Brain surgery, science and education


As a pediatric neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and educator, I come across many interesting bits of information and wonderful people. I will try to share some of this with you here. While the site draws heavily from my experiences as the Campagna Chair of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Oregon Health & Science University, and head of neurosurgery at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, this is a personal blog. My thanks to my wonderful OHSU colleagues, who share this exciting and rewarding work with me.


Saturday, June 30, 2012

National Accreditation Renewal, New Positions, and Special Recognition for OHSU Neurosurgery Residency



Oregon Health & Science University is one of only 100 medical centers in the nation to train the next generation of neurosurgeons, as part of our mission to advance cures for neurological disease.

In order to maintain the highest standards of education and patient safety, the American Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) performs a thorough records review and site visit of every residency program every 5 years. Our program spent months preparing documents and then underwent our site visit in June, 2011.

The results were better than we hoped for. In addition to a clean bill of health and full 5-year accreditation period, our residency complement was increased from 14 to 18 trainees. The review committee recognized the strong training environment, nationally recognized faculty, and tremendous opportunities to learn in a safe and supportive environment for patients and trainees in making these decisions.

To top it off, the OHSU Program was also commended for overall quality, and became the first neurosurgery residency program in the country invited to share a ‘notable educational practice’ with other programs nationally. The practice cited is a new call schedule arrangement that shortens the length of duty shifts for the doctors working through the night in the OHSU Neurosciences ICU, taking care of the sickest patients. The schedule makes sure a well rested and focused doctor is only seconds to minutes away from the bedside of critically ill patients. It also provides for optimal care ‘handoffs’, so that shorter shifts do not result in confusion about patient status or recent events.

The new schedule was developed by a group of educators and trainees in our Program, who could see all angles of each challenge and potential solution. Kudos to key players, Dr. Brian Ragel, Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery, and Dr. Mark Piedra, Senior Neurosurgical Resident!

OHSU’s innovative schedule will soon be reported in the medical literature, and has been posted at the ACGME’s education innovations website.


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