Microsurgery 101

Dr Yelena Akelina (DVM, MS) is Doctor of Veterinary Medicine by Moscow Veterinary Academy (1987) and Master of Toxicology by Moscow Research Institute of Veterinary Sanitation (1991). She completed both Basic and Advanced Microsurgery Educational courses in Columbia University (1997).

Dr Akelina started her career as a clinical veterinary doctor in Russia from 1987-1991 and immigrate in USA in 1992. From 1996 to present she started working at the Microsurgery Training and Research Laboratory at the dept of Orthopedic Surgery, Columbia University, NY. During her early days in the lab, she travelled to the most prominent training centers in US and learned the basic aspects of teaching microsurgery from the "fathers of education in microsurgery" such as Drs. Robert Acland, Frank Allen, Brian Cooley and Hanry Buncke. Dr. Yelena created and implemented her own training program based on her knowledge learned and her own experience and presented it all over the world in many national and international conferences.

The Microsurgery Laboratory at Columbia University has become one of the most prominent and world known training centers in microsurgery and taught mor then 4000 students from more than 70 countries and from 12 surgical specialties.

Dr Akelina helped organized training centers and trained surgeons as an invited faculty at many countries in South and North America, Australia, and many European counties. She taught more than 200 international courses during her career.

In 2011 she became a co-founder of the International Microsurgery Simulation Society, headquartered in Royal Hospital in London where she saw a honorary lecturer at that time. This networking society now consists of many educators in microsurgery from 60 countries and held its 11 annual meetings in conjunction with world known congresses for plastic and reconstructive surgery. Dr Akelina is an active member and a board member for education for many scientific societies in reconstructive microsurgery and robotic microsurgery around the world.

In 2007 Dr Akelina created an educational mentorship program for the postbac students at Columbia University and supports young pre-meds to choose their medical career and learn about medicine and surgery while they are studying and after they accepted in medical schools. Performing as PI and supervising her students, she successfully completed many research projects and published 45 peer-review papers since her work in the lab.

 As a recognition for her outstanding lifetime contribution to microsurgery Yelena was awarded a Sun Lee Award in 2023 in Genoa during 16th annual Congress for the International Society for Experimental Microsurgery. This award was an honorably recognition for her distinguished career as an educator in microsurgery.

As her personal interest, in 2019 Yelena stated the life coaching business and successful created, developed and implemented few online courses for Neuroscience in Emotional Intelligence in partnership with Dr. Justin James Kennedy, neuroscientist, author, executive coach from Munich, Germany. Together they taught more than 30 students and developed a community forum NEQ for MDs to continue supporting health care professionals in learning about EQ. She is working toward widening horizons for such forum to the greater audience to improve mental wellbeing for many more people.

Dr Alberto Ballestín (DVM, MSc, PhD) is Doctor of Veterinary Medicine by the University of Extremadura (2011), University Master's degree in research in health sciences (2014) and PhD on Applied Biomedical Research (2018).

From 2012 to 2020 he worked at the Microsurgery Unit of the CCMIJU (Cáceres, Spain). In 2015, he completed 3-mont

Part 1 Surgical Microscope, Body Posture, Hand Position and Basic Instrumentation.- 1. Introduction to the Surgical Microscope.- 2. Body Posture, Hand Position, Basic Instrumentation and Set up for Microsurgery.- Part 2 Basic Suturing Techniques using Non-Living Models.- 3. Basic Suturing Techniques using Non-Living Models: Surgical Glove.- 4. Basic Suturing using Non-Living Models: Chicken Thigh.- Part 3 Anesthesia, Analgesia and Surgical Preparation of the Rat.- 5. Anesthesia, Analgesia and Surgical Preparation of the Rat.- Part 4 Microvessel Dissection.- 6. Dissection of Femoral Vessels and Carotid Artery.- Part 5 End-to-End Arterial Anastomosis.- 7. End-To-End Arterial Anastomosis on the Rat Femoral Artery: Two-Stays Suture Technique.- 8. End-to-End Arterial Anastomosis on Rat Femoral Artery: One-way up technique.- 9. End-to-End Arterial Anastomosis on Rat Carotid Artery: Two-stays technique.- Part 6 End-to-End Venous Anastomosis.- 10. End-to-end Venous Anastomosis on Rat Femoral Vein: Interrupted and Continuous suturing.- Part 7 Interpositional Vein Graft using Rat Femoral Vessels.- 11. Interpositional Vein Graft Using Rat Femoral Vessels.- Part 8 End-to-Side Anastomosis.- 12. End-To-Side Anastomosis: Artery-To-Vein and Vein-To-Artery using Rat Femoral Vessels.- 13. End-To-Side Carotid Bypass in Rat using A Femoral Artery Graft.- Part 9  Side-to-Side Anastomosis Using Femoral and Carotid Vessels.- 14. Side-to-Side Anastomosis Using Femoral and Carotid Vessels.- Part 10 Peripheral Nerve Repair Using Rat Sciatic Nerve.- 15. Peripheral Nerve Repair Using Rat Sciatic Nerve.- Part 11 Groin Cutaneous Free Tissue Flap in the Rat.- 16. Groin Cutaneous Free Tissue Flap in The Rat.- Part 12 Microsurgical Anastomosis Revision.- 17. Microsurgical Anastomosis Revision.- Part 13 Assessment Tools In Microsurgery Training And Clinical Practice.- 18. Assessment Tools In Microsurgery Training And Clinical Practice.