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| Updated: 2/06/2012 8:03 am |
Published: 2/05/2012 4:45 pm |
LITTLE ROCK, AR - Right now, the world's top brain surgeons are in Little Rock. They are part of a three day hands-on anatomy course at UAMS studying the white matter of the brain. They will learn how to do safer surgeries to avoid damaging other parts of the brain when they remove tumors.
You won't hear much in the way of talking at the UAMS Microneurosurgical Lab. You won't hear much of anything as 26 of the world's top brain surgeons dissect white matter of the brain, one of the two key components of our nervous system.
"These are big bundles of fibers, like electrical cables if you will that are connecting parts of the brain, and connecting down to our spinal cord and to our nerves going out peripherally in our body," says Dr. J.D. Day with UAMS.
Day and his colleagues use the same strategies pioneered one-hundred years ago to dissect the brains. Day says the process is now growing in popularity for brain surgeons.
"Almost two years ago, was the first time that I started looking at this, and I was really stimulated by Professor Gazi Yasargil, who's here," says Day.
And, brought fifty years of experience with him.
"I think I'm a much better brain tumor surgeon now than I was even just two years ago. There are things that I do now that I have a much higher level of sophistication in terms of the anatomy and the approach," said Day.
The skills these neurosurgeons learn at UAMS will help them perform surgeries with fewer risks to their patients.
"This is just another sort of a building block in development to get to a higher level," explains Day.
The surgeons came from as far away as Turkey and Switzerland. They continue training Monday and Tuesday.
