STRENGTHENING the global effort to CURE neuromuscular disease

New for 2020, the American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) Annual Meeting plenary will include a speaker who is the winner of the Surinderjit Singh Young Lectureship Award. This lecture will honor long-time AANEM member Dr. Surinderjit Singh. The lectureship topic preferably will align with the theme of the 2020 Orlando meeting, Emergent Therapies in Neuromuscular Diseases. There will be plenary speakers to review the current and future landscape in treatments of important neuromuscular diseases such as SMA, ALS, muscular dystrophy and myasthenia gravis.

​This award was created after Dr. Singh’s wife, Jeena, chose to donate $50,000 to the American Neuromuscular Foundation in her husband’s honor, thus leaving a legacy of giving young physicians in his field an opportunity to shine.

“We are honored to put this gift to good use, and involve the next generation of neurologists and physiatrists who might see how valuable the AANEM could be to their careers, just like Dr. Singh did,” said AANEM Executive Director Shirlyn Adkins, JD.

The award winner will receive a $1,000 honorarium, airfare ($500 U.S., $1,000 non-U.S.), and 2 days hotel accommodations. Candidates to speak must be within 10 years of finishing a residency or fellowship. 

If you would like to be considered for this award, please send your CV and a letter expressing why you wish to speak and the topic you wish to speak on to aanem@aanem.org. Please put Lectureship Award in the subject line. Applications are due by the end of business on February 3, 2020. Dr. So will be reviewing the applications and AANEM will notify the chosen speaker in March 2020. 

About Dr. Surinderjit Singh

Surinderjit Singh, MD, MS was a member of AANEM from 1976 until the time of his death in 2018; most of his activity with the association was in the 1980s and 1990s. An American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine (ABEM) oral examiner from 1983-1998, Dr. Singh enjoyed the opportunity to join his colleagues in Chicago, IL. He served on several committees including the Relative Value Scale Committee, Professional Standards (later Professional Practice), the Quality Assurance Committee, and the Education Committee. He loved, among many things, both electrodiagnostic medicine and cricket.

 

Born in Malaysia in 1944, Dr. Singh was educated in India before completing his studies at the Universities of Wisconsin and Washington. He was then commissioned as the first Sikh Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1973. He rose through the ranks to end as Chief of the Physical Medicine Department at Madigan Army Medical Center, retiring as a Lt. Colonel in 1980.

Later that year, he founded Electrodiagnosis & Rehabilitation Associates of Tacoma, WA, a private medical practice specializing in electrodiagnostic medicine. By 1992 it was the largest private physiatry practice in the Pacific Northwest, helping thousands of patients through their rehabilitation from injury and pain. He served as President and CEO of this organization until his retirement in 2001. He also served as medical director of the physical medicine and rehabilitation departments at both St. Joseph's Medical Center and Tacoma General Hospital during his career. An avid cricketer, Dr. Singh played the sport all his life, the majority of which was spent with the Seattle Cricket Club. During his cricket playing years, he represented the U.S. on the National Cricket Team and was invited to play around the world. He spent his retirement traveling to as many countries across the world as he could with his wife and partner of 46 years, Jeena.