About Our Practice

Drs. Reid is affiliated with the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, where since 1979, Dr. Reid has assisted  in developing and maintaining a modern neurosurgical operating room service. The hospital currently has three dedicated neurosurgical suites. There are currently over over 2000 neurosurgical procedures performed annually at UT Medical Center.  Beginning June 2008, Dr. Reid will be performing outpatient spinal surgery and minimally invasive procedures in the UT Day Surgery unit.

For biographical information on Dr. Reid, please click here.

Consulting privileges are extended to Blount Memorial Hospital in Maryville, Tennessee.

UT Medical Center Facilities

The operating rooms are staffed by an experienced team of nurses and surgical technicians who work full time for the neurosurgery service and are on call for emergencies.

Modern anesthesia techniques are crucial to successful neurosurgical procedures. UTMC has a highly trained group of anesthesiologists including a fellowship-trained neuroanesthesiologist.

A neurophysiologist is available for intra-operative monitoring of brain stem, cranial nerve and cortical function during craniotomies. He can also monitor spinal cord function during spinal procedures. This is an aid to the surgeon in the early identification and protection of critical anatomy during surgical procedures.

The operating rooms are supplied with state of the art technology including 3 Zeiss Contraves microscopes, an extensive array of microsurgical instrumentation, a Stealth surgical navigation system¹ for stereotactic surgical procedures and an ISO-C3D C-arm² for spinal surgical navigation procedures. UTMC neurosurgery service is the first in East Tennessee to acquire the ISO-C3D C-arm.

Neuroradiological³ services are essential to the modern practice of Neurosurgery. UTMC has 2 neuroradiologists who perform interventlist procedures for the treatment of cerebrovascular disorders and brain tumors. The radiology department maintains 3 MRI scanners full time, 4 CT scanners and a state of the art cerebral angiography⁶ suite. The radiation oncology service consists of 3 full time radiation oncologist trained to perform radiosurgical procedures using the Accuray Cyberknife⁷ unit. The cyberknife represents the most recent technological development in the field of radiosurgery.

The University of Tennessee Medical Center Knoxville oncology service is essential to the medical treatment of central nervous system neoplasms, providing current therapeutic regimens for the medical management of brain tumors including astrocytomas, ependymomas, oligodendrogliomas, and central nervous system Metastatic tumors.

The UTMCK medical neurology services consists of a large group of medical neurologists who manage the entire spectrum of medical neurological disorders as well as the diagnostic workup of patients with surgical diseases of the brain and spine.

The UT Brain and Spine Institute represents the effort of all of the various neurological specialists to provide state of the art, coordinated care for patients with diseases of the nervous system.

¹ A method in neurosurgery for locating points within the brain using an external, three-dimensional frame of reference usually based on the Cartesian coordinate system.

² A specialized tool that enables the surgeon to know at every moment during surgery where he or she is working in the patient's body accurately — particularly when difficult to see with the naked eye.

³ Neuroradiologist: A radiologist who specializes in the use of x-rays and scanning devices for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the nervous system. A neuroradiologist may be concerned with the clinical imaging, therapy, and basic science of the central and peripheral nervous system, including but not limited to the brain, spine, head and neck.

⁴ Interventional radiology: Interventional neuroradiologists use specialized intra-arterial and venous catheters to treat vascular abnormalities of the brain. Through a variety of techniques they can treat aneurysims and vascular malformation percutaneously (through the skin) that might otherwise require surgery.

⁵ Cerebrovascular: Pertaining to the blood vessels and, especially, the arteries that supply the brain.

⁶ Angiography: A procedure performed to view blood vessels after injecting them with a special dye that outlines them on x-ray.

⁷ CyberKnife radiosurgery is a precise, painless, non-invasive radiation treatment that can be an alternative to open surgery in certain cases. Multiple beams of high energy radiation are delivered from multiple points outside of the body and converge precisely at the tumor or lesion inside the body. Each individual beam is not sufficient to cause harm, but the convergence of all the beams at the tumor results in the lesion receiving a very high dose of radiation while sparing nearby normal tissue.

⁸ Neuropathologist: Neuropathologists are subspecialists of pathology that have several additional years of training and additional Board Certification by the American Board of Pathology. They specialize in analysis of diseases of the brain, spinal cord, muscle and nerves. Over the past several years, new research and technologies in Neuropathology have produced significant advances in the pathologic analysis of brain and spinal cord disease. This has resulted in the better recognition of less common tumors and brain abnormalities, previously mistaken for malignant tumors.

⁹ Neoplasm: A tumor. An abnormal growth of tissue. The word neoplasm is not synonymous with cancer. A neoplasm may be benign or malignant.