Kathleen Seidel, MD
Prof. Dr. med. Kathleen Seidel is a Professor and Senior Attending, for neurosurgery with a focus on tumor surgery and functional monitoring. Intraoperative neurophysiology was already an important part of Kathleen Seidel's clinical and academic work during her training as a…
Prof. Dr. med. Kathleen Seidel is a Professor and Senior Attending, for neurosurgery with a focus on tumor surgery and functional monitoring. Intraoperative neurophysiology was already an important part of Kathleen Seidel's clinical and academic work during her training as a specialist in neurosurgery. She has completed several international observerships (e.g. at UCSF in San Francisco, USA, and in Montpellier, France) as well as a fellowship at the Department of Intraoperative Neurophysiology and Neurosurgery under Professor Vedran Deletis in New York, USA.
Kathleen Seidel established the Department of Intraoperative Neurophysiology in the Department of Neurosurgery and the Department of Orthopaedics at Inselspital Bern in 2009 and has headed it ever since. International guest physicians regularly visit her department for IOM, and Kathleen Seidel is routinely invited as a guest speaker for neuromonitoring courses and international congresses. She is the president of the International Society of Neurosurgery (ISIN). She is also actively involved in setting up international neuromonitoring projects in Myanmar and other countries.
Her goal is to strengthen the field of intraoperative neurophysiology and to improve training and quality in order to increase patient safety during high-risk surgery.
Her main area of research is monitoring and mapping technologies in glioma tumor surgery and spinal cord tumors. She has published numerous key papers in these fields and is co-author of an important neuromonitoring book. In 2018, she received the Theodor Kocher Prize from the University of Bern in recognition of her exceptional and promising scientific achievements. In 2019, she was appointed Privatdozentin at the University of Bern and Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. In 2022, she became a professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern and has been a member of the board of the Association of Non-Professorial Academic Staff (VDM) since 2024.
Languages: German, French, English
Contact
Specialities
- Head of the Department of Intraoperative Neurophysiology
- Head of the Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation working group
- Coordinator of the Neuro-Oncological Tumor Center
- Microsurgical operation of brain tumours with a focus on intraoperative functional localization and monitoring
- Clinical and scientific focus:
- Intraoperative neuromonitoring and mapping for gliomas in eloquent areas; continuous dynamic mapping; awake operations
- Functional monitoring during operations on the base of the skull and tumors of the brain stem
- Monitoring of spinal cord tumors and development of new mapping paradigms
- Pre- and postoperative analysis of the motor system using navigated TMS
- Development of new intraoperative functional monitoring methods for critical operations
Memberships
- DGNC – German Society for Neurosurgery (Member)
- FMH Swiss Medical Association (Member)
- EANS – European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (Member)
- ISIN – International Society of Intraoperative Neurophysiology (President)
- SGNC – Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (Member)
- SNI – Swiss Neurosurgeons International (Member)
Awards
“Best Medical Informatics Lecture": Joint Conference of the GMDS & CEN-IBS 2020: Digitization of Data Management for Intraoperative Neuromonitoring; Zbinden C, Strickler M, Sariyar M, Bürkle T, Seidel K
Theodor Kocher Prize of the University of Bern, awarded across faculties for outstanding and promising scientific achievements. The prize is named after the internationally recognized Bernese surgeon Theodor Kocher, who received the Nobel Prize in 1909.
2nd Poster Prize: Joint Annual Meeting 2018 of the Swiss Society of Neurosurgery: Postoperative transcranial magnetic stimulation to predict motor recovery after eloquent tumor surgery; Seidel K, Häni L, Lutz K, Zbinden C, Redmann A, Consuegra A, Raabe A, Schucht P
European Association of Neurosurgery Annual Meeting Technical Advances in Neurosurgery, Madrid, Spain (Scientific Award for «The Dynamic Mapping Technique»)
Research grant for the promotion of young scientists at Inselspital Bern: “Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring to Preserve Sacral Root Function”
European Association of Neurosurgery (EANS) Educational Course Barcelona Spain (Best Trainee Abstract Award)
Section Meeting on Intraoperative Monitoring of the DGNC, Frankfurt (Best Abstract Award)
Physics Prize of the German Physical Society
Professional experience
Senior Physician I, Department ofNeurosurgery, Inselspital Bern (Prof. Andreas Raabe)
Focus: Intraoperative neurophysiology and neuro-oncological surgery
Senior Physician II, Department of Neurosurgery, Inselspital Bern (Prof. Andreas Raabe)
Deputy Senior Physician, Department of Neurosurgery, Inselspital (Prof. Andreas Raabe)
Resident, Department of Neurosurgery, Inselspital Bern (Prof. Andreas Raabe)
International observerships:
University Hospital Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Prof. Andrea Szelényi)
UCSF University of California in San Francisco, USA (Prof. Mitchel Berger)
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Montpellier, France (Prof. Hugues Duffau)
Resident, Neurology and Neurooncology, Fédération Neurologie-Mazarin, Hôpital de la Pitié-Salêtrière, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France (Prof. Jean Yves Delattre)
Clinical Rotations, International Medicine, Endocrinology and Cardiology, Fletcher Allen Health Care, University of Vermont, USA
Clinical Rotations, Texas Heart Institute, Baylor College of Medicine Houston, USA
Clinical Rotations, PM&R, Baylor College of Medicine Houston, USA
Clinical Rotations, Medical Clinic, Cantonal Hospital, Lucerne
Clinical Rotations, Surgery, Hôpital Beajon, University Denis Diderot, Paris, France
Clinical Rotations, University Department of Neurology, Inselspital Bern
Clinical Rotations, Spine Surgery, Klinikum Karlsbad-Langensteinbach, RKU Heidelberg, Germany
Clinical Rotations, Transplant Surgery, Semmelweis, University of Budapest, Hungary
Education
Professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern
Appointment as a private lecturer at the University of Bern and as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Denmark
Habilitation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bern, appointment as Private lecturer of the University of Bern
Oral and written specialist examination (FMH Neurosurgery)
Fellowship: Department of Intraoperative Neurophysiology and Neurosurgery, St. Lukes/Roosevelt Hospital, New York, NY, USA (Prof. Dr. med. Vedran Deletis)
Doctorate “Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring”, University of Bern
Part-time student of mathematics and medical technology, Fernuniversität Hagen, Germany
Study of Human Medicine, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany