I am delighted to introduce the new AOSpine Chairperson-elect to you, Shanmuganathan Rajasekaran, with a personal interview in this newsletter. Raja will take over the AOSpine Chairperson role as of July 2018.

Also in this issue of the AOSpine newsletter Alexander Vaccaro shares insights about the development of the thoracolumbar, subaxial and sacral AOSpine Classification Systems and what the AOSpine Knowledge Forum Trauma is currently working on.

The AOSpine Knowledge Forum Deformity shares how they are harvesting the results of the first six years of research. This truly international spine deformity study group expects to set the standard of care for deformity patients.

Last month, AOSpine Knowledge Forum SCI, under the lead of Michael Fehlings, has published the Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy and Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury in a special focus issue of the Global Spine Journal. Find the latest news in this issue of the newsletter.

We are pleased to report that the Davos Courses 2017 are almost sold out! There are only a few places left. Make sure you register as soon as possible.

Furthermore, we are very proud to announce that the number of abstracts submitted for Global Spine Congress 2018 has once again exceeded our expectations. With 1100 abstracts submitted, more abstracts have been submitted to the Global Spine Congress 2018 than to any other spine event world-wide.

Also, we'd like to share ten tips and tricks for cross-cultural teaching and lecturing, and show in a short video how you can make the best out of your online reputation on social media.

Last but not least, AOSpine Latin America has hosted a very successful regional course this summer in Mexico City. Read the success story and watch exclusive video content from the plenary session.

I hope that you find this issue interesting and informative. I look forward to bringing you the next newsletter edition later this fall.

Yours Sincerely,

Dan Riew

Chairperson,

AOSpine International