Utah Resident Talks Cover Intraoperative Frontal EEG and Sickle Cell

Senior residents at the University of Utah School of Medicine delivered their April presentations on two topics with direct relevance to neurophysiology practice: intra-operative frontal EEG monitoring and clinical considerations for patients with sickle cell disease.

The first presentation served as a primer on intra-operative frontal EEG. Placement of recording electrodes at frontal positions during surgery gives the operative team a continuous read on cortical state — a technique anesthesiology and neurology services increasingly request when procedures carry risk of cerebral ischemia or when anesthetic depth must be tracked in real time. A structured resident-level primer on this modality signals that the University of Utah neurology program treats intra-operative EEG as core competency territory rather than a subspecialty afterthought.

The second presentation addressed sickle cell disease, a patient population in which cerebrovascular complications drive much of the neurologic morbidity. Sickle cell patients present distinct challenges in the neurophysiology lab and monitoring unit: stroke risk, altered cerebral perfusion, and the physiologic consequences of chronic hemolytic anemia all shape how studies are interpreted and how patients are managed peri-procedurally. For EEG readers and technologists, the presentation's framing — "considerations for sickle cell patients" — points toward practical guidance on evaluating and monitoring this cohort rather than a review of the underlying hematologic disease.

Both talks came from senior residents, placing them in the capstone tier of the program's presentation series, where trainees synthesize a clinical topic for a departmental audience of faculty and peers.

The pairing of the two subjects is instructive for clinical neurophysiology readers. Intra-operative frontal EEG is fundamentally a perfusion-monitoring tool, and sickle cell disease is among the most common conditions in which cerebral perfusion is chronically and acutely threatened. A department that teaches both topics in the same session is, in effect, training residents to connect signal acquisition with the vascular pathophysiology that makes the signal clinically meaningful.

For monitoring units elsewhere, the April session offers a model worth copying: pair a technical primer on an intra-operative modality with a patient-population talk that explains when and why that modality matters. Programs seeking to strengthen resident exposure to intra-operative neurophysiology could adapt the same structure in their own grand-rounds or resident-lecture calendars.

The University of Utah has not indicated whether recorded versions of the presentations or accompanying slides will be made publicly available; the announcements identify the sessions as internal departmental events.