EDUCATION CORNER

Highlights from the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology

Alana Flexman, MD, FRCPC
SNACC Representative to the JNA Editorial Board
Chair, Scientific Affairs Committee

Adriana Martin, MD

Alana Flexman, MD, FRCPC

As the official journal of SNACC, the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology has a long history of publishing original and review articles relevant to the SNACC membership. For the first time at the SNACC Annual Meeting in October 2018, a joint JNA-SNACC panel with the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Martin Smith, will provide a general overview of the Journal’s new scope and plans for new content, as well as highlight key manuscripts published in the past year. JNA has clarified and extended its scope as the journal continues to evolve. The scope will now include the whole of perioperative neuroscience and related basic science consistent with the “three pillars” of neuroanesthesiology endorsed by SNACC: neuroanesthesiology and neurocritical care; foundational neuroscience of anesthesiology and brain and spinal cord injury; and neurologic outcomes after non-neurologic surgery and critical illness.

Next, we’d like to share a few highlights for you from the next issue:

  • Dr. Carspecken et al1 report no improvement in depressive symptoms using ketamine as compared to methohexital for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and Dr. Chittaranjan Andrade2 provides a useful commentary and overview of the current literature on ketamine and ECT;

  • Intracranial surgery appears to have a higher rate of complications and mortality compared to spine surgery in adjusted analysis of the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program by Rock et al3;

  • Sheshadri et al4 describe their institutional experience with same day discharge after craniotomy and provide an overview of the literature. This publication provides a useful template for other institutions who might be interested in establishing a similar program;

  • Looking for your name in print? The abstracts from the SNACC 2017 Annual Meeting will be published in the upcoming October 2018 issue of JNA. Thank you to all our SNACC past abstract presenters and we look forward to the scientific program at the upcoming meeting.

Finally, the mean time from submission to first decision for manuscripts sent for external review has been reduced to around three weeks. Thanks are due to our reviewers for their timely responses and high quality reviews. Anyone interested in acting as a peer reviewer, please contact Dr. Smith directly at martin.smith@ucl.ac.uk.

References

  1. Carspecken CW, Borisovskaya A, Lan ST, Heller K, Buchholz J, Ruskin D, Rozet I. J Neurosurg Anesthesiol 2018; 30(4).

  2. Andrade, C. Ketamine and Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression. J Neurosurg Anesthesiol 2018; 30(4).

  3. Rock AK, Opalak CF, Workman KG, Broaddus WC. Safety Outcomes Following Spine and Cranial Neurosurgery: Evidence form the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. J Neurosurg Anesthesiol 2018; 30(4).

  4. Sheshadri V, Venkatraghavan L, Manninen P, Bernstein M. Anesthesia for Same Day Discharge After Craniotomy: Review of Single Center Experience. J Neurosurg Anesthesiol 2018; 30(4).

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