Hello everyone, welcome to the new issue of Moving Along. This is, again, Francisco Cardoso, MDS President. In this edition, I'd like to address two issues. The first one is our upcoming 2023 International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders, which will take place in the wonderful city of Copenhagen, Denmark, in the last days of this coming August.
I am really excited over this Congress because, after all these very difficult years of the pandemic and the last year where we were just starting again to have in-person activities, we are back to the full motion, to the full pace of our previous Congress. So, some of the sessions that were loved by our attendees will be back, the Video Challenge will be there, and we'll have grand rounds with live patients being examined and discussed by international faculty. There also will be parallel sessions with live injections of botulinum toxins. So, this will be a very exciting meeting.
And then, there are also some new features. One of them is what we have called the MDS Keynote Lecture. It will be given by the world-famous neuroscientist, Ole Kiehn, from the University of Copenhagen. So, he will talk about unraveling brainstem circuits for locomotion, insights into border control, and implications for treatment movement disorders. This is the type of session which speaks both to basic scientists, to translational scientists, and to clinicians as well. So, all of you are very much welcome to come to Copenhagen. And I have to say that the excitement has been so big that we have more than 1,800 abstracts, and some of these abstracts will be selected for a platform presentation. So, this should be a great meet and a fantastic opportunity for networking because the convention center is quite large and welcoming. So, I hope to see all of you back in Copenhagen, Denmark.
But the second issue that I'd like to address is somehow related to the fact that this is my last participation in Moving Along as MDS President. For the next edition, my successor, Dr. Victor Fung from Australia, will be doing what I have had the pleasure to do over these past two years. So, I'd like to bring an end to this series of conversations, dialogues with you, addressing the issue of the need to listen to patients.
You may recall that when I took over the presidency about two years ago, it was an exclusively online meeting. I said that one of the highest priorities of my term would be to promote clinical work. And then, I somehow encapsulated this desire, this aim, with the expression "Back to the Basics" - the clinical work. And I'm happy to say that over these past two years, I have had the chance, really, and the privilege to have around the world, somehow, spread these needs to engage with people with movement disorders. And I must tell you that one of the things that we should fight is this pressure on healthcare providers to decrease the amount of time that we are supposed to spend with patients. So, this is certainly wrong. It is absolutely necessary, it is a fundamental requirement for providing good diagnosis and excellent care, to be able to spend time with patients and to listen to them.
Of course, there are several pressures on us, healthcare providers, especially economic pressures but also of other natures, to somehow try to force us to decrease the amount of time that we have to spend with patients. We must listen to patients. This is really the fundamental core of all our activity. And I'm not saying exclusively clinical activity per se but even basic science, which somehow is the foundation of our professional activity, it is based on trying to meet the needs of patients. And we will only be able really to know which needs they have by listening to them. So, back to basics, and let's keep listening to patients.
So, enjoy the reading of this new issue of Moving Along, and I will see you all in Copenhagen.