Disclaimer: Most of the information in today’s blog was provided by the researchers and staff at St. Michael’s Hospital who we have been working with. Other information comes from the public domain. We have been registered as student observers here for a few days through the Office of Research Administration.
The first half of our day was spent in the Neurosurgery Clinic at St. Michael’s Hospital.
The Neurosurgery service at St. Michael’s Hospital is a busy inner city urban practice and one of 11 neurosurgical centres in Ontario. It is one of the largest of less than a handful that provide highly specialized neurovascular services including endovascular neurosurgery, aneurysm coiling, carotid stenting and vascular malformation management.
The Division of Neurosurgery distinguishes itself by providing neurosurgical care to patients with neurovascular diseases including strokes, aneurysms and AVMs. In addition, the clinic sees patients with complex skull bases lesions and brain tumours of all kinds. The surgeons provide combined neurosurgeon and orthopedic spinal care for patients with spinal disease.
Dr. Michael Cusimano is a neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital conducting clinical research in neurosurgery (e.g. cognition and memory, cerebellum, pituitary, and brain tumours, aneurysms, AVMs, normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), quality of life (QOL), coma, etc.) as well as extensive research injury prevention, traumatic brain injury and medical education. Recent projects in his lab include various assessment tools and risk factors of traumatic brain injury and vulnerable populations. Moreover, he has recently published research on fractal analysis of AVMs and intracranial pressure as well as reviews on pituitary tumours.
Dr. Cusimano supervises students at various levels of education and training. Summer students conduct their own research and also visit clinics/seminars to apply knowledge and skills. Many students from his lab have recently authored publications as experimental research or a literature reviews.
Recent publications:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24662509
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24821329
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24739366
We also spent time with Dr. Hussein Fathalla, he spoke with us about the techniques they use when treating brain legions, tumours and other brain related diseases. He specifically talked to us about a relatively new procedure they use when as a therapy for brain tumours the Gamma Knife which is far more accurate for stopping the growth of tumours rather than traditional radiation therapy. We also spoke about how bad news is broken to patients and what steps must be taken when informing patients about procedures so they will have both the risks and benefits of the possible treatments they have been offered.
The second half our day was spent at the research facility at another hospital. We were looking at the research that was taking place there in the field of genetics. At the research facility they are looking into designing gene therapies to attempt to cure the progression of diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis and Duchenne’s Disease which are caused by mutations in the DNA. Gene therapy is basically the use of DNA as a drug to treat disease by delivering therapeutic DNA into a patient’s cells. The most common form of gene therapy involves using DNA that encodes a functional, therapeutic gene to replace a mutated gene. We also had some more hands on experience in the Lab. In the Lab we were allowed to run our own protein assay and help with preparing DNA to analyse its genotype.
On to our last day in Toronto and at the hospital tomorrow!
-Bonnie and Joshua
bairdofbute2014 