Resident operative experience in pediatric neurosurgery across the United States.

OBJECTIVE: Neurosurgical residents receive exposure to the subspecialty of pediatric neurosurgery during training. The authors sought to determine resident operative experience in pediatric neurosurgery across Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited neurosurgical programs. METHODS: During 2018-2019, pediatric neurosurgical case logs for recent graduates or current residents who completed their primary pediatric exposure were collected from US continental ACGME training programs. Using individual resident reports and procedure designations, operative volumes and case diversity were analyzed collectively, according to training site characteristics, and also correlated with the recently described Resident Experience Score (RES). RESULTS: Of the 114 programs, a total of 316 resident case logs (range 1-19 residents per program) were received from 86 (75%) programs. The median cumulative pediatric case volume per resident was 109 (IQR 75-161). Residents at programs with a pediatric fellowship reported a higher median case volume (143, IQR 96-187) than residents at programs without (91, IQR 66-129; p < 0.0001). Residents at programs that outsource their pediatric rotation had a lower median case volume (84, IQR 52-114) compared with those at programs with an in-house experience (117, IQR 79-170; p < 0.0001). The case diversity index among all programs ranged from 0.61 to 0.80, with no statistically significant differences according to the Accreditation Council for Pediatric Neurosurgery Fellowships designation or pediatric experience site (p > 0.05). The RES correlated moderately (r = 0.44) with median operative volumes per program. A program's annual pediatric operative volume and duration of pediatric experience were identified as significant predictive factors for median resident operative volume. CONCLUSIONS: Resident experience in pediatric neurosurgery is variable within and between programs. Case volumes are generally higher for residents at programs with in-house exposure and an accredited fellowship, but case diversity is relatively uniform across all programs. RES provides some insight on anticipated case volume, but other unexplained factors remain.

Intracranial gunshot wounds in utero: case report and review.

BACKGROUND AND IMPORTANCE: We present a rare case of an in utero intracranial gunshot wound with survival of the baby and neurosurgical intervention in the first 6 h of life. CLINICAL PRESENTATION: A pregnant 19-year old sustained multiple gunshot wounds and underwent an emergency cesarean section. At the time of delivery, there was a penetrating wound noted to the uterus and to the left side of the baby's head. The baby was taken urgently for craniotomy. Thorough washout was performed, and a pericranial graft was harvested from the frontal vertex to assist in dural closure. The largest displaced bone fragment was soaked in betadine and sutured back into place. The baby was observed for several days and then discharged home with normal neurological examination. CONCLUSION: There are scattered reports of in utero intracranial gunshot wounds in the literature dating back to the nineteenth century; however, our case appears to be the first reported that involved urgent surgical intervention.

The economic value of an on-call neurosurgical resident physician.

OBJECTIVE: The cost of training neurosurgical residents is especially high considering the duration of training and the technical nature of the specialty. Despite these costs, on-call residents are a source of significant economic value, through both indirectly and directly supervised activities. The authors sought to identify the economic value of on-call services provided by neurosurgical residents. METHODS: A personal call log kept by a single junior neurosurgical resident over a 2-year period was used to obtain the total number of consultations, admissions, and procedures. Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes were used to estimate the resident's on-call economic value. RESULTS: A single on-call neurosurgical resident at the authors' institution produced 8172 work relative value units (wRVUs) over the study period from indirectly and directly supervised activities. Indirectly supervised procedures produced 7052 wRVUs, and directly supervised activities using the CPT modifier 80 yielded an additional 1120 wRVUs. Using the assistant surgeon billing rate for directly supervised activities and the Medical Group Management Association nationwide median neurosurgery reimbursement rate, the on-call activities of a single resident generated a theoretical billing value of $689,514 over the 2-year period, or $344,757 annually. As a program, the on-call residents collectively produced 39,550 wRVUs over the study period, or 19,775 wRVUs annually, which equates to potential reimbursements of $1,668,386 annually. CONCLUSIONS: Neurosurgery residents at the authors' institution theoretically produce enough economic value exclusively from on-call activities to far exceed the cost of their education. This information could be used to more precisely estimate the true overall cost of neurosurgical training and determine future graduate medical education funding.

