The "Discussion Platform for Pain, Surgery and Rehabilitation Aspects of Low Back Pain” is the 4th symposium on low back pain in four years. The first three meetings were very successful and many lecturers and participants have spent a wonderful time in Bodrum.

The symposium is aiming at health care professionals involved in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with chronic low back pain of various origins. Physiatrists, orthopaedic surgeons, manual medicine, rheumatologists, vocational physicians, physiotherapists, etc. contribute and participate in the symposium. Besides the multidisciplinary approach the main advantage of the meeting is that people from several countries and from several backgrounds meet and exchange ideas and opinions and return home with new enthusiasm and new inspiration.

The symposium really wants to contribute to a better understanding between cultures in Europe in the widest sense, improve the level of knowledge and skills of the health care professionals, with the ultimate goal to improve the treatment of those patients that suffer from low back pain.

As chairman of the 4th Low Back Pain Symposium I invite all friends from Europe to come to Bodrum and join this interesting meeting.

Prof. Henk J. Stam, MD, PhD, FRCP