Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system.
Mahmut Gazi Yaşargil is a Turkish medical scientist and neurosurgeon. He collaborated with Raymond M. P. Donaghy M.D at the University of Vermont in developing microneurosurgery. Yaşargil treated epilepsy and brain tumours with instruments of his own design. From 1953 until his retirement in 1993 he was first resident, chief resident and then professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, 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. He is a founding member of Eurasian Academy. He is regarded as one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the modern age.
Walter Edward Dandy was an American neurosurgeon and scientist. He is considered one of the founding fathers of neurosurgery, along with Victor Horsley (1857–1916) and Harvey Cushing (1869–1939). Dandy is credited with numerous neurosurgical discoveries and innovations, including the description of the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, surgical treatment of hydrocephalus, the invention of air ventriculography and pneumoencephalography, the description of brain endoscopy, the establishment of the first intensive care unit, and the first clipping of an intracranial aneurysm, which marked the birth of cerebrovascular neurosurgery.
Nikolay Nilovich Burdenko was a Russian and Soviet surgeon, the founder of Russian neurosurgery. He was Surgeon-General of the Red Army (1937–1946), an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, an academician and the first director of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944–1946), a Hero of Socialist Labor, Colonel General of medical services, and a Stalin Prize winner (1941). He was a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, First World War, Winter War and the German-Soviet War.
Paul Bucy was an American neurosurgeon and neuropathologist who was a native of Hubbard, Iowa. He is known both for his part in describing the Klüver–Bucy syndrome, his academic life as a teacher in the neurosciences, and for his founding in 1972 and editing Surgical Neurology – An International Journal of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience from 1972 to 1987.
Gail Linskey Rosseau is Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, D.C. Prior to this position, she was Associate Chairman of Inova Fairfax Hospital Department of Neurosciences. She previously served as director of skull base surgery of NorthShore University HealthSystem. She is board-certified and has been an examiner for the American Board of Neurological Surgery. She has been elected to the leadership of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies, and the Société de Neurochirurgie de Langue Française.
Sofia Ionescu-Ogrezeanu was the first female neurosurgeon in the world.
T. S. Kanaka or Thanjavur Santhanakrishna Kanaka, also known as Tanjore Santhana Krishna Kanaka, was Asia's first female neurosurgeon and one of the world's first few female neurosurgeons. She was the first neurosurgeon in India to perform chronic electrode implants in the brain, having been also the first to perform deep brain stimulation as early as in 1975. She pioneered functional neurosurgery in the 1960s and 1970s along with Prof. Balasubramaniam, Prof. S. Kalyanaraman; and received recognition for her research and contributions to the field of stereotactic surgery. She is also a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of Madras Neuro Trust.
Albert Loren Rhoton Jr., was an American neurosurgeon and a professor specializing in microsurgical neuroanatomy. He was on the editorial boards of six surgical journals, and worked as professor and chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Florida. He was also president of organizations such as the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, among other surgical organizations.
Michael L. J. Apuzzo is an American academic neurological surgeon, the Edwin M. Todd/Trent H. Wells, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Neurological Surgery and Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics at the Keck School of Medicine, of the University of Southern California. He is also editor emeritus of the peer-reviewed journals World Neurosurgery and Neurosurgery. He is distinguished adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the Yale School of Medicine, distinguished professor of advanced neurosurgery and neuroscience and senior advisor, at the Neurological Institute, Wexner Medical School, The Ohio State University, and adjunct professor of neurosurgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, Department of Neurological Surgery & Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center.
Aaron A. Cohen-Gadol is a professor of neurological surgery in the department of neurosurgery at Indiana University School of Medicine and a neurosurgeon at Indiana University Health specializing in the surgical treatment of complex brain tumors, vascular malformations, cavernous malformations, etc. He performs removal of brain tumors via minimally invasive endoscopic techniques, which use the nasal pathways instead of opening the skull.
Yoko Kato is a Japanese neurosurgeon. She is professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Fujita Health University. She was the first woman in Japan to be promoted to full professor of neurosurgery.
Luc Calliauw was a Belgian physician and university professor.
Diana Jean Kinloch Beck was the first female English neurosurgeon. She established the neurosurgery service at Middlesex Hospital in London, where she gained a public profile for operating on A. A. Milne.
Esther Roibete Apuahe is a neurosurgeon from Morobe, Papua New Guinea, and the first female surgeon in the country. She was born in 1978 in Rabaul and has four sisters. Her father was a school teacher and instilled in Apuahe the importance of education. She is married and has three children. Esther Apuahe has contributed greatly to the field of neurosurgery, especially in the Africa-Asia region.
Alexander N. Konovalov is a Russian neuroscientist who has been the director of the Burdenko Neurosurgery Institute for thirty-two years.
Linda M. Liau is an American neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and the W. Eugene Stern Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Liau was elected to the Society of Neurological Surgeons in 2013 and the National Academy of Medicine in 2018. She has published over 230 research articles and a textbook, Brain Tumor Immunotherapy. She served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuro-Oncology from 2007 to 2017.
Global neurosurgery is a field at the intersection of public health and clinical neurosurgery. It aims to expand provision of improved and equitable neurosurgical care globally.
Claire Karekezi is a Rwandan neurosurgeon at the Rwanda Military Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. As the first female neurosurgeon in Rwanda, and one of eight neurosurgeons serving a population of 13 million, Karekezi serves as an advocate for women in neurosurgery. She has become an inspiration for young people pursuing neurosurgery, particularly young women.
Juliet Sekabunga Nalwanga is a physician from Uganda, who is the country's first female neurosurgeon. As of 2021 she was one of only thirteen neurosurgeons in Uganda. As of 2018 she was employed by Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala.
