The Department of Neurosurgery at St Vincent's Hospital is part of the Centre for Clinical Neuroscience and Neurological Research. The Department has six neurosurgeons and is involved in over 1000 operations/ procedures per year. In recent years the Unit has focused on complete patient care and development of multidisciplinary clinics. Our complete patient care model involves preadmission clinics, clinical pathways in relation to the patient’s admission for operation or investigation, as well as patient discharge with appropriate support service and/or referral to rehabilitation or palliative care services if appropriate.

The multidisciplinary clinics include neuro-oncology, a skull base and neurovascular. The Department has a strong emphasis on the treatment of brain tumours in collaboration with radiotherapists and oncologists. The development of this state-of-the-art clinic allows for a team approach for the management of brain tumours.

Advances in technology have allowed us to more aggressively treat conditions involving the skull base. These range from tumours in general and/or acquired lesions. The team approach involving the ENT Unit at St Vincents Hospital has enabled the Department to be at the cutting edge with respect to the management of these conditions.

The Neurosurgical Department in association with the Interventional Unit in the Department of Radiology have formed a Neurovascular Unit that is providing state-of-the-art treatment for all neurovascular conditions, in particular, aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations. The multidisciplinary team discusses all cases presenting to, or referred to, the Hospital as to what is the most appropriate treatment for the patient’s condition.

The Department has several outpatient clinics per week, which enables both urgent and semi urgent patients to be assessed in a timely fashion. Patients may be seen outside of these clinics if urgent by contacting the Neurosurgical registrar on call.

Research, at both the clinical and basic science level is a key focus of the Department, often being done in collaboration with the Neurology department. Basic science research includes neurogenesis and serial gene analysis, with clinical research focusing on aneurysm detection and multimodality image-guided surgery.