TJ Florence MD PhD

neurosurgery resident @UCLA | ex @ColumbiaPS & @HHMIJanelia | I'd like to know how the brain works and how to fix it. Views are mine alone; not medical advice.

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

@UCLANsgy class of 2026. First week of R2 year.

Goals: run a tight ship, take the best possible care of our pts
@MayaHarary

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

@jerjohnson with teeth!

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

Welcome to this amazing class of docs healing the brains and spines of LA starting this July!

[UCLA Health Neurosurgery 🧠 @UCLANsgy]

We would like to offer the warmest of welcomes to our 3 incoming residents, Drs. Diana Chang from @NeurosurgUCSF, @AislynDiRisio from @MountSinaiNeuro, and Sheantel Reihl from UCSF! We are beyond excited to have you all join our family!
#Match2022 #Neurosurgery #UCLA

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

When the front desk tells you there’s not enough staff to get your add on going

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

@UCLANsgy : if the team has a long night the attending may show up like this for rounds! Thanks @jerjohnson !!

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

A project from the last month:

This Anki deck builds on @Tufts Rhoton 100 deck to cover the complete knowledge base of the new #ABNS neuroanatomy exam.

Please share w/ co-residents and med students. We’ll all be better surgeons if we know this cold

https://t.co/aUMwmhY8NN

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

one way to let the graybeards know you’re coming to change the field is to plant your own data like a flag above the fold of the wikipedia page @casa_tuthill

https://t.co/kA3otxq6z9

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

This paper supports a big important point - neurobiology is obsessed with topology (at the scale of our experimental devices) but the brain may not care. Synapses may be intermingled, but information may not.

Great work by led by @MaiMMorimoto @MichaelBReiser

[Mai Morimoto @MaiMMorimoto]

1.Our paper ‘Connectivity establishes spatial readout of visual looming in a glomerulus lacking retinotopy’ is on biorxiv! We used in vivo calcium imaging, functional connectivity and EM connectomics to ‘untangle’ an optic glomerulus in Drosophila. 1/11 https://t.co/KQJD0nPJTG

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

Best medical school prep for residency would have been carrying a pager during all exams, and getting paged every 5-10 minutes with questions to a completely different exam

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

I want to double emphasize this paper. It’s beautiful data & a massive team effort. Jayaram is a consummate scientist; every paper he drops is a deep contribution to neurobiology. https://t.co/KwWsly7n4w

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

Proud to start @UCLAHealth Dept of Neurological Surgery with Drs @MayaHarary, Casaos, & Samarage

Our coats are too big, with crease lines fresh from the packaging. Strong metaphor for #InternYear

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

If Sydney Brenner would be at Janelia during a trivia night, he’d sheepishly whisper answers to the closest team - always declining an invitation to join.

It was very hard to argue with “Hey guys Sydney Brenner just said the answer is ‘Bach’”

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

Some personal news:
I’ll be joining the @UCLA neurosurgery residency program at the end of June. I really want to thank everyone who made this possible, esp @MichaelBReiser

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

@nytimes @mikiebarb
Monday: “we never hold back stories bc it might make an administration look bad”

Tuesday: “we will not be running audio of Stephen Miller on child detention bc Trump admin was uncomfortable w/ it”

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

@afriendlywhit @schoppik @AgateFossilBeds Even weirder: the man pictured is FC Kenyon, for whom “Kenyon cells” are named

[TJ Florence MD PhD @brainbro]

Thanks everyone for the thoughts today. Thesis successfully defended. Most important slide from the talk: