Dr. Christopher Winfree

About a month ago, we posted that Department Neurosurgeon Dr.Christopher Winfree and Nurse Practitioner Maria Farrow were taking part in CBS’s new show, A Gifted Man. We also mentioned they would be in a scene together in an upcoming episode and–that show airs tonight!

To recap: the show is about an unhappy, yet successful surgeon in New York City who’s life is turned around when he is unexpectedly visited by the ghost of his ex-wife.

Ms. Farrow and Dr. Winfree play surgeons #1 and #2 in a scene together and they each have small speaking parts, too!

Nurse Practitioner Maria Farrow

Ms. Farrow says, “Being a consultant for this intelligent TV series gives our department the opportunity to educate the public about what our field is, and what it can do. I am very proud that the production of ‘A Gifted Man’ works so diligently to help make the medical and neurosurgical aspects authentic.  The show educates while it entertains!”

Dr. Winfree added, “It was a fascinating experience working with a group of skilled actors, directors and producers who were practicing their craft as true professionals.  Acting is a lot harder than it seems!  I was impressed with the complexity of the production and all the hard work and talent it takes to put this show together.”

Don’t forget to watch Farrow and Winfree Tonight (Friday, Jan 6) on A Gifted Man at 8PM on CBS. 

You can watch older episodes of the show at CBS.com .

Related blog: Winfree And Farrow To Be On CBS Show ‘A Gifted Man’

Dr. Robert Solomon (left) with Dr. Michael Sisti

From right to left, Dr. Michael Kaiser, Dr. Christopher Winfree, & Dr. Robert Solomon

More than 90 members of our staff attended our Holiday party this year at  Dylan Prime restaurant in New York City.

Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to relax in good company and to celebrate all the years’ achievements.

Our webmaster Greta Perovic did a wonderful job organizing the event. Everyone had a ball.

Here’s to another year!

Dr. Anthony D'Ambrosio (seated in white)

Dr. Christopher Winfree

Department Neurosurgeon Christopher Winfree and Nurse Practitioner Maria Farrow are soon to be seen on CBS’ new show “A Gifted Man.”

The show is about an unhappy, yet successful surgeon in New York City who’s life is turned around when he is unexpectedly visited by the ghost of his ex-wife.

Nurse Practitioner Maria Farrow

Maria Farrow, who is a consultant for the show, says that she has a non-speaking role in this Friday’s episode.  ”I am in the scene with Patrick Wilson doing an angiogram,” she says.

In a later episode, she and Dr. Winfree have a scene together and this time she has a speaking part.  She says, “I will be playing Surgeon #1 and Dr. Winfree will play Surgeon #2.”

You can watch older episodes of the show on CBS.com and vote for it as Favorite New TV Drama for the People’s Choice Awards.

Keep your eyes peeled for our rising stars!

Our Department Head, Dr. Robert A. Solomon will be bringing his expertise to the table as moderator of a Luncheon Seminar on Multidisciplinary Management Strategies for Unruptured Aneurysms.

Other members of our Department will be acting as Conference Faculty, Moderators, and Course Directors as well. They are listed below:

Dr. Jeffrey N. Bruce from the Brain Tumor Center
Dr.E. Sander Connolly Jr from the Cerebrovascular Center
Dr. Neil A. Feldstein from the Pediatric Neurosurgery Center
Dr. Richard C.E. Anderson from the Pediatric Neurosurgery Center
Dr. Paul C. McCormick from the Spine Center
Dr. Peter D. Angevine from the Spine Center
Dr. Alfred T. Ogden from the Spine Center
Dr, Michael G. Kaiser from the Spine Center
Dr. Guy M. McKhann from the Epilepsy Center  & Movement Disorders Center
Dr.Christopher J. Winfree from the Pain Center & Peripheral Nerve Center

Learn more about the 2011 Meeting of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. 

Read about last year’s conference Docs Present At 2010 Congress Of Neurological Surgeons Meeting.

Celebrating their Graduation (from left to right) are; Dr. Andrew F Ducruet, Dr. Robert Morgan Stuart, and Dr. Omar N Syed, MD

Seems like only yesterday we announced our three new Chief residents and now they are gone.

