Robert F. Spetzler

Last updated

Robert F. Spetzler
Photo of robert f. spetzler, md, neurosurgeon at barrow neurological institute, 2011.jpg
Born1944 (age 80–81)
Würzburg, Germany
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Knox College (BS), Northwestern (MD)
Scientific career
Fields Neurosurgery
Institutions Barrow Neurological Institute University of California San Francisco

Robert F. Spetzler (born 1944) is a neurosurgeon and the J.N. Harber Chairman Emeritus of Neurological Surgery and director emeritus of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. [1] He retired as an active neurosurgeon in July 2017. [2] He is also Professor of Surgery, Section of Neurosurgery, at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, Arizona.

Contents

Spetzler specialized in cerebrovascular disease and skull base tumors. Extremely prolific, he has published more than 580 articles and 180 book chapters and has co-edited multiple neurosurgical textbooks, including The Color Atlas of Microneurosurgery (2000). He retired from surgery in July 2019.

Biography

Spetzler can be seen standing in the middle. Robert Spetzler in a Neurosurgeons Group.jpg
Spetzler can be seen standing in the middle.

Spetzler was born in Stierhöfstetten (Oberscheinfeld, near Würzburg) in Germany to where his parents had been evacuated due to the Second World War. When he was 11, he moved to the United States with his parents. He performed spectacularly in the American school system, despite the fact his first language was German.[ citation needed ]

Spetzler received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1967 from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois after attending a year of community college in Illinois. He spent a year at the Free University of Berlin, and then entered medical school at the Northwestern Medical School in Chicago in 1967, receiving his M.D. in 1971. He completed post-graduate training at Wesley Memorial Hospital–Northwestern and a residency in neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco, [1] training under Charles B. Wilson. [3] In 1983, Spetzler was named Chair of the Division of Neurological Surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute. He was named director in 1986.[ citation needed ]

Spetzler played a dominant role in the use of the standstill operation in treating large or dangerous cerebral aneurysms. [4] One notable application of this method occurred in 1991 when Spetzler successfully removed a large aneurysm in a 35-year-old American woman named Pam Reynolds. Prior to the operation proceeding, Reynolds was placed under general anesthesia, then had her eyes taped shut and a monitoring device placed in both of her ears. She was later induced into clinical death by Spetzler and his team, which was necessary for the operation to take place. Despite being clinically dead and under intense monitoring and medical observation whilst the procedure was ongoing, Reynolds claimed to have had a profound near-death experience in which she was able to accurately recall the sequence of events within the operating theater, the surgical instruments used, and the conversations that had taken place. In an interview that took place for a BBC documentary in 2002, Spetzler affirmed many of the observations that Pam had made, and later admitted that he had no explanation for them. [5] In February 2007, Spetzler performed his 5,000th aneurysm procedure. [4] He travels and lectures frequently on the most recent advances in neurosurgery. After 30 years at the Barrow, Spetzler retired in July 2019, with Michael T. Lawton as his successor. [2]

Awards

Selected publications

Spetzler has written more than 300 articles and 180 book chapters, as well as co-editing multiple neurosurgical textbooks. A partial list is below:

Books

Articles

References

  1. 1 2 "Who We Are". Barrow Neurological Institute. Archived from the original on 21 September 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  2. 1 2 Michael Lawton to succeed Spetzler, Barrow Neurological Institute, 20 October 2016, retrieved 1 December 2023
  3. ↑ Honored Guests, CNS, 1994, archived from the original on 21 December 2010
  4. 1 2 "Dr. Robert F. Spetzler". Archived from the original on 15 October 2007.
  5. ↑ Video on YouTube Documentary on near-death experiences, BBC, 2002
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.