• history

The field of neuroendovascular surgery is collaborative and multidisciplinary. It continues to become more so as time passes. I wrote a JNIS editor’s column several years' ago about the multitude of disease processes that neuroendovascular surgeons treat and the many collaborations with diverse specialties that this breadth of interest generates.1 That editorial did not focus, however, on the diverse nature of the practitioners, themselves, within our specialty. The field of neuroendovascular surgery is expanding as rapidly as any other medical subspecialty. There are many reasons for this growth. Medicine is moving toward minimally invasive procedures. Relevant examples include the treatment of aneurysms, intracerebral hemorrhage, and spinal pathologies. New technologies have allowed many disease processes to be treated through the body’s vascular network. Most importantly, providers from many diverse subspecialties of medicine (interventional neuroradiology, neurosurgery, neurology) have converged on neuroendovascular surgery as their practice focus. This does not even account for the diagnostic neuroradiologists, cardiologists, and peripheral/vascular interventionalists who perform procedures considered to be within the scope of neuroendovascular surgery. Our multidisciplinary network of providers is unique, but not exclusive, in medicine. Plastic surgeons and otolaryngologists perform facial plastics procedures. Neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons operate on the spine. Both neurooncologists and medical oncologists care for patients with brain tumors. None of these fields, however, incorporate as diverse a group of practitioners as neuroendovascular surgery. When not performing neuroendovascular procedures, the jobs and tasks of the different …