Past Honored Guests

2018, Houston, TX
Dr. Rossenwasser has published over 400 peer reviewed publications, abstracts and book chapters. He has served as division chief of cerebrovascular surgery and interventional neuroradiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and since 2004 has held the position of Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery.

2016, San Diego, CA
Dr. Oldfield held the Crutchfield Chair in Neurosurgery, and was a Professor of Neurosurgery and Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia. He joined the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia in 2007 where he led a multidisciplinary effort in the treatment of pituitary tumors and contributed to the research program in the Department of Neurosurgery.

2014, Boston, MA
Dr. Benzel is Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic and Professor of Surgery, at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Benzel’s major clinical interests are focused on spinal disorders including cervical spondylosis and syringomyelia, complex spine instrumentation, and spine tumors.

2012, Chicago, IL
Dr. Dacey, a Past President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, is currently the Henry G. and Edith R. Schwartz Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an author on over 190 publications in the area of neurosurgery and cerebrovascular physiology. Dr. Dacey has served as a member of the NIH’s National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council.

2010, San Francisco, CA
Dr. Barrow, has served as President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He is the Pamela Rollins Chairman & Professor of the Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Emory Stroke Center at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Barrow has authored more than 250 scientific articles and chapters in medical textbooks. He has authored or edited fourteen monographs, including a major textbook of neurosurgery, The Practice of Neurosurgery.

2008, Orlando, FL
Dr. William Chandler is a Past President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He is Professor Emeritus of Neurological Surgery and Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. Dr. Chandler has had a long standing clinical and research interest in disorders of the pituitary. Along with these interests, he has maintained an interest and expertise in cerebrovascular neurosurgery, brain tumor surgery and general neurosurgery.

2006, Chicago, IL
Dr. Black is currently the Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery, Emeritus. Emeritus, Harvard Medical School Neurosurgeon-in-Chief / Chair, Neurosurgery, Boston Children's Hospital. Dr. Black has previously held the position as Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital; Neurosurgeon-in-chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Chief of Neurosurgical Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute; and Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School.

2004, San Francisco, CA
Dr. Menezes is Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Iowa Roy and Lucille Carver College of Medicine and the University of Iowa Health Care Center in Iowa City, Iowa, where he has been in practice for over 30 years. He has played a significant role in the development of the department and its teaching activities. His main areas of interest have been pediatric and spinal neurosurgery as well as the posterior skull base.

2002, Philadelphia, PA
Dr. Volker K. H. Sonntag was a Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Arizona and the Vice-Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute. At the Institute, he was also Chairman of the Spine Section and Director of the Residency Program. Dr. Sonntag retired in 2010.

2000, San Antonio, TX
Dr. Laws is a Past President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeon. He is the Director of the Pituitary and Neuroendocrine Center of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor at Harvard Medical School. He has served as President of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Editor of Neurosurgery, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for International Education in Surgery, Secretary and First Vice President of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies, Director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery and President of the Pituitary Society. He has been the author of eight books and more than 400 scientific papers and book chapters.

1998, Seattle, WA
Dr. John Tew, a former President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, joined the Mayfield Clinic and UC in 1969. In 1993 he would become the first Frank H. Mayfield Professor, an academic appointment that marked the first endowed position in the UC Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Tew further developed the science of microsurgery to treat disorders of the nervous system; he introduced non-invasive radio frequency for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia and was the first to apply lasers in neurosurgery; he led the team that brought radiosurgery to North America for the treatment of brain tumors and vascular malformations.

1996, Montreal, QC, Canada
Dr. Jannetta held the Francis Sargent Cheever distinguished professorship at the University of Pittsburgh from 1976 to 1978. In 1989, Washington and Jefferson College granted him the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa. In 1992, he was honored by becoming the first Walter Dandy Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. The Neuroscience community mourned the loss of Dr Jannetta who passed on April 11, 2016 at the age of 84.

1994, Chicago, IL
Dr. Spetzler, for many years, served as Director and the J.N. Harber Chair of Neurological Surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) in Phoenix, Arizona. Among just a few of Dr. Spetzler's contributions have been the development of theories on normal perfusion pressure breakthrough and how the size of arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) is related to their rupture; the development of a heuristic grading system for AVMs; as well as advances in surgical treatment of complex cerebrovascular lesions.

1992, Washington, DC
Dr. Ojemann, a former President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, was a world-renowned academic neurosurgeon and physician. He rose through the academic ranks at Harvard Medical School and ultimately was named Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School in 1979. He remained on the staff of the MGH and the faculty of Harvard Medical School for his entire career. Bob Ojemann was known as a superb surgeon, academician, clinician, teacher, and life-long student of neurosurgery. He was the “neurosurgeons’s neurosurgeon” and the teacher of an entire generation of neurosurgeons currently practicing world-wide.

