The President of American Paraplegia Society (APS) talks with Action about the society, her practice, and what they mean for people with spinal cord dysfunction.
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Indira Lanig, MD, is the first African-American woman to become president of APS. She is in the second year of her three-year term. Taking time out from her busy schedule as physician at Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado, Dr. Lanig graciously consented to share with Action something about herself, her research, and her hopes for APS during her term of office.
How long have you been a member of APS? What roles have you played there before becoming president?
I’ve been a member of the APS for approximately 20 years dating back to when I was Chief of the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Service at the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center. I was invited to join the private sector SCI Model Systems program at Craig Hospital in Denver in 1989 and have remained active in APS the entire time. It’s been useful to have an appreciation of both the VA and Model Systems considerations as we’ve planned the annual conferences and considered APS Committee level activities over the years.
I had the honor of being Chairperson of the APS Program Committee for five years during the 1990s. It was our responsibility to organize the most attractive annual conference and, therefore, we stood on the shoulders of our forefathers and mothers, aggressively recruiting leaders in the field of SCI Medicine and Basic Science to present at our annual meeting. A clear objective has, since then, been to make translational research a core component of each conference, to share how the bridge is being built between basic science and clinical care with each passing year. Our current Program Committee Chair, Harry Goshgarian, PhD, and his committee carries the torch high as we prepare for our meeting in August 2007.
How did you come to be involved in SCI medicine?
The short answer is, “It was love at first sight.” It all started in my third year of medical school when a fellow student who shared my passion for wanting to keep “the human side” of medical practice came tearing across campus, grabbed and hugged me and excitedly announced that she had found “our field!” It was Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. I quickly signed up for the same rotation she was doing in SCI at the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research in Houston, and a few months later there I was, thrilled to death to find that, indeed, the field of SCI Medicine was intense, critical, and full of professionals doing their best to give people with SCI the best shot at living a life of quality.
In my clinical practice, each day I continue to stand in awe of the strength of the human spirit after a catastrophic injury like SCI-ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances. I am often heard to gently remind patients and families that even though they may have been dealt an unimaginable, seemingly unwinnable set of cards this go round, “Folding is not an option. You’ve gotta keep playing in this game of life.” I have enjoyed the long-term relationships established with so many of my patients over the past two decades. The field has kept me humble and happy.
Your area of focus is the overall health of the person with SCI. Can you briefly describe some of the research you’ve done in this area?
The culture of Craig Hospital, by virtue of being a Model SCI System of Care with an excellent Research Department, is one wherein research in a wide spectrum of clinical care/health issues are routinely addressed. In terms of optimizing the overall health of a person with SCI, several years ago I was the lead author and editor of the textbook A Practical Guide to Health Promotion after Spinal Cord Injury. It was co-authored and inspired by my colleague and friend, Dr. Terry Chase, who is an alumnus of Craig, along with three other disciplines from our facility. It paved the way to my interest in participating in the development of a Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at Craig that would afford inpatients with spinal cord injuries and disorders the option of health and wellbeing treatment such as acupuncture and massage therapy during their rehabilitation. We have also conducted projects to optimize health through the use of manual therapy or botox within weeks of injury to try to reduce the development or magnitude of chronic neck and shoulder pain over time.
There is a wealth of research going on across the globe to optimize health either through care or cure. I have learned that each of us must do our part to keep the fire burning when it comes to research, care, project development, and policy. The SCI community of clinicians, researchers and patients all benefit from the advances we achieve. Our optimism for care and cure to one day be dynamically and routinely intertwined is based on many complexities that are being clarified in labs, hospitals, clinics, and communities around the world today. Benchwork research, bedside research, and public policy are equally important when it comes to optimizing the health of persons with SCI or other disabilities. APS and the concurrent annual meetings we have with our sister associations, the American Association of Spinal Cord Injury Nurses and the American Association of Spinal Cord Injury Psychologists and Social Workers, are forums in which bridging dialogue about these interrelated areas occurs routinely.
How do you view the interface between APS and people with SCI?
Life in our field of SCI Medicine-like life in general- is a team sport: APS is the oldest professional organization addressing the patient-oriented needs of clinicians and researchers in the field of SCI. It was established 53 years ago by a group of physicians that wanted to optimize the health of the spinal cord injured soldiers coming back from World War II. These physicians were acutely aware of the need for a concerted effort to understand the implications of SCI. To meet this need, as our historical records reflect, they founded APS in 1954. That said, the interface between APS and people with SCI is a dynamic cornerstone of our organization. The mission of the APS is “to advance spinal cord medicine and thereby optimize patient outcomes” through education, research and networking. So, the interface of APS and those with SCI is inherent in all that we do. As one APS Board member, Dr. Steve Kirshblum from Kessler Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation once said, “We train the trainers” through our annual scientific conference, through our Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, and through a variety of APS Committee and liaison work done by our members, many of which are the leaders in the field who head up academic departments, SCI centers, do research, write the articles and books of relevance to SCI and educate medical students and resident physicians in the needs of those with SCI.
As APS continues to grow, I believe it will continue to take on new multiple levels of interfacing. For example, at our upcoming August 2007 Annual Conference, done in partnership with United Spinal Association under the auspices of the overarching there will be a consumer track wherein individuals with SCI and their loved ones can participate in “Talk with the Experts” Forums and “Topics of Interest ” presentations led by clinicians and researchers from APS as well as our sister associations. It’s going to be an awesome opportunity for consumers to get information they want or need to hear-especially if, in their home community, they do not routinely have access to clinicians who know much about SCI and other disability-related realities. I look forward to the cultivation of consumer awareness of APS, since I believe that part of self-advocacy for those with SCI is understanding the value of clinicians and researchers convening regularly to exchange information about both the routine and practical dimensions of SCI care as well as cutting edge clinical care and research information.
Think about it: a person with SCI sees a general practioner who is receptive to learning more about SCI. The person with SCI can make their practitioner aware of organizations like ours and then the networking and broadened base of knowledge process begins. Additionally, in the spirit of advocating for themselves, persons with SCI can, for instance, find out who in their community is a member of APS or who might be SCI subspecialty certified when looking for a possible resource when they get discharged from acute rehab or when they finally get around to thinking that it’s time for a disability-specific check-up.
Knowledge often comes from asking the right questions, not just from accepting the answers floating effortlessly out there in front of you.
