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Neurosurgery

Your case log is your career.

Fellowship and boards are decided by volume, and volume is built one case at a time. Log a neurosurgery case by CPT code in the minute after it ends — and watch every ACGME defined category fill in as you go.

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The codes

Search the way you say the case.

Type “L4-5 TLIF,” say “crani for tumor,” or punch in the bare code — the matching CPT codes come to you. The code you pick is the one the ACGME counts, so the category is never a guess you make in June.

One field

One field. Your voice or your thumbs.

The mic writes into the same field the keyboard fills — no separate voice mode, nothing filed behind your back. You review what landed before anything is logged.

Bedside work

An EVD at 2 a.m. is a logged case.

EVDs, arterial lines, lumbar drains — log the procedure on its own, without inventing a case to hang it on. It counts toward its defined category exactly like anything you did in a room.

Credit

Credited the way the ACGME's own report counts it.

Every defined category carries two bars — primary surgeon, and lead plus senior — kept apart from the moment you log. That is exactly how the ACGME's own minimum report prints them.

Progress

Every defined category, live.

Cranial, spinal, peripheral nerve, critical care, pediatrics — with the real rollup, so one case credits every total it belongs to at once. Where the ACGME publishes no bar, you get your running count instead of a target nobody set.

Every defined category, with both bars.

These are the categories and minimums Capnolog tracks for Neurological Surgery, transcribed from the ACGME's own minimum report and nested the way its rollups nest. Two bars per row: primary surgeon, and lead plus senior combined.

CategoryLeadLead + Senior
  • Total Cranial150300
  • Cranial: Tumor General3060
  • Cranial: Tumor Sellar/Parasellar1020
  • Cranial: Trauma/Other3060
  • Cranial: Vascular Total3060
  • Cranial: Vascular Open—10
  • Cranial: Vascular Endovascular—10
  • Cranial: CSF Diversion/ETV/Other1020
  • Cranial/Extracranial: Pain510
  • Cranial/Extracranial: Functional Disorders510
  • Cranial/Extracranial: Epilepsy510
  • Total Spinal150300
  • Spinal: Anterior Cervical1530
  • Spinal: Posterior Cervical1530
  • Spinal: Thoracic/Lumbar/Sacral Instrumentation Fusion1530
  • Spinal: Lumbar Laminectomy/Laminotomy1530
  • Spinal: Stimulation/Lesion/Pump/Other510
  • Total Other——
  • Peripheral Nerve510
  • Radiosurgery510
  • Peripheral Device Management1020
  • Total Critical Care100—
  • Airway Management10—
  • Angiography20—
  • Arterial Line Placement10—
  • CVP Line Placement10—
  • EVD/Transdural Monitor Placement30—
  • Lumbar/Other Puncture/Drain Placement10—
  • Percutaneous Tap of CSF Reservoir10—
  • Total Pediatric2040
  • Pediatric: Cranial Tumor—5
  • Pediatric: Cranial Trauma/Other510
  • Pediatric: CSF Diversion/ETV/Other510
  • Pediatric: Spinal—5
  • Total400800

An em-dash means the ACGME publishes no minimum on that axis — not a minimum of zero. Capnolog shows your running count on those rows instead of a bar you cannot be graded against.

† Filed by the ACGME under its Pediatric Areas.

Bold rows are totals; a case counts into every total above it at once.

ACGME Neurological Surgery Minimum report (ResMinDefCat160), run 2026-07-25.

What neurosurgery residents get

Capture

The Capnolog entry sheet on a neurosurgery install: one line for the operation, with the CPT codes it resolved to underneath

Logged between cases, not at midnight

A log is a search, a tap, and a save. Short enough to finish while you're still walking out of the room — which is the only reason a case log ever stays current.

Shorthand, bare codes, or the long way

“ACDF C5-6,” “shunt revision,” or 61510 — search the way the case is actually said out loud, and pick the CPT code you mean from what comes back.

Or bring the whole list at once

A billing extract, an OR log, a list you keep yourself — paste it, or import the PDF, and Capnolog reads it on the phone into drafts you review before anything saves. Bare CPT codes resolve into the categories they count toward, names and MRNs are left out, and rows that match cases already in your log are marked instead of landing twice.

