, including the planned NREF Muraszko Timmons Pediatric Neurosurgery and Neurotrauma Symposium and Gala Dinner in Boston in April 2020. However, to continue the celebration, virtual audiovisual events were held. This included a celebration event for the WINS 30th anniversary via zoom, with the premiere of the WINS 30th anniversary video. The virtual cocktail hour was well attended, including attendance of WINS founding members Drs. Deborah Benzil, Karin Muraszko and Gail Rosseau. Dr. Benzil spoke about the beginnings of WINS since the first gathering in 1989 and the hour featured the WINS celebration video showing a kaleidoscope of women leaders in neurosurgery and their achievements throughout the years. To read more about this event please visit the Neurosurgery Blog article.
To continue celebrating, WINS has also been working with artisans to create unique designs to share this historic occasion and the items that have resulted from this process are available on the WINS online store for purchase, including clothing, jewelry and other merchandise. WINS sponsored merchandise efforts help support programming and mentoring for current and future generations of women with proceeds from products going toward continuing the WINS mission of educating and support women to excel in neurosurgery. Visit the WINS online store.
To learn more about WINS 30th year celebration, please visit the WINS website or on social media. We hope to see you there!