We have also implemented intermittent weekend clinics to improve access for our patients. Another unique feature of this division is our surgeons’ ability and willingness to provide a continuum of high-quality care at the University of Washington Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center for our adult patients with congenital diseases once they graduate Seattle Children’s Hospital.
The neurosurgery staff work in a robust, cooperative, multidisciplinary manner with many other medical and surgical specialties at Children’s, consulting with colleagues in anesthesia, neurology, general surgery, developmental pediatrics, genetics, orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation medicine and at the Craniofacial Center. Our division emphasizes treating congenital conditions of the central nervous system as well as brain and spinal cord tumors, epilepsy, vascular diseases, trauma and craniofacial anomalies. Our nationally renowned multidisciplinary referral programs encompass four areas: craniofacial surgery, epilepsy surgery, neuro-oncology (brain tumors) and congenital conditions (hydrocephalus, spasticity, Chiari malformations and birth defects).
The division is also involved in basic, clinical and translational research programs supported by NIH, NSF, and Coulter Foundation grants and other intramural and extramural funds. These research efforts, conducted both collaboratively and with neurosurgery faculty as PI, aim to improve the health of children with neurological disease.
The three areas of research emphasis in our Division are epilepsy (including seizure localization, functional mapping, and brain-machine interface), hydrocephalus (infection-control protocols and CSF proteomics) and molecular imaging and targeting therapies of brain tumors. Our clinical faculty are all actively collaborating with the Center for Integrative Brain Research under the leadership of Dr. Jan-Marino Ramirez, who also has an appointment in the Department of Neurosurgery.
Our clinical faculty members published over 20 unique peer-reviewed articles in 2009 and are on the editorial boards of four high-impact clinical journals.