It’s Not Brain Surgery - The AANS Practice and Business Management Podcast – Presented by the AANS

Personal Finances: Finances of Starting a Practice featuring E. Hunter Dyer, MD, FAANSDr. Hunter Dyer has been a practicing neurosurgeon at Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates since 1994. He completed neurosurgery training at UTSW -Dallas.  His practice focus is in minimally invasive spine, open vascular, and transnasal skull base. He was President and Chairman of Board of CNSA from 2002-2022. 

Teaching and Learning: In the Lab featuring Chetan Bettegowda, MD, FAANSDr. Chetan Bettegowda is currently the Jennison and Novak Families Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His clinical focus is on the surgical management of brain tumors and directs and metastatic brain tumor center, meningioma center and trigeminal neuralgia. He directs the Reza Khatib Brain Tumor Center and the Physician Scientist Training Program at Johns Hopkins. As Medical Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics, his laboratory efforts have focused on the applications of cell free tumor derived DNA for the early detection and monitoring of a myriad of cancers. His research has been funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, Doris Duke Clinician Scientist Award, Department of Defense and the National Cancer Institute. He has been recognized with numerous awards including being named the 2022 William Baumgartner Johns Hopkins Physician of the Year. He has published widely with over 250 articles including in journals such as Science, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Cell Reports Medicine and PNAS. 

Teaching and Learning: Neuroanatomy featuring Maria Peris-Celda, MD, PhD, FAANSDr. Peris Celda is an Associate Professor in neurosurgery who specializes in complex brain and skull base tumors and other neurosurgical cranial conditions. She is devoted to offering individualized treatment to each patient including open, minimally invasive, and endoscopic techniques to maximize surgical resection and achieve surgical goals preserving quality of life.Following her surgical anatomy fellowship under world-renowned neurosurgeon Professor A.L. Rhoton, Dr. Peris Celda's research interests have focused on the development of safer surgical techniques and approaches based on a detailed surgical anatomy knowledge. Dr. Peris Celda's neurosurgical anatomy laboratory team comprises fellows of different backgrounds, national and international, who are deeply committed to surgical education and to advancing surgical techniques towards safer, more accurate surgeries.

Communication Tips: Giving and Receiving Feedback featuring Stacey Wolfe, MD, FAANSStacey Quintero Wolfe, MD is a neurosurgeon with Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.She is a board-certified neurosurgeon, specializing in disorders of blood vessels, brain trauma and spine. She completed fellowships in endovascular and cerebrovascular/skull base neurosurgery at the University of Miami.  As a 21-year US Navy veteran, she earned the Meritorious Service Medal and developed the Stroke and Neurotrauma Programs at Tripler Army Medical Center. She joined Wake Forest Baptist Health in 2013 as Director of Neurointerventional Surgery and Residency Program Director. She built a hemorrhagic stroke research program and am co-Principal Investigator of National Institute of Health (NIH) StrokeNet at Wake Forest Baptist Health. She leads multiple NIH and national clinical trials in stroke and brain hemorrhage, and is studying neuroinflammation, genetic risk factors, and genetic mutations in the development of cerebral Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) in her research lab. She has served on the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Board of Directors, Executive Committee of the Congress of Neurological Surgery and Society of Neurological Surgeons, American Heart Association Mission Stroke Task Force, and as Chair of Women in Neurosurgery. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and review for five journals. She was awarded the national 2021 ACGME Courage to Teach Award for innovation and mentorship in education, and am dedicated to providing cutting edge care for patients with neurologic disease.She lives in Winston-Salem with her husband and two children. In her free time, she volunteers at a local school and in the community.  

Personal Finances: You Have a Salary, Now What? featuring Jake WeatherfordJake Weatherford, with Castlepoint Wealth Advisors,  is a partner and wealth advisor whose primary focus is to provide client investment advice and implement the firm’s financial planning strategies. He is also responsible for portfolio modeling and financial projections, which help clients evaluate the potential outcomes of their decisions. Jake is nearing a decade in financial advising and specializes in helping clients navigate complex retirement planning and wealth transfer concerns.It was Jake’s desire to help people that drew him to the wealth management industry, where he earned the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) designations.Jake holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Oklahoma State University and an MBA in financial planning. While at Oklahoma State he was a recipient of the General Honors Award. He is a board member of the Downtown Club of Oklahoma City, and he serves as a Division 1 college football official. Jake and his wife, Shelbie, live in Oklahoma City and are the proud parents of a baby boy, Eli. They attend Life Church and especially enjoy traveling and spending time outdoors as a family.

