British journal of neurosurgery
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To explore how social media could be utilised to influence an individual's motivation to pursue a neurosurgical career, an emerging topic area. The focus of this study was on women interested in neurosurgery. ⋯ There is scope to further improve uptake of women into neurosurgical training in the UK. Motivations and barriers to women pursuing neurosurgery should be addressed openly through early experience, role models and mentorship. Social media can help facilitate these opportunities, disseminate information and inspiration, and has the potential to undo societal biases.
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Introduction. Awake craniotomy is a well-established neurosurgical technique for lesions involving eloquent cortex, however, there is little information regarding patients' subjective experience with this type of surgery. Here we explore the expectations, recall, satisfaction and functional outcome of patients undergoing awake craniotomy. Methods. Three semi-structured interviews using closed- and open-ended questions were conducted with each of 26 consecutive patients (17 males, 9 females; aged 16-78 years) who underwent their first awake craniotomy between 2007 and 2009. ⋯ Five of 26 (19%) patients still reported more than slight discomfort, and 3/26 (12%) reported more than slight pain attributable to the surgery. A summary of the English peer-reviewed literature on the patient experience of awake craniotomy is also incorporated. Conclusions. This study confirms that awake craniotomy using the 'asleep-awake-asleep' anaesthetic protocol is a generally safe and well-tolerated procedure associated overall with satisfactory patients' experiences and neurological outcomes.