Application of the Preventable Shunt Revision Rate to an Adult Population.

BACKGROUND: The preventable shunt revision rate (PSRR) was recently introduced in pediatric hydrocephalus as a quality metric for shunt surgery. We evaluated the PSRR in an adult hydrocephalus population. METHODS: All ventricular shunt operations (January 1, 2013 to March 31, 2018) performed at a university-based teaching hospital were included. For any index surgery (de novo or revision) resulting in reoperation within 90 days, the index surgery details were collected, and a consensus decision was reached regarding whether the failure had been potentially avoidable. Preventable failure was defined as failure due to infection, malposition, disconnection, migration, or kinking. The 90-day shunt failure rate and PSRR were calculated. Bivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the individual effects of each independent variable on preventable shunt failure. RESULTS: A total of 318 shunt operations had been performed in 245 patients. Most patients were women (62%), with a median age of 48.2 years (interquartile range, 31.2-63.2 years). Most had had ventriculoperitoneal shunts placed (86.5%), and just more than one half were new shunts (51.6%). A total of 53 cases (16.7%) in 42 patients experienced shunt failure within 90 days of the index operation. Of these, 27 failures (8.5% of the total cases; 51% of the failures) were considered potentially preventable. The most common reasons were infection (37%; n = 10) and malposition of the proximal and distal catheters (both 25.9%; n = 7). Age was the only statistically significant difference between the 2 groups, with the patients experiencing preventable shunt failure older than those without preventable shunt failure (51.4 vs. 37.1 years; P = 0.017). CONCLUSIONS: The 90-day PSRR can be applied to an adult population and serve as a quality metric.

An Analysis of the On-Call Clinical Experience of a Junior Neurosurgical Resident.

The process of transforming a medical student to a competent neurosurgeon is becoming increasingly scrutinized and formalized. However, there are few data on resident workload. We sought to quantify the workload and educational experience of a junior resident while "on-call." A single resident's on-call log was reviewed from the period of July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016, corresponding to that resident's postgraduate years 2 and 3. For each patient encounter (ie, consult or admission), information pertaining to the patient's demographics, disease or reason for consult, date/time/location of consult, and need for any neurosurgical intervention within the first 24 hours was collected. In total, 1929 patients were seen in consultation. The majority of patients were male (62%) with a median age of 50 years (range, day of life 0-102 years) and had traumatic diagnoses (52%). The number of consults received during the 16:00 to 17:00 and 17:00 to 18:00 hours was +1.6 and +2.5 standard deviations above the mean, respectively. The busiest and slowest months were May and January, respectively. Neurosurgical intervention performed within the first 24 hours of consultation occurred in 330 (17.1%) patients: 221 (11.4%) major operations, 69 (3.6%) external ventricular drains, and 40 (2.1%) intracranial pressure monitors. This is the first study to quantify the workload and educational experience of a typical neurosurgical junior resident while "on-call" (ie, carrying the pager) for 2 consecutive years. It is our hope that these findings are considered by neurosurgical educators when refining resident education.

Exposure of Dural Venous Sinuses: A Review of Techniques and Description of a Single-piece Troughed Craniotomy.

Intracranial lesions along the falx and tentorium often require exposure of a dural venous sinus. Craniotomies that cross a sinus should maximize exposure while minimizing the risk of sinus injury and provide a cosmetically appealing result with simple reconstruction techniques.  We describe the published techniques for exposing dural venous sinuses, and introduce a new technique for a single-piece craniotomy exposing the superior sagittal sinus or transverse sinus using drilled troughs. A review of the literature was performed to identify articles detailing operative techniques for craniotomies over dural venous sinuses. Our troughed craniotomy for dural sinus exposure is described in detail as well as our experience using this technique in 82 consecutive cases from 2007-2015. Five distinct techniques for exposure of the dural venous sinus were identified in the literature. In our series of patients undergoing a trough craniotomy, there were no sinus injuries despite a range of various locations and pathology along the sagittal and transverse sinuses. Our technique was found to be safe and simple to reconstruct compared to other techniques found in the literature. A variety of different techniques for exposing the dural venous sinuses are available. A single-piece craniotomy using a trough technique is a safe means to achieve venous sinus exposure with minimal reconstruction required. Surgeons should consider this method when removing lesions adjacent to the falx or tentorium.