1990, Los Angeles, CA
Wilson was recruited to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), as chair of the Division of Neurosurgery in 1968, at just 39 years of age. His appointment put him in prestigious company; previous chairs included the illustrious neurosurgeons and educators Howard Naffziger, John Adams, and Edwin Boldrey. But over the next 28 years, Wilson would turn the already well-regarded division into one of the nation’s most sought-after academic neurosurgery training programs and an internationally recognized center for research and treatment of brain tumors.

1988, Seattle, WA
In 1978, Dr. Symon became professor of neurological surgery and chairman of the Gough Cooper Department of Neurological Surgery at the National Hospital, Queen's Square, in London. There he has developed an outstanding neurosurgical training program, which is considered one of the leading units in England. Research endeavors there have stressed not only his own interests in cerebral circulation and cerebral metabolism but also an active neuro-oncology laboratory of his associates.

1986, New Orleans, LA
From 1953 until his retirement in 1993 he was first resident, chief resident and then professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Zurich and the Zurich University Hospital. In 1999 he was honored as "Neurosurgery’s Man of the Century 1950–1999" at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting. Perhaps his greatest contribution to neurosurgery has been his deep and thoughtful study of the subarachnoid spaces and the pioneering of micro surgical techniques.

1984, New York, NY
Dr. Rizzoli was appointed the first full-time chairman of neurosurgery at George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) in 1971. In 1998, the Hugo V. Rizzoli Chair of Neurological Surgery was established in his honor. Rizzoli trained dozens of neurosurgeons over his career to whom he was a tireless and devoted mentor.

1983, Chicago, IL
In 1941, Dr. Fisher was the ship doctor on an armed merchant cruiser called the Voltaire when it was attacked and crippled by a German vessel in the South Atlantic. Dr. Fisher spent the next 3½ years as a physician in a German prisoner of war camp, where he taught himself German, principally to read whatever German medical literature his captors made available. After the war Dr. Fisher became the head of the MGH Adult Neurology Service. However, he is best known for his many seminal contributions to stroke, for example, the discovery not just of carotid stenosis but also of carotid dissection as a cause of stroke; the demonstration that atrial fibrillation was a frequent stroke substrate and that initial strokes, owing to atrial fibrillation, were often catastrophic; recognition of the clinical and pathologic features of thalamic and cerebellar hemorrhage as well as the description of the major clinical and pathologic syndromes of lacunar infarction.

1981, Los Angeles, CA
The Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham was initially founded and nurtured by Dr. J. Garber Galbraith in the 1950s. Dr. Galbraith became associate professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in 1946 and was subsequently promoted to professor and director of the Division of Neurosurgery in 1954. In addition to training a host of neurosurgeons, his scientific contributions consist of publications concerned with cerebral aneurysms, cerebral occlusive disease, brain tumors, and craniocerebral trauma. His area of expertise is craniotomy for meningioma.

1979, Las Vegas, NV
Founder of the Mayfield Clinic and Spine Institute in Cincinnati, Dr. Mayfield was a national leader in Neurosurgery both as President of the Harvey Cushing Society and its transformation into the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

1977, San Francisco, CA
In 1950, he joined the University of Michigan as an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 1952 and professor in 1962. He began the neurosurgical service at St. Joseph's Mercy Hospital. When Doctor Kahn retired in 1969, he became chief of the Section of Neurosurgery at the University of Michigan. Dr. Schneider's bibliography includes extensive publications on head and cord injuries. He described the mechanisms of acute central cord injury and hangman's fracture and made important observations concerning the role of vascular insufficiency of the brain stem due to injury to the neck and spinal column. In addition to his book documenting serious and fatal football injuries, he was co-editor with Drs. Kahn and Crosby of the first and second editions of Correlative Neurosurgery and served as editor of an expanded third edition

1975, Atlanta, GA
A Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Sweet n 1961 Dr. Sweet became chief of the neurosurgical service of the Massachusetts General Hospital ultimately becoming professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. His contributions to basic and clinical neurosurgery are numerous and wide ranging. His major areas of interest have included basic studies of the flow and formation of cerebrospinal fluid in man, application of radioactive isotopes to the investigation and treatment of central nervous system disorders, improvements in the techniques of clinical neurosurgery, treatment of extra-cranial and intracranial vascular disorders, treatment of pain, experimental investigations with primary malignant brain tumors, treatment of aggressive behavior disorders associated with organic brain disease, and medico-legal problems of neurosurgery.

1973, Honolulu, HI
From 1942 to 1945 Dr. Schwartz served as a member of the Washington University 21st Army Hospital in Africa and in Italy, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel and receiving the Legion of Merit in 1945. His loyalty and devotion to the maintenance of the highest standards of neurosurgical care in the military service has continued over the years in his capacity as a consultant to the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. In 1945 Dr. Schwartz returned to St. Louis and in 1946 he was appointed professor and chairman of the Division of Neurological Surgery at Washington University. He served the Washington University until his death in 1998.