At the end of each academic year, the Society of Neurological Surgeons (SNS) invites neurosurgery residents completing their first year of postgraduate training to an intensive two-day surgical "boot camp." For two days, 63 young residents receive hands-on, basic neurological training, including drilling, microsurgical techniques, shunts, use of the Gamma Knife, repairing sagittal sinus injuries and performing laser ablations. Hands-on sessions are conducted with 3D-printed models and advanced simulation devices.
The boot camp takes place in the Weill Cornell Medicine Gross Anatomy Lab, Surgical Innovations Laboratory for Skull Base Microneurosurgery and Skills Acquisition and Innovation Laboratory (SAIL). Dr. Michael Kaplitt, director of the Weill Cornell Medicine Neurosurgery Residency Program, oversees the boot camp in collaboration with the SNS. The faculty includes Weill Cornell Medicine clinicians, invited faculty from other teaching hospitals and our own chief residents and senior residents, some of whom attended the boot camp at the end of their own PG-1 year.