Prof Dirk De Ridder says progress in some aspects of both clinical and research neurosurgery in Dunedin had been slower than he hoped since starting the job early last year.
A proposal to convert part of Dunedin Hospital's sixth floor into a neurosurgical unit had not gone ahead as it was too costly. A proposal on a more modest scale was being developed.
Prof De Ridder is the first appointment to the Neurological Foundation Chair in Neurosurgery at the University of Otago, a position created to provide sufficient activity in Dunedin to maintain three neurosurgeons at the hospital. He said recruitment would soon start for alcoholic patients to receive brain implants to treat their addiction, because the study had gained ethics approval.
The alcoholic implant study and associated research involving electrodes to treat food addiction would be carried out in neurologist Associate Prof Graeme Hammond-Tooke's lab.
''We're working with what we have right now.
''It's slower than I expected, but that hasn't slowed us down.''
Because it was an invasive procedure, the permanent implant for alcoholism had to be a highly effective treatment or it would not be worth doing.
The implant study would involve about 10 patients.
He hoped it reduced the stigma of alcoholism by demonstrating it was a disease with a physical basis. He wanted to understand more about how alcoholism worked, and why people drank greater amounts over time. Prof De Ridder said there was benefit in working in a small city with some ''very bright people''.
He was collaborating with researchers in endocrinology, neuroscience, psychiatry and other specialties. On the clinical side, the Dunedin neurosurgery hub did not work as closely with Christchurch as he expected.
Prof De Ridder and the two other neurosurgeons, clinical leader Ahmad Taha and Reuben Johnson, were serving Otago, Southland, and South Canterbury patients.
As neurosurgery typically has low patient numbers, a surgeon's degree of experience in certain procedures can be a problem in a small population.
Prof De Ridder had hoped the South Island could be seen as a single pool of patients, but the Christchurch surgeons' view preferred to keep separate pools of patients.
Prof De Ridder said he understood the Christchurch surgeons' practical objections to the hubs working more closely because it could create logistical difficulty. He was glad talks on the issue resumed recently.
New Zealand had a highly organised health system compared with Belgium, which was good in some ways but made it less flexible.
Mr Johnson also spends part of his time in research, and has been involved in establishing a South Island brain injury research group.eileen.goodwin@odt.co.nz
