Welcome to your February update from the World Muscle Society

This month, we're on the verge of opening registrations for WMS 2024. We have been able to publish the summary programme, including this year's topics. We will, of course, continue to add to the programme as we select speakers and finalise details. 

Alongside registration, we will also open our abstract submissions. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to help review abstracts. You will be hearing from the team very soon with instructions.

This year, we have added some sustainability topics to our abstract submission process. Our Sustainability Committee is keen to get the conversation started and encourages you to consider these when submitting abstracts. The sub-topics are:

• Sustainable practices in healthcare facilities (energy efficiency, waste management).
• Sustainable materials or approaches in orthopaedics, research etc.
• Environmental impacts (air-quality, heat waves etc) on patients' health

I am curious to see what our Congress delegates submit on these subjects.

This month we also celebrated International Day for Women and Girls in Science. I was proud to see my own team at the John Walton Muscular Dystrophy Research Centre included in our social media coverage. It's a team that is 75% female. 

If you missed the posts on social media, I encourage you to take a look back through and watch some of the interesting and enlightening interviews with Lindsay Alfano, Meredith James and Linda Lowes on the field of physiotherapy in neuromuscular disorders. The links are in the story below.