Nicholas C. Bambakidis
2022
Nicholas C. Bambakidis graduated from medical school at Case Western Reserve in 1997, and finished his neurosurgical training there in 2004. Then, he was first a fellow in spine surgery and later a fellow in cerebrovascular surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute. After his fellowship training, he stayed at the BNI as an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, with a joint appointment at the University of Arizona School of Medicine.
In 2008, he was recruited by the University Hospitals Neurological Institute to serve as Director of the Cerebrovascular and Skull Base Surgery Center and serve as an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery in the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. At the end of 2011, he was appointed Program Director of the School's residency program and in 2014 was promoted to Professor of Neurosurgery.
In 2016, Dr. Bambakidis assumed a leadership role at University Hospitals of Cleveland as Director and Vice President of the Neurological Institute. In this role, he manages the Neurosurgery and Neurology service lines throughout the UH system, comprising 18 hospitals in northeastern Ohio. During his academic career, Dr. Bambakidis has authored nearly 100 publications and book chapters on a broad array of topics in his field of expertise and edited three major textbooks--two on skull base surgery and a second on aneurysm microsurgery.
His research has centered on the ability of the central nervous system to recover after injury and has resulted in several basic science papers on this subject. He is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Joint Cerebrovascular Section of the AANS/CNS, and the North American Skull Base Society. He has served on the Executive Committee of the CNS since 2011 and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurosurgery since 2015.
Believing that patients should be equal partners in their care while trusting in the expertise and experience of their neurosurgical team, Dr. Bambakidis' philosophy of patient care is to be compassionate yet direct. Patients with complex neurological disorders deserve to be presented with all available treatment options, he says, and then be given a concrete opinion regarding the best and safest therapeutic option for them. In his free time, Dr. Bambakidis enjoys sailing, mountain biking, and scuba diving.