The Italian Society for the Study of Headaches is a mature scientific society, and over its forty-year history, has expressed cultural views and played a pivotal role in research and education of recognized high scientific level. The health care network supported by SISC widely covers the entire country. It has been and is the incubator for the growth of scientists, accredited and internationally acclaimed, also within the various international scientific societies of the headache field.
The different realities that coexist in the multi-faceted management of headache disorders, are considered a resource and are of equal importance. SISC’s members, over 600, come from the most diverse medical fields, neurology, internal medicine, emergency medicine and emergency, pharmacology, clinical pharmacology, anesthesiology, psychiatry, pediatrics, neuropsychiatry, and gynecology. This apparent cultural difference guarantees all the necessary actors for an optimal management of a multidisciplinary disease like headache.
Health care for headache patients is organized on a national level and classified into four detailed levels of care. There are 124 SISC accredited Headache centers.
The educational capacity is evidenced by an intense and continuous congress activity. SISC, this year, will be celebrating its 29th National Congress in symbiosis with the Italian Neurological Association for Headache Research (ANIRCEF).
The lively cultural activities of the 11 Regional Sections reflects and reproduces SISC’s mission in ever new local realties.
The Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Education in Headache, after years of organising courses in a permanent location, has now embarked on a path of itinerant teaching, bringing the courses to areas with greater demand, disseminating in this way the necessary educational training.
The validity of the scientific products accrued by SISC took shape with the foundation and development of The Journal of Headache and Pain, a scientific journal that was created within SISC and has reached, in just 15 years, the summits of the international scientific journal industry. It has established itself as a product of fine national craftsmanship.
In this context, SISC has offered the scientific community the Italian Guidelines for Primary Headaches: 2012 revised version.
The Enrico Greppi Award, now in its 17th edition, is SISC’s most coveted international research award, which has been conferred to many outstanding scientists in the headache field. The award is dedicated to Professor Enrico Greppi, Medical Clinician of the University of Florence, who immediately after the war, introduced headaches as a research and teaching topic in the Italian academy.
SISC’s news bullettin, Giornale delle Cefalee, now in electronic format, has reached its 11th year, divulgates the activities of the Regional Sections and serves as a notice board.
Lastly, completeness is reached with the contiguity with the headache lay associations with which SISC organizes every year a popular event to raise social awareness about headache, the National Headache Day now in its 6th edition.
SISC’s mission is thus fully pursued and is now ready, thanks to the founders and all those who have led and supported SISC over the years, for new cultural synergies.
Paolo Martelletti
President, 2015-2016
Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Education in Headache
Director: Paolo Calabresi
Federazione delle Società Medico-scientifiche Italiane
Rappresentative SISC: Marina de Tommaso
International Headache Society
Rappresentative SISC: Paola Sarchielli
European Headache Federation
Rappresentative SISC: Luigi Alberto Pini
Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Education in Headache
Director: Pierangelo Geppetti
Federazione delle Società Medico-scientifiche Italiane
Rappresentative SISC: Marina de Tommaso
International Headache Society
Rappresentative SISC: Paola Sarchielli
European Headache Federation
Rappresentative SISC: Luigi Alberto Pini
Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Education in Headache
Director: Francesco Pierelli
Federazione delle Società Medico-scientifiche Italiane
Rappresentative SISC: Marina de Tommaso
International Headache Society
Rappresentative SISC: Pierangelo Geppetti
European Headache Federation
Rappresentative SISC: Luigi Alberto Pini
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