Arkansas College of Medicine Makes Microsurgery 
Breakthrough Using $1 Pump;
International Physicians to Come for Training

Using a second-hand electric pump and food coloring from a grocery store, neurosurgeons in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have created a breakthrough teaching technique for microsurgery.

They report the technique in the new issue of the "Journal of Neurosurgery." The article is one of two the group at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has in that issue and its fourth article in the journal this year.

The neurosurgeons, Emad Aboud, M.D., Ossama Al-Mefty, M.D., and M. Gazi Yasargil, M.D., use the pump, which they purchased for $1, to push colored water through the vessels and arteries of an anatomical specimen - the head of a cadaver - so that neurosurgeons in training can experience life-like blood flow as they learn.

Medical schools have always used anatomical samples as teaching tools. They rely on anatomical gifts, or donations of human remains, to supply their teaching laboratories.

Neurosurgeons from several nations will attend a workshop on the UAMS alternative microsurgery teaching technique at UAMS January 10-12, 2003. A second medical school is already testing the UAMS technique for use with its students.

While the Little Rock neurosurgeons developed the technique for brain surgery, physicians can use it to instruct students and residents in many surgical procedures, including operations inside blood vessels, such as angioplasty, and abdominal procedures that involve the use of an endoscope. The technique is an enormous improvement over using either anesthetized live laboratory animals or traditional human anatomical specimens.

"Many sources are available for training in neurosurgery, but none of them reliably mimic the anatomy, and particularly the characteristics of the vascular system, in the brain during live surgery," Al-Mefty explained. "It's especially important that neurosurgeons-in-training get practice dealing with hemorrhages in the brain before they perform surgery on patients. This new teaching technique should be very helpful. If a hemorrhage occurs during surgery, the student can learn how to respond without risk to a patient."

Al-Mefty praised Aboud for his work on the UAMS technique.

"During his research fellowship in the Department of Neurosurgery at UAMS, Dr. Aboud has tirelessly pursued his idea for a practical and efficient teaching technique," he said.

The UAMS technique also promises to reduce the dependence of medical schools on laboratory animals for teaching surgical techniques.

The neurosurgery team in the UAMS College of Medicine is internationally renowned. Al-Mefty is chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery and the Robert Watson, M.D., Endowed Chair in Neurological Surgery. He is a member of the editorial boards of 11 national and international journals of neurosurgery. Yasargil was honored in 1999 as the "Man of the Century" by the journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

The UAMS group's other article in the new issue of the "Journal of Neurosurgery" is an analysis of surgical decisions about certain giant tumors in the brain. Al-Mefty and Aramis Teixeira, M.D., suggest a new approach to tackling complex glomus jugulare tumors that was successful in a majority of 43 cases they analyzed.

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Notes to Editors:

Members of the neurosurgery team at UAMS will be available for interviews Tues., Nov. 26 and Wed., Nov. 27.

For more information:

Leslie W. Taylor, 501-686-8998
Wireless phone: 501-951-7260
leslie@uams.edu

Elizabeth F. Shores, 501-686-8394
Cell phone: 501-425-0974
EFShores@uams.edu

Emad Aboud, M.D., led development of the UAMS alternative microsurgery teaching technique. (UAMS) (Click on image for downloadable version.)


Neurosurgeons in training at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences practice in more realistic situations thanks to the UAMS alternative microsurgery teaching technique. Here Paulo Abdo do Seixo Kadri, M.D. (left), and Carlos Ernesto Suarez, M.D., check settings on the pump. (UAMS) (Click on image for downloadable version.)

UAMS neurosurgeons use a pump and colored water to create a functioning circulatory system in an anatomical specimen. (Ron Tribell Axis Arts) (Click on image for downloadable version.)