Barbara Tettenborn has been elected as the new president of the Swiss League Against Epilepsy. The election took place by post due to the pandemic.
12 May 2020
The Swiss League Against Epilepsy has its first female president: Prof. Dr. Barbara Tettenborn from St. Gallen was elected as the successor to Prof. Dr. Stephan Rüegg. Like her predecessor and Vice President Prof. Dr. Andrea Rossetti, who remains in office, she is a neurologist specializing in epilepsy. All positions on the Epilepsy League board are voluntary and unpaid. As the AGM had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the members of the Epilepsy League, numbering around 800, were given the opportunity to cast their vote by post.
Barbara Tettenborn has been an active member of the Epilepsy League since 1999. She is chairman and head of the Department of Neurology at Kantonsspital St. Gallen and is also a top-level triathlete.
Commenting on her election, her predecessor Stephan Rüegg said, “I am delighted to be able to pass over the baton to an extremely successful and proactive epilepsy specialist who is also an excellent team player. Her election means that the Swiss League Against Epilepsy has a female president at long last, Eastern Switzerland, which has sometimes been under-represented, will have a stronger voice, and – most importantly, we have someone at our helm who is both outstanding and well qualified.”
Three further new members were elected to the Epilepsy League board:
- PD Dr. med. Martinus Hauf, head physician and head of epileptology at Klinik Bethesda in Tschugg
- Prof. Dr. med. Martin Kurthen, senior physician and deputy medical director at the Swiss Epilepsy Clinic (Klinik Lengg) in Zurich
- PD Dr. Dr. med. Frédéric Zubler, senior physician at the Sleep-Wake-Epilepsy Centre (SWEZ) at the University Hospital (Inselspital) in Berne.
In accordance with the statutes of the Epilepsy League passed in 2016 and of his own accord, Stephan Rüegg stood down after four years as president and will remain on the board as a past president until the next board elections. Rüegg is head of EEG laboratories and epileptology in the department for Clinical Neurophysiology at Basel University Hospital.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Grunwald (Zurich), Dr. Anna Marie Hew-Winzeler (Zurich), Dr. Klaus Meyer (Tschugg) and Prof. Dr. Dr. Kaspar A. Schindler (Berne) did not put themselves forward for reelection.
The European Congress on Epileptology, due to be held in Switzerland for the first time, has also had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is likely to be held on the next scheduled congress date in summer 2022.
The new board of the Swiss Epilepsy League
Information on coronavirus and epilepsy