What do you guys think are the best programs in:

Spine/Complex Spine
Endovascular
Tumor/Radiosurgery
Skull-base
Pediatrics

<btw - i think number 1 vs. number 3 in a field is pretty irrelevant, kindly just shout out a few names that you think deserve special recognition in any of these (or other) neurosurgical subspecialties>

Also - do most neurosurgery programs train their residents in interventional radiology as well?  ie - let’s say the aneurysm’s uncoilable, and you’re the only one there, can you take him to the OR and clip him yourself?  Or do you need the interventional guy to try the coil first?

I will provide an essentially unbiased list based on my experiences from meetings, hearsay, and surgical volume.

Complex Spine:  BNI, Northwestern, UVA

Endovascular: Buffalo, Jefferson

Tumor: UCSF, Mayo, MGH, Hopkins (the big 4 in the SPORE grant)

Radiosurgery: Pittsburgh, Mayo, UVA, (possibly Florida)

Skull-base: BNI, Arkansas, Mayo, USF, Cincinnati, Miami (These are probably the only places that have the players and the volume to make it a strong skull-base program.  However, other places are decent and will give you what you “need” as far as residency training goes).

Pediatrics: Boston Childrens, Utah, Pittsburgh, WashU, CHOP, USC-CHLA, Riley’s-Indiana

buffalo?!

University of Alabama for Peds.

I think an important caveat to the list above is to remember that a place that may be great for a particular subspecialty, doesn’t necessarily equate to great resident training in the traditional sense.

For instance, some of the places I listed above (except for the obvious ones like BNI, UCSF, Mayo, MGH, Hopkins, etc.) are not notable places for RESIDENCY training.  At places like Buffalo, fellows are the ones primarily doing the endovascular.  At a place like Arkansas, Al-Mefty doesn’t let residents (or fellows for that matter) operate much, and Yasargil doesn’t let anyone operate with him.  At Miami, Morcos and Heros primarily let the fellows do the fancy stuff.