"If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."
– Sir Isaac Newton, 1676
Our mission is to train outstanding clinical surgeons in state-of-the-art neurosurgery. NYU residents learn surgical techniques from mature surgeons who have honed their skills, survived and flourished in the most competitive and demanding medical marketplace in the world. Patient selection, operative technique and postoperative management skills are developed in an environment that stresses optimal patient care and surgical outcomes. A large clinical volume and wide spectrum of patient material provide trainees with a broad exposure to all aspects of the neurosurgical discipline. Residents finish the program with the knowledge and confidence that there is nothing in neurosurgery they cannot handle.
NYU's program comprises service at three hospitals: Tisch University Hospital, the Manhattan Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and Bellevue Hospital (BH). Each of these institutions has a busy neurosurgical service. With close supervision from mature faculty, residents run each of the services: tumor, vascular, spine, pediatrics and epilepsy at these facilities. The degree of patient care responsibility progresses with the level of training. At the VAMC and Bellevue our residents provide all pre- and postoperative care, surgical procedures and consultations with faculty in a supervisory role only. Senior residents function as junior attending physicians at the VAMC and BH.
There is no substitute for clinical case volume and variety in neurosurgical training programs. And we certainly have both. Routine and complex intra-axial and skull base tumor, vascular, spine, movement disorders, epilepsy and pediatric neurosurgical cases are admitted to Tisch Hospital from regional, national and international sources. Bellevue Hospital has attracted New York City's indigent patients to its doors for over 200 years, resulting in a wide variety of intracranial tumors, vascular, spine cases and, of course, head and spinal trauma (about 20% of the surgical case load at Bellevue). The VAMC is the neurosurgical referral center for the Northeast's VISN (Veterans Integrated Services Network), which also provides a wide variety of neurosurgical cases.
A neurosurgical residency is like an apprenticeship: a trainee works at the side of a mature surgeon who teaches techniques and methods to the next generation of neurosurgeons. But this alone isn't good enough. We, as faculty, also try to give our residents the necessary means with which to advance the discipline. At NYU there is ample opportunity for residents to collaborate with basic scientists in laboratory research projects or to develop a subspecialty interest in a clinical area: stereotactic surgery, complex spine, endovascular and minimally invasive techniques or epilepsy. We also offer exposure to new technologies with application to neurosurgery: computer and software development, neuroaugmentative electronics, functional and anatomic imaging, information transfer, and visualization technologies and surgical robotics, to name a few.
There is little question in my mind that, upon finishing our program, all our trainees will be excellent technical neurosurgeons. In fact, I take this for granted. But the journey doesn't stop there. Neurosurgery is now and will always be a 'work in progress.' It is my deepest hope that after a few years all our residents will become better surgeons than their teachers. I strongly believe that our graduates should continue to contribute to and improve the field throughout their professional lives. All neurosurgeons should strive to make neurosurgery better than they found it by developing new techniques, incorporating new technologies and laboratory advances and providing ever-greater benefit to their patients. The goal of the NYU residency program is to provide young men and women with the necessary skills and tools to do that.
Patrick Kelly, MD
Chair, Department of Neurosurgery
Joseph Ransonhoff Professor of Neurosurgery
