Common Neurosurgical Conditions in the Pediatric Practice ― Recognition and Management

This unique title is designed to foster a closer working relationship between pediatricians and subspecialists so that childhood medicine can work seamlessly. Indeed given a lack of training for pediatricians in pediatric neurosurgery, they are challenged almost daily with caring for children with neurologic conditions. Common Neurological Conditions in the Pediatric Practice is replete with a wide range of instructional case vignettes and is organized into sections that loosely approximate the neurologic development of a child and address issues that are commonly encountered. The first section reviews neurologic development and birth related trauma commonly seen in the neonatal intensive care unit. The second part addresses findings commonly encountered by a pediatrician in a child’s first month of life. The third section is a comprehensive review of hydrocephalus. Part four describes the state of the art thoughts on imaging the central nervous system in children from pre-natal ultrasound through MRI and CT; and the fifth part consists of individual explorations of common neurosurgical conditions that many pediatricians are uncomfortable managing, including brain tumors, spasticity, and vascular lesions to use as a reference tool when caring for a complex neurosurgical patient. Finally a series of chapters related to head trauma concludes the work, including sections on non-accidental trauma and concussion management. 

Jeffrey Greenfield, MD, PhD is a pediatric neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian-Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Greenfield, a native New Yorker, graduated from Amherst College Magna Cum Laude in Neuroscience before receiving his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences. His laboratory mentor during his PhD was Paul Greengard at The Rockefeller University, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000. He completed his Neurosurgery residency at The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. During residency he was awarded a scientific fellowship with Howard Hughes Scientist Shahin Rafii in Stem Cell Biology at the Ansary Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics.