McMaster Minimally Invasive Spine Course
Event Overview
The MIS Spine Course has been ongoing annually since 2018. The target audience consists of senior residents in neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery. This course welcomes a smaller number of attendees and has a high staff to learner ratio, with the majority of time allotted to hands-on experience. This course gives residents the opportunity to practice highly specific, highly skilled techniques on cadavers, collaborate with experts and colleagues in the field and gain hands-on experience they would not typically receive. The course is chaired by Dr. Kesh Reddy and Dr. Desmond Kwok. The local faculty includes Dr. Aleksa Cenic, Dr. Deep Guha and Dr. Mark Pahuta. We bring in guest faculty for the course each year. A consistent and strong supporter of this course has been Dr. Doug Orr from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Dr. Orr brings expertise in MIS spinal surgery techniques including use of robotics, deformities, trauma, and tumor surgery.
We typically have 6 cadaver stations with two participants per station – ideally a neurosurgeon and an orthopedic surgeon, to allow for collaboration typically seen in the field of spine surgery. More junior residents are also free to attend the course and listen/observe. They are sometimes given hands-on opportunities as time and resources allow. This non- for-profit course is offered free of charge to McMaster residents and select invited residents and fellows from Universities nationwide. Kind support is provided annually by Medtronic and Stryker along with other groups such as The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
At the next course in November 2024 we look forward to welcoming new faculty Dr. Mohammad Zarrabian.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this learning activity the learners will be able to:
- Thoroughly identify anatomy of the spine
- Describe the indications, steps, benefits and challenges of various spine procedures (a highly specific surgical area)
- Demonstrate, through hands-on workshops, spine surgical techniques
- Develop interpersonal skills/collaborative connections with other residents, professors and guest speakers
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