Chiefs Omar N Syed, MD, Robert Morgan Stuart,MD, and Andrew F Ducruet, MD have made it. They graduated and are heading out into the neurosurgery world to make their mark.

Dr. Syed will be doing a Fellowship in Minimally Invasive Spinal Neurosurgery at Semmes-Murphey Neurologic and Spine Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dr. Stuart will be joining Charleston Neurosurgical Associates at Roper St. Francis Healthcare in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dr. Ducruet will be doing a Fellowship in Endovascular Neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.

Former Senior residents Raqeeb Haque, MD and Paul Gigante, MD have moved up to be our new Chiefs.

We are also pleased to welcome two new residents into our program. Dr. Gaurav Gupta has joined us from Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California and Dr. Jonathan Yun came to us from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/R.W. Johnson Med. School in Piscataway, New Jersey.

Congratulations and welcome everyone!

In addition to taking on this new mantle, Dr. McCormick will be busy as a speaker, moderator, and discussant at five different sessions during the conference. His colleagues from the Spine Center, Dr. Michael G. Kaiser and Dr. Alfred T. Ogden will also be teaching.

A number of other members of the department will be participating in the meeting as faculty, moderators, and speakers as well. They are:

• Dr. Richard C.E. Anderson from the Pediatric Neurosurgery Center;

Dr.Jeffrey N. Bruce from the Brain Tumor Center,

Dr. E. Sander Connolly Jr. from the Cerebrovascular Center;

Dr. Sean D. Lavine from the Cerebrovascular Center, and Endovascular Center;

Dr. Guy M. McKhann II from the Epilepsy Center, Brain Tumor Center and Movement Disorders Center;

And

Dr. Christopher J. Winfree. from the Pain Center and Peripheral Nerve Center.

Stay tuned for news from the conference!

 

Our Department is joining the fight this year and putting a team together (Columbia Neurosurgery) to participate. Some of us will be running and others will stick to the name of the event and walk.  Heart Walks will be held in over three hundred cities across America. We are one of six teams from Columbia Presbyterian to get moving in New York City this May.

By participating, we hope to raise funds that are needed for research and education and improve our own cardiovascular health as well.

You can help too! Sponsor our team or visit the American Heart Association Donation Page. You can also join in the fun yourself or cheer from the sidelines. The Heart Walk will be held May 17, 2011 in New York City’s Financial district. Registration and activities begin at 6:45 pm at the World Financial Center.

Check out our Team Page to watch our team grow and our sponsorship rise!

Stay tuned as the walk/run approaches.  We will tell you more about our team and which neurosurgeons will be donning their running shorts.

Thank you for your support.

Our own Dr. Christopher Winfree from the Pain and Peripheral Nerve Centers is among a very small group of divers who pursue this exotic sport.

He says, “People who cave dive have a similar personality. They fall into the same group as pilots, mountain climbers, race car drivers, and neurosurgeons. The one thing that ties all these activities together is the desire to use technology and skill to manage risk.”

“In neurosurgery you have to be good with your hands but you also have to use instruments, and things like stereotactic navigation and MRI scans. It’s the technology and the skill that together can enable you to do something that not a lot of people can do. That is sort of the philosophy that we bring to cave diving.”

Cave diving was invented in the mid 20th century by dry cave explorers who encountered parts of the cave that disappeared under water. The only way to get from one air pocket to the next was to scuba dive. In the beginning it was particularly hazardous, because they didn’t know how to plan for the many hazards. Technology has come a long way, as has cave diving instruction.

Today, becoming a cave diver is a long process of certification that starts with basic open-water scuba diving.  It takes hundreds of hours and often years to complete. “There are probably ten total certifications,” says Winfree.

He started scuba diving in 1986 and got his final cave diving certification in 2000. He says, “I have always liked being in tight spots. When scuba diving I would like to crawl into holes. It was just more interesting.”

Today, Winfree is more accurately described as a cave explorer. “My brother and I go by plane and discover new caves by air. We see cave holes and some months later we take the boat over and dive those holes. Some turn out to be great caves and some don’t. We survey them. We lay permanent line in there. We publish the maps that enable other people to dive these caves too.”

