Clinical Training Overview
Extraordinary experience with spine surgery is provided, with fellowship-level opportunity to learn instrumentation and fusion techniques. Operations for tumor including; skull-base tumors, arteriovenous malformations, aneurysms, seizures, and hydrocephalus are numerous and provide a wide range of exposure to different techniques. In addition, procedures for the alleviation of the pain of carpal tunnel syndrome and tic douloureux, and the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease, dystonia, and essential tremor are performed regularly. The treatment of trauma patients provides a wide range of exposure to closed head injury and the control of intracranial hypertension. This combination ensures that graduates of the Wake Forest Neurosurgery Residency Program receive the most well rounded clinical training possible.
Image guided Neurosurgery is state-of-the-art. The Medical Center has an extremely active Gamma Knife Program. This is one of the few programs in the country to have both a Gamma Knife and a linear accerlator based (LINAC-Scalpel) radiosurgery program. Wake Forest has one of only two Gamma Knife units in North Carolina and is the closest academic Gamma Knife Center to approximately 20 million people. Multiple image guidance and stereotactic platforms are available for use in the operating rooms.
The resident rotating on neuroradiology is instructed by ten full-time neuroradiologists and has a broad exposure to all neuroradiological procedures, including the latest techniques in interventional neuroradiology. The latest CT, CT-Angiography, MRI (1.5 and 3 Tesla), PET, PET- CT, ultrasound, and other imaging scanners are available. Multiple MRI scanners, including one dedicated entirely to research, are at the physician’s disposal. Two neuropathologists supervise individual performance and conference preparation. The productive relationship with upwards of thirty full-time neurology faculty enables exchange of both information and patients encompassing a wide range of neurologic disorders.