Ontogeny of methionine utilization and splanchnic uptake in critically ill children.

To determine the rates of methionine splanchnic uptake and utilization in critically ill pediatric patients we used two kinetic models: the plasma methionine enrichment and the "intracellular" homocysteine enrichment. Twenty four patients, eight infants, eight children, and eight adolescents, were studied. They received simultaneous, primed, constant, intravenous infusions of l-[(2)H(3)]methylmethionine and enteral l-[1-(13)C]methionine. The ratio of [(13)C]homocysteine to [(13)C]methionine enrichment was 1.0 ± 0.15, 0.80 ± 0.20, and 0.66 ± 0.10, respectively, for the infants, children, and adolescents, and it was different between the infants and adolescents (P < 0.01). Methionine splanchnic uptake was 63, 45, and 36%, respectively, in the infants, children, and adolescents, and it was higher (P < 0.01) in the infants compared with the adolescents. The infants utilized 73% of methionine flux for nonoxidative disposal, while 27% was used for transulfuration (P < 0.001). Conversely, in the adolescents, 40% was utilized for nonoxidative disposal, while 60% was used for transulfuration. There is ontogeny on the rates of methionine splanchnic uptake and on the fate of methionine utilization in critically ill children, with greater methionine utilization for synthesis of proteins and methionine-derived compounds (P < 0.01) and decreased transulfuration rates in the infants (P < 0.01), while the opposite was observed in the adolescents. The plasma model underestimated methionine kinetics in children and adolescents but not in the infants, suggesting lesser dilution and greater compartmentation of methionine metabolism in the infant population. All patients were in negative methionine balance, indicating that the current enteral nutritional support is inadequate in these patients.

Bicarbonate kinetics and predicted energy expenditure in critically ill children.

BACKGROUND: To determine nutrient requirements by the carbon oxidation techniques, it is necessary to know the fraction of carbon dioxide produced during the oxidative process but not excreted. This fraction has not been described in critically ill children. By measuring the dilution of (13)C infused by metabolically produced carbon dioxide, the rates of carbon dioxide appearance can be estimated. Energy expenditure can be determined by bicarbonate dilution kinetics if the energy equivalents of carbon dioxide (food quotient) from the diet ingested are known. OBJECTIVE: We conducted a 6-h, primed, continuous tracer infusion of NaH(13)CO(3) in critically ill children fed parenterally or enterally or receiving only glucose and electrolytes, to determine bicarbonate fractional recovery, bicarbonate rates of appearance, and energy expenditure. DESIGN: Thirty-one critically ill children aged 1 mo-20 y who were admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit at a tertiary-care center were studied. Patients were stratified by age, BMI, and severity score (PRISM III). RESULTS: Fractional bicarbonate recovery was 0.69, 0.70, and 0.63, respectively, for the parenterally fed, enterally fed, and glucose-electrolytes groups, and it correlated with the severity of disease in the parenteral (P < 0.01) and glucose-electrolytes (P < 0.05) groups. Rates of appearance varied between 0.17 and 0.19 micromol . kg(-1) . h(-1) With these data and estimates of the energy equivalents of carbon dioxide (a surrogate for respiratory quotient), energy expenditure was determined. CONCLUSIONS: The 2001 World Health Organization and Schofield predictive equations overestimated and underestimated, respectively, energy requirements compared with those obtained by bicarbonate dilution kinetics. Bicarbonate kinetics allows accurate determination of energy needs in critically ill children.