Communication Tips: Managing People featuring guest contributor Robert M. Friedlander, MD, FAANS.

Dr. Robert Friedlander is the Walter E. Dandy Distinguished Professor, Chair of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery, and co-director of the UPMC Neurological Institute, positions he has held since 2010. Before coming to the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Friedlander was a professor at Harvard Medical School. He was also vice-chairman of neurosurgery, associate director of cerebrovascular surgery, and co-director of the Neuroscience Research Center at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Friedlander has received a number of significant academic awards, most significantly an induction into the prestigious National Academy of Medicine in 2019. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. He has also received the Bayer Cerebrovascular Award from the Joint Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery, the International Charcot Prize for Motor Neuron Diseases, the Award from the Academy of Neurological Surgeons, the H. Richard Winn Prize from the Society of Neurological Surgeons, and the Distinguished Chancellor University of Pittsburgh Research Award.

Dr. Friedlander is an elected member of the prestigious American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. As a sign of his prominence as a clinician and scientist, Dr. Friedlander is one of a very select group of authors to have been invited by the New England Journal of Medicine to write both a basic science review (mechanisms of neuronal cell death), as well as a clinical review (management of AVMs). Clinically, Dr. Friedlander focuses on the operative management of complex cerebrovascular disorders, brain tumors, and Chiari malformations.