Welcome. On behalf of the Neurosurgical Research and Educational Foundation, I'd like to thank everyone. John has done a phenomenal job. Just to briefly intro things, health care has changed. So has the NNS, so has the NPA, so has the Journal, and so has the NREF. We're separate foundations. Since 1980, we've provided over $18 million for resident medical student and postgraduate work. That number continues to increase yearly. In fact, this year alone, we donated $1.6 million of outflow. We continue to increase our coffers and increase our distribution. We have a new philosophy where we have representation and diversification. On our board of directors, we have joint section representation. We have senior society and academy representation. As opposed to a federalist versus a statewide thought process, we believe in the state's rights. So we push down accountability, responsibility, and control of the funds to the various sections and organizations. We've done this through organizational donations. We've done it through Honor Your Mentor funds. We promote both basic science and clinical research. If you look at the Cushing Circle of Giving, it's a lifetime pledge, not just a one-time donation, but a pledge of $25,000 or more. You can see as of February of 18, we had 128 individual members, as well as 39 academic programs and or institutions, including the Academy, the Senior Society, the Southern, the Western Urological Society, and the NSA. The Honor Your Mentor funds were started a few years ago. To date, we now have 42 funds. 947 individual donors have contributed. Our pledges are $4.3 million. And of those pledges, we've collected $3.8 million. Now, these are directed funds. These are not funds controlled by the board. These are funds controlled by you, the neurosurgeons, at the section level. We're now dispersing the funds. What we've done is increased the corpus so we can increase the disbursement and provide good stewardship. You can see the several funds here that are now currently being distributed and using for both basic science and clinical research. We partnered with our corporate sponsors. In fact, all morning since 6 a.m., we have been meeting with our various corporate sponsors. Brain Lab has given millions of dollars for a stereotactic radiosurgery registry. Medtronic, DePue, Integra, and others have also contributed. So it's through their contributions and partnership, notably with the NPA and QOD programs, we're able to provide clinical purviews. So please contribute to the fund. Right outside the door, you can stop to contribute. If you buy anything from Amazon, and who doesn't, you can go on AmazonSmile, check off NREF, and a half a percent of your purchases will go to the NREF so we can continue. On behalf of Alex Velotka and the entire board, we'd like to thank you and welcome you to New Orleans. Thank you.

Neurosurgical Research and Educational Foundation

medical students

residents

postgraduates

clinical research