June 2003 --- An exciting new international non-profit coalition of
interstitial cystitis (IC) patient organizations has been founded. This new group is called the Multinational Interstitial
Cystitis Association, or MICA. The founding members of this dynamic new coalition are
representatives of IC patient groups from Austria (ICA Österreich e. V., led by Elke
Hufnagl), Germany (ICA Deutschland e.V., led by Barbara Muendner-Hensen and Juergen
Hensen), Italy (Associazione Italiana Cistite Interstiziale, led by Loredana Nasta), and
the United States (The Interstitial Cystitis Association, led by Vicki Ratner, MD).
Additional international IC patient groups are encouraged to join, as are physicians of
all specialties, nurses and other healthcare providers.
Founding MICA Medical Advisory Board Members
include: Mauro Cervigni, MD, Italy-President; Roberto Carone, MD, Italy; Frank
Oberpenning, MD, Germany; Arndt van Ophoven, MD, Germany; Helmut Madersbacher, MD, PhD,
Austria; Claus Riedl, MD, Austria; Alan Wein, MD, USA; and Philip Hanno, MD, USA;
Christopher Payne, MD, USA; Robert Moldwin, MD, USA; and Tomohiro Ueda, MD, PhD, Japan.
Monica Liebert, PhD, Director of Research, American Urological Association, will serve as
Special Consultant. A Senior Medical Consultant Advisory Council is currently being
established.
The goals of the new organization are:
To provide medical professionals, patients
and the general public with comprehensive current information regarding IC;
To educate medical professionals and the
public in countries throughout the world about the diagnosis and treatment of IC;
|
To raise funds throughout the world for IC
education and research; and
To promote communication among medical
professionals, patients, their families and friends in counters throughout the world in
order to coordinate their efforts.
Dr. Vicki Ratner, Founder and President of
the ICA, comments, "The ICA has always been eager to work on an international level,
actively collaborating with other non-profit patient organizations whenever possible to
share resources and information. Recently we have been fortunate to be able to network
with our international colleagues more than ever, and the time has finally arrived to make
our international aspirations a reality. The IC movement began in 1984 here in the US with
the founding of the ICA. Today that movement is rapidly spreading worldwide. We now have
the opportunity to realize the goal of an international collaboration to build a world IC
community. The potential is enormous." MICA Medical Advisory Board President and
urogynecologist, Dr. Mauro Cervigni, who will host an international IC conference in 2004,
remarks, "From the physician’s perspective, it is of the utmost importance that
we invite and include representatives of many medical subspecialties because so many IC
patients suffer from multiple related medical conditions."
MICA is the first international
non-profit IC patient, doctor and healthcare provider organization. The MICA website can
be found at www.multinationalica.org.
|
International IC
Coalition Founded