The Microsurgery Training and Research Laboratory at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center was established in 1980 by Harold M. Dick, MD, Frank E. Stinchfield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, with the goal of making microsurgery an integral part of a surgeon's training in various fields and specialties. Originally offered only to orthopaedic residents the microsurgical training has been expanded to include other surgical specialties, and now we have coming from more than 45 different programs participating from all over the United States and from more than 50 countries around the world. Under the supervision of Dr. Melvin P. Rosenwasser, Robert E. Carroll Professor of Hand Surgery and with the teaching expertise of Dr. Yelena Akelina the Microsurgery Laboratory has become a well-internationally recognized state-of-the-art teaching facility in microsurgery. We train more than 200 surgeons a year.
The specialties we teach:
- Orthopaedic Surgery
- Neurosurgery
- Hand Surgery
- Podiatry/Foot and ankle
- ENT/Head and Neck Reconstructive Surgery
- Veterinary Surgery
- Oral and Maxiofacial Surgery
- Ophthalmology
- Plastic Surgery
- Urology
- General and Vascular surgery
- OB/GYN
To maximize everyone's learniing experience and assurance of a successful completion of the course, we urge all applicants to read the description of each course carefully and honestly assess their personal surgical skill level or discuss what course to take with the Instructor prior to signing up for the course.
The Microsurgery Laboratory contains three work stations, each equipped with a state-of-the-art Carl Zeiss operating room microscope, video camera system and monitor, digital photo and video equipment allowing monitoring of student progress and production of high quality images. A microvascular Doppler system is available for teaching and research purposes. Each student uses the latest microsurgical instrumentation and fine suture. Also provided is an extensive video library, textbooks and syllabus. Current microsurgical journals are available in the departmental library to which students have access during the course.
Had a great week, learned a lot!
Fantastic course. Yelena is an excellent teacher. The course volunteers/interns were very helpful as well. Would recommend to anyone who want to gain micro-surgery experience.
Amazing experience
It was a great opportunity to work on microsurgical skills over the course of 5 full days, but it would help been more useful if there was full faculty presence for more than 2 of the 5 days.
Great course. Celine was fantastic and so helpful with all the techniques.
This course was fantastic - well worth making the trip from Australia for such high quality teaching. I never imagined my skills could develop quite so much in 5 days!
Yelena was an amazing teacher! She could find the way to make it easier. Unfortunately we don’t have too much microscopes to work with so it became complicated at the beginning but at the end of the course, I was more secure working with it. Thanks for everything!
It was awesome, I love it ?
Excellent hands-on course that builds on skills daily. The faculty allow appropriate independent learning, while also providing individualized tips to help progress through the course. Would highly recommend to anyone interested in microsurgical technique.
High level of training and a really important experience. I would definitely recommend it to all our colleagues!
Very good course. Individual attention. Individual program if needed. A lot of exposure to microsurgery.
This course is phenomenal, highly recommended. Yelena and Celine were amazing all week, incredibly patient and giving lots of wonderful hands on advice. The skills taught were challenging, but broken down to easily digested learning portions. The microsurgical skill set is very transferable to many different applications. I look forward to sharing some of these skills with my residents.
Excellent course, with great faculty and facilities. Very enjoyable and well run.
It was fantastic course. A lot of individual work. I enjoyed this course. Drazen Vnuk
Fantastic course: individualized, comprehensive, excellent resources and great teachinf - would highly recommend
I recommend the Microsurgery Course.
very useful course in technique and ability to practice with immediate feedback. Would recommend to anyone interested in hand surgery; especially for upper-level residents and hand surgery fellows. Yelena and her interns are readily available for teaching and improving technique throughout the course.
Thanks for a great week! The only downside to this course is the cost :)
Yelena and her team were very patient with me and allowed me to tailor the course to my clinical needs. It's the hardest thing I have ever done but I definitely improved throughout the week. I do recommend the course for all levels of experience.
Excellent course, all the staff knew what they were doing, were helpful and constructive and I felt I got a lot out of the course
Excellent instructions
I really enjoyed this course and my confidence in microsurgery bloomed! The facilities are second to none and for my level of expriece (CT2/ST3 transtion in UK system) I can think of no better way to learn, lots of time to go at my own pace and space to make mistakes and correct them with excellent feedback from Yelena, our trainer. A superb course, I will be reccomending it to all my plastic surgery colleauges.
Great introductory course
I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in microsurgery, or who wants to horn in on this difficult skill. It's a very informative course with complete hands on experience. No more than 3 students per week so the attention is really one on one and Dr Yelena is the BEST !
Excellent course!
Best course I've ever attended, the faculty were extremely organized and were able to tailor the experiences for each one of us, small grouping "3" made it possible for the faculty to monitor our progression and ensuring that we get the maximum out of these 5 days. Having zero experience in Microsurgery at day one, and being able to perform vein grafts by the end of the course can tell how useful it was. EXTREMELY RECOMMENDED.
The course and personel overpassed my expectations. Academic level and Hospitality were the Highest features I ever seen in an International trainning. I recommend it doubtlessly.
Great Course, learnt a lot.
The knowledge and experience of Yelena, assistance from the highly trained and capable interns such as Amro, and small group setting of the course (maximum of three) make this probably one of the best microsurgery courses in the world. I would highly recommend it if you'd like to learn micro from scratch or brush up and develop your existing skills. Many thanks!