Spineweek in Geneva

The view from our hotel window in Geneva overlooking the Jet d'Eau (water-jet), one of the city's most famous landmarks.

On May 24th I departed for Geneva, Switzerland to attend Spineweek - a synchronization of the annual meetings of leading scientific societies concerned with disorders of the spine.

I was especially exicited for this trip, not only to attend the conference and hear the many wonderful presentations - but also because this was the first time that our research had been accepted for platform presentation at this prestigious conference.

Simply stated, the societies that participate in Spineweek are orthopedic societies - and my presentation was the only research presented by a chiropractor during the entire week. It was a humbling and very honoring experience.

Geneva is the second largest city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). Situated where the Rhône River exits Lake Geneva, Geneva is widely regarded as a global city, because of its home to headquarters of some 200 international organizations, including the agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross - the world’s first humanitarian organization and was formed as an offshoot of the Geneva Convention, in 1859.

Geneva has the second-highest quality of living in the world (narrowly outranked by its Swiss neighbor, Zürich). The city has an important and old finance sector, which is specialized in private banking managing assets of about 1 trillion $USD.

Surrounding the lake downtown are the facades of dozens of bank buildings, and on the streets, top end Bentley's, Masarati's, Ferrari's and the like. The smell of money is in the air, and with our week US dollar, the smell was stronger than usual.

There is a long tradition of watchmaking (Breitling, Baume et Mercier, Chopard, Patek Philippe, Rolex, and others) as Geneva is the watch capital of the world. I wanted to add to my Breitling collection, but with the weakness of the dollar, this wasn't the time.

We stayed downtown at the Beau Rivage, a beautiful hotel overlooking Lake Geneva. The city's reputation for being clean and prosperous was obvious.

My friend and colleague, Dr. Deed Harrison and I ventured out on the town to check out the sights and seek out the acclaimed swiss fondue. Our consierge recommended Auberge de Savièse, just a few blocks walk from our hotel, which didn't disappoint.

Amidst the research presented in the scientific sessions of the conference, were the enjoyable social events. The all-socieities gala was held at the Polo Club - which was a great opportunity to visit with friends and meet new people.

Another social highlight of the conference was the EuroSpine dinner where I was seated next to a young spine surgeon from Kansas City - he did his undergraduate training at SUNY Stonybrook, so my New York roots gave us alot to talk about.

The dinner also had live entertainment with dancers and musical performers that made the evening not only entertaining but inspiring.



My friend and research collaborator, Dr. Robert Gunzburg served as the President of the European Spine Society this year, and to celebrate this year's meeting, he hosted a special dinner for his friends at one of Geneva's finest restaurants, the Relais & Chateaux Auberge du Lion d'Or.

Set overlooking Lake Geneva the restaurant has a marvelous terrace overlooking the lake which was admired by all.

Throughout the dinner Robert's friends roasted his personality and toasted his accomplishments. It was an evening to remember.

On June 1st, I flew from Geneva to Bordeaux, France to spend a week touring their infamous wine country. I'll share my thoughts of that trip with you in the next Travel Lounge blog.