Rebecca Artz
The NREF is pleased to announce that grant applications for two prestigious awards are now open on the NREF Online Grant Portal: the Post-Residency Clinical Fellowships and the William P. Van Wagenen Fellowship. Awarded annually since 1968, the William P. Van Wagenen Fellowship is offered for post-residency study in a foreign country for twelve months. The Van Wagenen Fellowship was...
Are the Days of the ICP Monitor Numbered? To date, three prospective randomized clinical trials have failed to demonstrate improved outcomes with either monitoring or reduction of intracranial pressure (ICP). The Decompressive Craniectomy in Patients with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury (DECRA) trial reduced ICP with decompressive hemicraniectomy but did not impact survival or quality of life (1). The BEST-TRIP study...
For 30 years, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) has provided the foundation for emergency care in the U.S. Passed by a bipartisan Congress and signed by a Republican President, it has remained a fixture of health care policy, mostly unchallenged by hospitals and physicians.The practice of “patient dumping” fueled the passage of EMTALA. Public anger...
So far, 2016 has been a busy year on the health policy and advocacy front, and the AANS/CNS Washington Committee and your Washington Office staff have been working hard to promote policies that benefit neurosurgeons and their patients. Below is a rundown of recent activity: CMS Proposes Major Overhaul of Medicare Physician Payment System
As previously reported, on April 27, 2016,...
"The Lucky Years: How to Thrive in the Brave New World of Health." David B. Agus, MD. Simon and Schuster. New York. 2016.Everyone seems to be writing about how depressed physicians are today. However, anyone who is depressed about the state of health care needs to read this book. It is unusual to have a book reviewed that is addressed...
2017 promises to see many changes in neurosurgical coding and quality reporting. New systems will impose fundamental shifts in a variety of Medicare reporting requirements. This article will provide a quick overview of changes in quality, meaningful use, and value reporting. Future educational content developed and provided by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) will help members prepare...
Voting members of the AANS are invited to submit nominations for the 2017 AANS Cushing Award for Technical Excellence and Innovation in Neurosurgery by Oct. 30, 2016. The award will be presented at the 85th AANS Annual Scientific Meeting, to be held April 22-26, 2017, in Los Angeles. The Cushing Award honors an AANS member for technical prowess and...
There are approximately 2.5 million emergency department visits and hospitalizations each year associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI), and approximately 50,000 individuals die from TBI per year. Also, there are about 11,000 new spinal cord injuries each year (1). According to a report by Organized Neurosurgery to the Institute of Medicine, there are approximately 3,689 board-certified neurosurgeons for over...
Neurotrauma care is one of the cornerstones of the neurosurgical specialty. Although Harvey Cushing, MD, the father of modern neurosurgery, is best known for his legacy of over 2,000 brain tumor operations, he was the first to describe increased intracranial pressure (the clinical triad of hypertension, bradycardia and hypopnea associated with intracranial hypertension bears his name). Cushing developed some...
For as long as I can remember, I have loved sports. In fact, I struggle to find an accurate way to articulate how meaningful sports have been to me. Basketball, baseball and football, my sports of choice throughout childhood, taught me many valuable life lessons I would have otherwise missed. Despite my general passion for all sports, football holds...
