Courses
4th Year Elective Rotations
Basic Neurosurgery for Non-Neurosurgeons – Jacksonville (NSU E 1J)
The duration for this course is 4 weeks – shorter duration not available. The rotating medical student will be involved in care of Neurosurgical patients under the supervision of an attending physician. They will take part in outpatient care on clinic days, which will involve a complete neurological examination, discussion of work up plan, differential diagnosis and plan of care. The expectation would be to give the medical student grounding in the work up of patients with neurological illnesses and decision making towards or away from surgery, what to do and when to do it.
The student will attend and participate in the regular M&M, grand round and other conferences. Additionally on non-out patient days, the student will round daily with the supervising attending and APRN / PA-C and will be responsible for history-taking, clinical examination, performing non-invasive maneuvers during a neurological exam. They will participate in educational lectures coordinated between neurosurgery and neurology as well.
Objectives: ability to perform a comprehensive clinical history, examination with appropriate maneuvers, localize the lesion clinically and interpret basic neuro-imaging, nerve conduction and laboratory tests. They will also participate in any bedside procedures as well as assist in the operating room in a variety of neurosurgical cases.
Under faculty supervision, they will:
- Perform a comprehensive relevant neurological history and examination
- Localize and come up with differentials
- Make use of the HPI, understand and correlate with imaging
- Understand common neurosurgical pathology
- Understand when to expedite patient care in certain situations
- Understand basics about pain including headaches, neuralgias and spine pain
- Bedside external ventricular drain and ICP monitor insertion
- Principles of ICU care
- Interpret MRIs and CT scans of the brain and the spine
- Assist in the operating room with cases
- Craniotomy for tumors, trauma
- Cervical and lumbar discectomy
- Spinal fusion
At the end of the rotation, the student should be able to evaluate a patient clinically, come up with plan of care and correlate with findings on imaging. The student will be evaluated on all the above at the end of the rotation (further criteria on which evaluation is based has been listed separately).
Pediatric Neurosurgery – Jacksonville (NSU E 2J)
This rotation is designed to familiarize the student with a wide range of pediatric neurosurgical conditions encountered in infants, children and adolescents, as well as in prenatal conditions. Medical students must learn the basic concepts of pediatric neurology, neuroanatomy, and neurosurgery, with the desire to develop the ability to diagnose and understand the basic mechanism underlying neurosurgical diseases in infants, children and adolescents, and formulate a logical plan of treatment.
During the two to four week rotation, students will function as an integral part of the faculty-led team caring for patients on the pediatric neurosurgery service at Wolfson Children’s Hospital (WCH) and UF&Shands Jacksonville. Wolfson Children’s Hospital is a tertiary regional children’s hospital that treats children from northern Florida and southern Georgia. The UF Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery provides comprehensive care to children with all types of neurosurgical diseases with three fellowship trained pediatric neurosurgery faculty members. It also serves as a training site for the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville neurosurgery resident program.
Rotating students are expected to demonstrate enthusiasm for their work and an active interest in learning the nuances of advanced pediatric neurosurgical care. Students will round each morning with the attending teams and will then be encouraged to spend time in the operating room. The student will have opportunities to acquire knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes in pediatric neurosurgery as well as participate directly in the care of patients with a vast array of clinical conditions that include, but are not limited to: surgical management of epilepsy, surgical correction of congenital disorders of the spine and cranium, surgical/radiosurgical treatment of brain tumors, and the surgical management of cerebrovascular diseases such as strokes and Moyamoya disease in children.
Contact Us
For more information about our medical student programs, please contact our student liaisons below or visit Medical Student Education.
Daryoush Tavanaiepour M.B.Ch.B. (M.D.)
Clerkship Director
Frany Lusad
Clerkship Administrator
(904) 244-8315
Frances.Lusad@jax.ufl.edu
Mailing Address
Department of Neurosurgery
580 West 8th Street, T50
8th Floor, Tower I
Jacksonville, FL 32209