St Vincent’s Temporal Bone Dissection Course with Live Surgery

The 40th St Vincent’s Temporal Bone Dissection and Live Surgery Course has wrapped up.  It was held from the 14th-16th November 2025 and we look forward to next years course.

The course opened with Dr Timothy Matthews expertly demonstrating the removal of a cholesteatoma and repair of a meningo-encephalocele during the live surgery session on the morning of the 14th. The delegates then moved to the temporal bone for supervised dissection in the afternoon. Further dissection sessions and lectures were conducted over the weekend.

The Professor Paul Fagan Microsurgical Skills Laboratory

At the opening of the 2017 Temporal Bone Dissection Course the Temporal Bone Laboratory was renamed in honour of Professor Paul Fagan, a pioneer in the field of Otology and Skull Base Surgery here at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney Australia.

Professor Paul Fagan Microsurgical Skills Laboratory

The temporal bone course is a three-day dissection course, including live surgery and instructional tutorials.

The course runs over three days each year.

The course is convened by the Otology and Skull Base Surgery department of St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia, comprising of A/Prof Nigel Biggs, Dr Phillip Chang, Dr Sean Flanagan and Dr Timothy Matthews. There are 15 hours of fully supervised temporal bone dissection in the Clinical Skills Laboratory which has 17 fully equipped work stations, microscopes, new instruments and state of the art micro drilling systems, along with a permanent in-house audio visual facility.

Supervised dissection in the dissection lab

Live Surgery is televised via video link up to the Function Room in St Vincent’s Clinic. Two sessions of lectures are also included and span Otology, Neuro-Otology and Skull Base topics and are followed by round table discussions, where the delegates are encouraged to participate with their own case studies.

Live Surgery St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, Australia.