Department of Neurological Surgery

Conferences

Most conferences are held in the Kenneth Smith Conference room on the fifth floor of the hospital in the Department of Neurosurgery office.  This room is equipped with a large wall mounted monitor and a desktop computer, wireless accessories, and capability to project from laptop computers.   The hospital provides high-speed 802.11b/WiFi capability.  All residents are required to attend scheduled conferences.  These take place on Wednesday mornings at 7:30 am and Thursday afternoons from 1:00-4:00 pm.

Weekly Conferences

Weekly Chairman’s Resident Teaching Conference conference takes place on Wednesday morning at 7:30 am. This conference consists of didactic sessions given by Dr. Abdulrauf on various anatomic, radiographic, and operative topics.  These conferences are held unless there is monthly Morbidity and Mortality conference or a visiting professor.

Every Thursday afternoon at 2:00 pm Patient Care Conference is held. Attendings and on-service residents are required to attend. During this conference, interesting cases are discussed and teaching points are made. This educational experience often includes reviewing imaging in the form of conventional radiographs and/or intra-operative video or photography. It also provides a forum for attendings and residents to collaborate and discuss difficult or perplexing cases.

Monthly Conferences

Monthly Tuesday conferences include the following:

• Psychosurgery Conference (2nd Tuesday @ 4:00 pm.): Overlapping neurosurgical and psychiatric cases and topics are discussed. Residents and faculty from neurosurgery and psychiatry are present.

Monthly Wednesday conferences include the following:

• Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conference takes place on Wednesday morning at 7:30. This conference consists of case presentations by the chief resident from the previous week's complications and/or deaths.

Monthly Thursday conferences include the following:

• "The Greenberg Review" (1st Thursday @ 1:00 pm.): The off-service senior generates a presentation regarding a pre-determined chapter in Greenberg Handbook of Neurosurgery.
• Resident Meeting (1st Thursday @ 3:00 pm): The resident meeting is hosted by Dr. Bucholz, the program director. During this meeting a pre-determined agenda of items is discussed which always includes work hour logs for the previous month, for example.
• Movement Disorders Conference (2nd Thursday @ 3:00 pm): This is hosted by Drs. Richard Bucholz and Pratap Chand, the movement disorders specialist.  Similar in nature to Epilepsy Conference, potential surgical candidates are presented, often with videographic data.
• Neurosurgery Tumor Board (3rd Thursday @ 3:00 pm): At tumor conference a list of patients is generated and filtered through Dr. Richard Bucholz's office. This is a multidisciplinary conference and often includes presentations from neurology, oncology, radiology, radiation oncology, pathology, and, of course, neurosurgery. The cases are introduced by neurosurgery housestaff.  Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital also hosts its own Tumor Board on Thursday mornings at 8am, but is not restricted to CNS pathology.
• Neuro-Critical Care Conference (4th Thursday @ 1:00 pm): This conference is shared with surgical critical care (neuro-anesthesia), stroke neurology, and neurosurgery. Interesting cases, patient morbidity and mortality, and relevant literature are presented by each of the respective services in a rotating fashion.
• Journal Club (4th Thursday @ 3:00 pm): At least one week in advance, articles are selected from the Journal of Neurosurgery and Neurosurgery-Online and assigned to both on- and off-service residents. These articles are then presented by respective residents and discussed with attendings.

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