UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Department of Neurological Surgery is a recognized leader in comprehensive management of brain and spine conditions, disorders, and injuries. Our neurosurgeons collaborate with nonsurgical specialists in neurology, neuro-oncology, interventional radiology, pathology, neurocritical care, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Combining the talents of our surgeons with nonsurgical specialists and researchers enables us to provide the latest innovative treatments in a rapidly advancing field of medicine.
Clinical excellence refers to the entire patient experience. We have a huge team and all of those people come together to deliver the best possible care and achieve clinical excellence. Everything that we're doing is driving towards improving patient care and patient outcomes, whether that's bedside care of the patient or promoting scientific discovery. We have a long history in this institution for providing clinical excellence, and I think the the administrative focus on taking care of the whole patient has really improved. What I think is special about UT Southwestern is that we've had this rapid clinical growth over the last 10 to 20 years. Now we have the ability to take the scientific discoveries that have been happening on this campus and directly apply them to our own patient population. It's a really special feeling. We haven't lost that sense of inquiry and discovery. To discover, you have to ask questions, and most of us are here at a Quaternary referral center, which is also known as an academic medical center because we want to ask questions. Research is a critical part of who we are. We have multiple clinical trials across multiple areas of neurosurgery that are trying to push the boundaries of what we do. The Neurosurgery Quality Control Council is a group that critically examines the data regarding our patient outcomes, whether it's surgical site infections, length of stay, readmissions, return to OR amongst many other metrics, and then develops improvement measures and improvement programs to better patient outcomes long term. The quality counsel includes both providers who are on the inpatient side in the hospital as well as those on the outpatient side, bringing everyone together. Our day to day practice has fundamentally changed after the initiation of this program. It also has changed the way we think about what success looks like. It's very easy to take one patient and say that this went well for them, this went well for the other patient, but clinical excellence for large numbers of patients requires metrics. We have to be open to peer feedback. We can always do better, and patients do better when we do better. People naturally now come together, work together, work as a team towards defining how to best care for our patients and have the best possible outcomes. We are early adopters. When we see a technology that's going to change the outcomes of our patients, we rush to that, adopt it and help evolve the technology to deliver the best possible care for our patients. Having more technology at our fingertips will allow us to consume and. Analyze larger volumes of data. UT Southwestern has done very well in terms of taking advantage of newer technologies, hybrid suites for our revascular care, the integration of radiology studies very close to the ICU so we can quickly get to patients who get sick quick. One of the things I benefit from the most as a neurosurgical oncologist is working with a multidisciplinary team. I am certain that my patients receive better care because I have at my disposal all of these experts and that we meet in an organized fashion to discuss their care. This is a place of innovation, forward thinking and creativity. Part of the fabric of UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Department of Neurosurgery is an attitude of trying to find solutions. When we are presented with a challenge, the answer is how can we do that and who do we need in the room to work with to get things done.
