During your residency, you'll have the opportunity to attend and take part in multiple different annual meetings throughout the year. Below are just a select few of the conferences our residents have attended recently. Each year we are amazed by the fascinating topics our residents present on, and we're always proud when they arrive back home with an award for their hard work.
North American Skull Base Society
The NASBS is focused on the education, innovation, and collaboration across specialties to improve the outcomes of patients with skull base disorders. Residents with an interest in skull base procedures attend each year and take part in different courses, present research findings, and sit in on lectures given from surgeons located around the country.
Congress of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting
The CNS Annual Meeting is one of the biggest conventions held each year. Multiple Penn faculty and residents take part in the 5-day event giving presentations and networking with other professionals. For the 2022 Annual Meeting, Penn featured multiple award winners.
Michael Spadola, MD (PGY-6) was awarded Best Operative Technique Poster in the Neurotrauma and Critical Care Section for his presentation titled, "The Device for Intraventricular Entry (DIVE) Guide: A Novel Solution to a Perpetual Problem;" and Stephen Miranda, MD (PGY-6) was awarded the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.
The Joint Section on Pediatric Neurological Surgery
For those interested in Pediatric Neurosurgery, this is one of the biggest meet ups of the year. It serves as a section to assist AANS and CNS to advance education, research, and patient care of infants to young adults. For the 2022 meeting, Maria Punchak, MD, Msc (PGY-5) gave a presentation on her research titled, "Presentation, treatment outcomes and referral patterns of neural tube defects patients in Southwestern Uganda."
Pan Philadelphia Neurosurgical Meeting
This is an annual conference co-directed by three area Neurosurgical Training Programs: the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, and the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Each year a theme is selected, and guest presenters discuss different aspects of the chosen neurosurgery topic. Additionally, a resident research competition takes place and this past year, Stephen Miranda, MD (PGY-6) took home the award for Best Presentation for his work titled, "Prediction of Intracranial Pressure Crises Using Machine Learning Algorithms."
In-House Conferences
As part of your training, you'll experience different weekly conferences that are held by our department, with many of them taking place in our new Collaboration Center. During these meetings you'll be exposed to the latest neurological cases, concepts, techniques, problems, and solutions. Both faculty and residents are regular participants in these collaborative programs with the goal to discuss different ideas to best treat patients for varying circumstances. Many of these conferences will include teaching presentations on a specific topic for that given week. To see the full list of events coming up, you can head to our calendar page.
Grand Rounds
Multiple times throughout the year, our department will ask experts from other prestigious institutions throughout the country to give a lecture to our faculty and residents. They will give feedback on cases presented by residents, and then give a presentation on a clinical or research topic of their chosen expertise relevant to neurosurgery. These monthly lectures include 6 named visiting professorships in tumor, vascular, spine, functional, trauma, and pediatric neurosurgery each year. You can view a list of the past visiting professors and their information here.
Spine Conference
The faculty within our Spine and Peripheral Nerve division lead a Spine Conference every two weeks at Pennsylvania Hospital, the location of our Penn Spine Center. New and interesting cases related to the spine are presented by faculty and then openly discussed among the group to determine the best course of action for moving forward on a specific surgical treatment for the patient.
Neuro-Trauma Conference
Our trauma team at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center holds conferences throughout each month to discuss the latest neurosurgery cases that come into our emergency rooms. Things such as presenting conditions, treatments issued on arrival, and follow up care among many other things are discussed thoroughly between both staff and residents.
Clinical Case Conference
Clinical case conferences allow for difficult cases to be discussed amongst the group. A lecture style presentation is given by a faculty member and then different clinical faculty and residents are able to chime in with questions and alternative methods of treatment. Often times, this type of conference is paired with a Hot Seat Presentation.
Hot Seat Presentations
Hot Seats are a time to put our residents on the spot. A case is presented by a faculty member and the resident will lead the discussion on how to properly diagnose and treat the patient. Being in front of the rest of the clinical faculty, audience members may ask questions that come to mind, and the resident will do their best to answer. Throughout the process, suggestions are also given and discussed for differing treatment options allowing the residents to learn as many different techniques as possible. All of this is done to give our residents exposure to a few of the more complex and unusual cases so that when they happen to appear throughout their careers, they'll be ready to handle them.