At the Congress of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting in San Diego, Russell Lonser, MD, delivered the presidential address with an emphasis on technology and big data. The meeting occurred Sept. 24 to Sept. 28.
Here are five speech highlights:
1. Dr. Lonser opened his address by taking the audience back to the Digital Revolution in the 1980s, illustrating how those advances are driving data analytics today.
2. Today, Dr. Lonser noted the neurosurgery field is quickly changing in light of information sharing. He encouraged neurosurgeons to get on board with the Information Age, as data acquisition, storage, analysis and sharing will enhance neurosurgery in clinical practice, education and research.
3. During his speech, Dr. Lonser also touched on the impact of 3-D technology, highlighting 3-D anatomic teaching, 3-D virtual reality case reviews and 3-D-printed surgical simulation models.
4. He also said research will evolve from being hypothesis driven to correlative science emerging from large data analytics.
5. Dr. Lonser concluded by acknowledging these changes will come quickly in this new age — TV adoption took 26 years; worldwide web adoption took seven years; and social media adoption took only 18 months.