Gowriharan "Dr. Ty" Thaiyananthan, MD, is a neurosurgeon, researcher and the co-medical director for the Southern California Center for Neuroscience and Spine (SCCNS) at Chapman Medical Center in Orange, Calif., an outpatient department providing treatment for spinal and cranial surgery, which opened in Dec. 2009.
Dr. Thaiyananthan discusses his background, how he ended up at SCCNS and some of the benefits of his current setting over an academic medical center.
Q: What is your neurosurgery background and why have you ended up at SCCNS?
Gowriharan Thaiyananthan: I did my surgical internship and neurosurgery training at Yale, and then completed a minimally invasive spine surgery fellowship at Cedars-Sinai (Medical Center's Institute for Spinal Disorders in Los Angeles). From the get-go, my plan was to practice academic medicine — I had a particular interest in some biomechanical-type research and wanted to deal with more complex cases.
When I finished my fellowship, I went down to University of California, Irvine, and served as their director of the neurosurgery spine program. I was also co-director of their comprehensive spine program, which included orthopedics. I spent one-and-a-half years doing that; it was a worthwhile endeavor and I learned a lot, but I was ready for a new challenge. In addition, there was opportunities that I thought could be more effectively developed in a different venue and I've found those at SCCNS.
Q: You left UCI and joined SCCNS as its co-medical director with Ali H. Mesiwala, MD. What do you find so appealing about working at SCCNS?
GT: It's designed towards doing the exact type of clinical work done at a tertiary referral center but in an environment where you are to devote more time towards meaningful interaction with patients. We were also able to set up a system where the research we were doing at UCI continues here.
To that extent, the model have is really an academic-type program placed within a community setting. As a result, I am able to spearhead more research projects looking at clinical outcomes, device trials and other research relating to spine surgery and neurosurgery. More importantly, our served communities have greater access to advanced treatment options.
Q: What do your patients think about the new venue?
GT: My patients that have followed me from UCI into our new clinic have universally enjoyed that transition — they seem to prefer the clinic that we have now because they have more convenient access to our offices, their clinic appointments are more streamlined and I can spend even more time with them because my time is less focused on administrative meetings — I can now reshuffle that time toward patient care and research.
Q: You said your plan has always been to do academic medicine. How does SCCNS help keep that plan intact and what are some of the other opportunities the venue offers you over an academic medical center?
GT: In terms of carrying that academic model over, we have a full-time research associate who is working with us this year. She was at USC as a neurosurgery resident, so she's spending time with us working on multiple research projects that range from looking at clinical outcomes to the use of new and novel biologics to device trials.
We're actually participating in one of the few blinded, randomized spine trials for devices in the United States right now. That wouldn't have been as easy if I had stayed at an academic institution where finding a budgetary allocation to get the research associate takes some time and requires me to apply for a grant, whereas here we're able to streamline that process a bit.
The companies and institutions who are interested in these research endeavors are more apt to work with us because in their opinion it's a more streamlined and efficient process.
Learn more about Southern California Center for Neuroscience and Spine at Chapman Medical Center at www.basicspine.com. Follow Dr. Ty on Google+.