Is Microsurgery the same as minimally invasive surgery?
Although the names sound similar they are in fact two totally different things. One of physicians was very surprised when a surgeon that he was working with made a 3 inch incision in the neck for what was termed “cervical spine microsurgery”. When he questioned the surgery about the description of the surgery, her response was,” it is microsurgery because I am using the big microscope.” The reality is that with microsurgery the size of the operation is unimportant, it simply implies that at some point during the procedure a microscope was used and thus the surgeon could bill for the use of the microscope. These are not little microscopes; each microscope is about 6 feet high and weighs a ton. This is one of the reasons we are pushing new terms such as microspinoscopy, microspinology, and minimally invasive surgery which are more descriptive. The above document is copyrighted, but you may distribute it to others if it is copied in its entirety. Copyright 2002, MicroSpine, Inc.