Start from a case you've already logged

The operations you do constantly — your ACDF, your lami, your shunt revision — can be saved and reapplied, so the next one starts from the pattern instead of from an empty field.

Plan & notes

A notebook that stays with the work

Room setups, positioning, the reference card you'd otherwise lose in a phone note — searchable, formatted, and behind Face ID next to the log itself.

Track

The Capnolog progress dashboard for neurosurgery: each defined category with a primary-surgeon bar and a lead-plus-senior bar

Rollups that count once, correctly

A single case credits every total it belongs to — its defined category, its section total, and the grand total — nested the way the ACGME nests them, with nothing double-counted and nothing dropped.

Honest rows, not invented ones

Where the ACGME publishes a minimum, you get a bar. Where it publishes none — Total Other on both axes, the critical-care categories on lead plus senior — you get a running count and an em-dash, never a 0 of 0 dressed up as progress.

Keep

Find any case again

One archive, searched by procedure, room, surgeon or attending, narrowed with quick filters, or opened at one day by tapping it on the year grid. The match count, the day totals and the rows you scroll all compile to one query, so a number can never disagree with what sits under it.

Thirty days to change your mind

A deleted case, plan or note goes to a bin for thirty days and restores in a tap. Permanent removal takes a deliberate gesture, and a separate history says whether the app removed something or you did.

Private

No patient identifiers

Capnolog does not collect names, MRNs, or birthdays. Case data is encrypted on your device. Your account links devices; it stores only an account ID and program.

Encrypted iCloud backup

Backups are encrypted and stored in your iCloud account. Restore them on a new device.

Neurosurgery questions

Does it match the ACGME's defined case categories?
Row for row. Cranial, spinal, peripheral nerve, critical care, and the pediatric areas come straight from the ACGME's Neurological Surgery minimum report, with the same rollups — so a Cranial: Vascular Open case credits Cranial: Vascular Total, Total Cranial, and your grand total in one move.
How is Lead vs Lead + Senior counted?
Separately, and from the moment you log. The ACGME publishes two bars per category — primary surgeon, and lead plus senior combined — and Capnolog carries both all the way through, so you never have to reconstruct which role you had on a case from months ago.
What happens in categories where the ACGME publishes no minimum?
You get a count, not a bar. Total Other carries no published minimum on either axis, and the critical-care categories carry none on lead plus senior; Capnolog shows an em-dash and your running total there rather than a 0 of 0 that would read like progress you haven't made.
Can I log an EVD or an arterial line on its own?
Yes. A bare procedure is its own log — there's no case to invent around it — and it counts toward its defined category exactly like any other entry.
I am months behind. Do I have to retype everything?
No. Paste the list you already keep, or import the PDF that a printed patient list actually is. Capnolog reads it on the phone into drafts you confirm, edit or throw away one at a time, resolves the operations it recognises to their CPT codes, says which rows it could not read instead of guessing at them, and leaves names, MRNs and dates of birth out of everything it reads.
Can I prep a case before the day?
Not yet — case prep is in development for neurosurgery. The planner that holds tomorrow’s list, and the attending preferences that hang off it, are an anesthesiology feature today. What a neurosurgery install has now is the notebook — room setups, positioning, the reference card — and the operations you do constantly saved as patterns to start the next one from.
Can I write my block schedule down?
Yes, and it is worth ten minutes. Thirteen blocks, a name and a date range each. After that the app knows which rotation today belongs to, a category you have not rotated through yet reads as not started rather than as falling behind, and a pace hint that would fire during a month that produces no operative cases stays quiet. The schedule stays on the phone — never sent to a server, never in an export. Shaping the case form to the rotation is an anesthesiology feature today; the neurosurgery form is the one it has always been.

Step-by-step guides

Not your specialty? Anesthesia →See every specialty →

Join the private beta

Neurosurgery support is new, and we're inviting residents in small batches. Tell us your program and we'll send a TestFlight invite.

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