He has spent the last decade working on a massive cave system called Lucy’s Cave. It was discovered in the early 80’s by Robert Palmer who dove a couple hundred feet in. Winfree says, “We’ve now pushed 3 or 4 miles of line in there. We have the second deepest penetration of any cave in the Bahamas. We keep discovering new tunnels.”

Winfree hopes to finish in the next year, “We are basically pushing that cave out as far as we can,” he says, “given the technology that is available.” Once we get a mile in, we are basically done. Then we’ll move onto another project. There are so many.”

We have been updating our Facebook page too and are up to a hundred and sixty eight friends and counting. On twitter we have over a hundred followers.

Google tells us we are getting pretty popular too; Our blogs are getting lots of hits, and when you search ‘neurosurgery,’ we  consistently come up high on the first page of results.

Thanks to all our doctors for submitting their ideas and keeping us all up to date on the amazing things they do.

Everybody keep reading!

That isn’t to say, we don’t take headaches seriously. Sometimes they can be terrible and unrelenting and really interfere with your life. When these kinds of headaches aren’t improved with the usual conservative treatments, they can make life unmanageable. In these extreme cases, Dr. Christopher Winfree from the Pain Center says there is a relatively minimalist surgery that can help.

He says, “the nerves that are causing the pain can be isolated, in some cases, right under the skin, and tiny electrodes can be placed on or near the nerve to stop the pain. ” This works by tapping into what is called the Gate Control theory of pain and is called neuromodulation.

Introduced in 1965 by Melzack and Wall, the Gate control theory essentially says that another sensation such as pressure or vibration can over-ride the pain sensation before it gets to the brain. With neuromodulation, a mild electrical current is used to create the sensation of vibration.

Neuromodulation can be done most anywhere along a nerve’s pathway.  Dr. Winfree says that in the case of chronic headaches he usually places tiny electrodes on or near the occipital nerves at the base of the skull.  This is usually done just on the side of the head where the headache is. These nerves branch out and provide the sensory information for the back and top of the head as well as into the temple and eye area. In other words, where most headaches occur. The electrodes are attached to thin lead wires that connect to a battery operated stimulating device that is implanted just under the skin of the patient’s chest.

Dr. Winfree says this is a relatively new treatment option for chronic headaches but in particular, can be quite effective in treating three of the worst kinds of primary headaches: Migraines, Chronic Cluster Headaches, and Hemicrania Continua. All three of these headaches have in common that they usually occur on just one side of the head, they can be debilitating and they are not caused by something else (like an aneurysm or tumor, for example).

In brief, a Migraine headache is a persistent headache that can last a few hours to a few days. Patients usually describe the pain as pulsing and often they come with nausea or vomiting and a severe sensitivity to sound and light. Many people also experience an “aura,” such as a funny smell or flashes of light before their migraine comes on.

Like a migraine, Hemicrania Continua can also be accompanied by nausea and vomiting. This kind of headache is usually not as painful, though it can be punctuated with greater intensities, and lasts much longer (greater than three months). When tolerated, the treatment of choice is the drug indometacin. Patients can also show signs of autonomic nervous system involvement such as a tearing, a drooping eyelid, constriction of the pupil, or a runny nose.

These symptoms may also be present with The Cluster headache. This has been called one of the most painful conditions known to man and is characterized by intense, brief and unexpected bouts of pain, usually behind one eye or temple.

All three of these headaches can be debilitating and difficult to treat but occipital nerve stimulation is increasingly an option for these patients.  Dr. Winfree says, “Using neuromodulation to treat these kinds of headaches is a new frontier and as such more research is needed. Most of the studies done so far have small sample sizes, but of the groups tested, the results are encouraging.” Though small, it is nonetheless, a glimmer of hope for a number of people in a great deal of pain.

Recent Blog Posts Involving Headaches: Eight Years Ago I Got The Worst Headache Of My Life, Bret Michaels Suffers Brain Bleed. Dr. Solomon Helps Us Understand What That Means.