What is surgical neurophysiology?
Surgical neurophysiology, also known as intraoperative neurophysiology monitoring (IONM), is a new and growing allied health field. The surgical neurophysiologist is an integral part of the surgical team, and works closely with the anesthesiologist or anesthetist, the surgeons, and other members of the team. The neurophysiologist performs testing and monitoring of the nervous system during surgery to assist the surgeons in avoiding or reducing complications such as paralysis, hearing loss, or stroke (depending on the type of surgery), by detecting incipient injury in time to prevent or ameliorate it. Surgical neurophysiology also provides information to the surgeon for use in intraoperative decision-making. What kinds of surgeries can be monitored? Surgical neurophysiology monitoring employs a wide variety of modalities, each with a very specific application. It is most applicable when there is a specific risk to some part of the nervous system. For some types of surgery, such as cereb
