Xiaofei (Sophie) Zhou, MD, is a spine surgeon at Cleveland-based University Hospitals.
She is the associate program director of the neurosurgical residency at UH and performed the hospital’s first endoscopic discectomy in January.
Following the milestone she discussed the growing potential of endoscopic spine surgery.
“I think it right now has limitations in what we can do because of the types of instruments we can fit into the scope,” she said. “But as engineers come up with new things that surgeons observe, they start recognizing the missing links in surgery. We’ll have better equipment to deal with the more complex surgeries, so we might be able to start doing more complicated fusions. We might be able to take more approaches. I think it’ll give us just more breath in what kinds of cases we’re willing to target.”
Dr. Zhou earned her medical degree at Case Western Reserve University School Of Medicine in Cleveland and completed her residency at UH. She has fellowships in neurocritical care and spine surgery and has helped patients in the ICU and OR.
Her research interests include blood pressure management in subarachnoid hemorrhages, telemedicine utilization in post-stroke patients and understanding healthcare disparities.
Dr. Zhou is speaking at Becker’s 22nd Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC + The Future of Spine Conference, set for June 18-21 at the Swissotel Chicago.
