Myelography as a stand-alone diagnostic procedure for degenerative spine disease in developing nations.

The use of "stand-alone" contrast myelography (i.e., without computed tomography) has a proven track record in developing nations where few patients have access to magnetic resonance imaging, whether on the basis of prohibitive cost or the absence of such a modality altogether.

The African experience: a proposal to address the lack of access to neurosurgery in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

Restricted access to neurosurgical care in rural sub-Saharan Africa remains an unaddressed and formidable challenge. Despite the implementation of a rigorous 5-year curriculum to train and certify indigenous neurosurgeons "in continent" as Fellows of the College of Surgeons in Neurosurgery for East, Central, and Southern Africa (FCS-ecsa-NS), provincial and rural hospitals are likely to see no change in this woeful status quo for the foreseeable future. Modifying that curriculum with a two-tiered training experience that includes fast-track certification of general surgeons to perform basic neurosurgical procedures in their own hospitals is a viable alternative to redress this problem in a timely fashion.