On March 20, 2020, medical students from throughout the nation learned where they would go for their residency programs. This year’s Main Residency Match hit a unique milestone in National Residency Match Program history. According to its website, a “record-high 40,084 applicants submitted program choices for 37,256 positions, the most ever offered in the Match.” The U’s Neurosurgery Residency Program was the beneficiary of the program and is excited to announce its two new “matches,” Isabela Peña Pino, MD; and Birra Taha, MD.
The University of Minnesota Medical Center’s new T-suite operating theater contains a powerful mobile intraoperative MRI machine. The machine provides images that give the surgeon Superman-like x-ray-like vision, enabling them to look through the skull and see the brain as surgery is performed. The benefit of this technology-enabled vision is that it allows the surgeon to make a smaller incision, rendering many procedures almost minimally invasive.
NeuroSafe 2020 – the fifth annual NeuroSafe symposium – will be held, July 23-24, at the McNamara Alumni Center on the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis Campus. This one-of-a-kind national symposium creates opportunities for conversations among experts and attendees about practical, achievable ways to improve the safety and quality of a neurosurgical practice in the context of the triple aim — improving the patient experience, improving population health, and reducing healthcare's per capita cost.
Treatments for lumbar spinal stenosis could be nonsurgical or surgical. If the latter is the best option, the United States Veterans Health Administration is interested in how veterans fare going into and following this kind of spine surgery. As a result, it instituted a multi-center study titled, Lumbar Spinal Stenosis Surgery Program, based out of Boston, MA. The Minneapolis VA Health Care System was one of the first in the country to participate. “We have been actively involved for more than a year,” said Lam.
Andrew Venteicher, MD, PhD, was recently selected as one of four national 2020 Forbeck Scholars. “The Forbeck Scholar designation is an acknowledgement of research excellence by the William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation and one of the most prestigious appointments for a cancer-focused researcher,” said Neurosurgery Department Head Clark C. Chen, MD, PhD, in an internal announcement about the award.
