Letter from the Chair

In these challenging times for academic medicine, the Department has undergone change and growth in order to continue its traditions of excellent and innovative patient care, outstanding education and cutting edge research to advance the field of neurosurgery.

In the past three years we have added programs in Gamma Knife® radiosurgery, endoscopic skull base surgery and endovascular neurosurgery to complement the comprehensive programs that exist in the other subspecialties of neurosurgery. The deep brain stimulation program has been significantly enhanced and plans are underway to update our pioneering program in intraoperative MRI-guided neurosurgery. Our present unit has recently completed 10 years of operation with nearly 1,000 cases, one of the largest series of intraoperative MRI cases in the world.

The residency program has benefited from an NIH training grant in Translational Neurobiology. This provides support for two years of research by neurosurgery, neurology and psychiatry residents as well as graduate neuroscientists. As a result, we have been able to add back into the training program a second year of research, recognizing that significant research efforts by residents today require more than a single year of effort.

Our research programs have expanded, particularly in the areas of severe traumatic brain injury, neural stem cells and brain tumor vaccines.

All of these efforts to improve our programs are driven by one goal: to improve the lives of those afflicted with neurosurgical disease. To this end we strive to achieve clinical and academic excellence, to guide our treatment recommendations with the best available scientific evidence, to bring innovative treatments to our patients in clinical trials before they are widely available to the public and to discover new knowledge that can further improve patient care.

This year we received notification of 2006 recognition as a Comprehensive Neuroscience Center from Neurosource and Health Tech and University of Minnesota Medical Center Neurology and Neurosurgery were ranked in the top 20 in the nation by US News and World Report. While recognition is appreciated, we continue to work hard to improve. Our hope is that this dedication will bring excellent results and peace of mind for our patients and the physicians who refer them.

Sincerely,
Stephen J. Haines, M.D.
Lyle A. French Chair and Head of the Department of Neurosurgery