Denial of Payment after Successful Prior Authorization: The Latest Commercial Payer Ruse featuring Luis Tumialan, MD, FAANSLuis Manuel Tumialán is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute specializing in minimally invasive spinal surgery. He graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine, completed his internship at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. Dr. Tumialán completed additional training in undersea medicine in Groton Connecticut and Navy Dive School in Panama City, Florida. Upon completion of his operational training, he served as the Diving Medical Officer assigned to Naval Special Warfare Unit One in Guam during the Global War on Terror in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001. He received a Naval and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for service in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Southeast Asia and a Navy Humanitarian Medal for the search and maritime rescue of a foreign national.Once he returned to the mainland, Dr. Tumialán completed his neurosurgery training at Emory University School of Medicine and returned to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. He joined Barrow Brain and Spine in 2010 where he serves as the director of minimally invasive spine surgery. Dr. Tumialán’s main interests are in minimally invasive spinal surgery and motion preservation surgery as well as developing techniques for the next generation of spinal surgery.Dr. Tumialán has served as the Scientific Program Chairman and Annual Meeting Chairman for the AANS/CNS Spine Section, and currently serves as Secretary for that organization. He has also served as the Scientific Program Chair for the Society of Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgeons (SMISS) and the International Society for the Advancement of Spinal Surgery (ISASS). His interest in socioeconomics has led him to the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies (CSNS) where he has served as Treasurer, Corresponding Secretary and is currently the Vice Chair of the Organization.Dr. Tumialán is on the editorial board for both the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine and Associate Editor for Operative Neurosurgery. He has authored over 100 peer reviewed publications and over 20 book chapters on spinal surgery.In 2020, Dr. Tumialán published a single authored textbook entitled “Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery: A Primer”. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife Andrea, his three sons (Julian, Andreas and Lucian) and his daughter (Soledad). 

Personal Finances - Managing Student Loan Debt, featuring guest contributor, Kristen BuchmanKristen joined Castlepoint Wealth Advisors  in February of 2022 as an advisor working in lockstep with the advisory team to provide client investment advice and implement the firm’s financial planning strategies.She has obtained her CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation and earned her bachelor’s degree in personal financial planning from Kansas State University. After earning her degree, she began her career at The Trust Company in Manhattan, Kansas. There she served as a Financial Planner and Associate Trust Officer. Kristen also served as an Adjunct Instructor for the Department of Financial Planning at Kansas State and was a recipient of the Rising Professional Award in 2022.Her passion for financial planning inspires her pursuit for lifelong learning and involvement with the Financial Planning Association, serving the chapter of Central Oklahoma (President) and the chapter of Greater Kansas City (Public Awareness committee).Resources:  Federal Student Aid Website: https://studentaid.gov/VIN Foundation Website: https://www.vin.com/studentdebtcenter/default.aspx  (again created for veterinarians, but have great student loan resources specifically the loan repayment simulator) Saving For College Website: savingforcollege.com/student-loans How to find someone who can help: CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™: https://www.letsmakeaplan.org/  Certified Student Loan Professional: https://cslainstitute.org/advisor-directory/

Host JNS Social Media Committee Member, Lior Elkaim, MD, and Paul J. Camarata, MD, FAANS welcome neurosurgery resident and JNS Social Media Manager guest, Faith C. Robertson, MD. Dr. Robertson is an aspiring academic neurosurgeon with an overarching interest in improving value in healthcare. Clinically, she is passionate about neurooncology. Her research and collaborations involve health systems (local and global), med-tech innovation, and value-based care. She has an MD from Harvard Medical School and an MSc in Global Surgery from Kings College London. She is currently a senior neurosurgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital and is obtaining her MBA from Harvard Business School.

Practice Management Fundamentals: It's Not Just CPT Codes - What is Revenue Cycle Management and Why Should You Care, featuring guest contributor, John "Jack" Knightly, MD, FAANS.John Knightly, MD, FAANS is a practicing neurosurgeon with a subspecialty interest in minimally invasive and complex spine surgery, he is currently the Past-President, Atlantic Neurosurgical Specialists and Altair Health as well as Chief of Quality Department of Neurosurgery Atlantic Neuroscience Institute.  His other areas of specialty interest and research include healthcare policy, outcomes and registry science, and quality improvement. He has served as Chair of the Joint Section on Disorders of Spine and Peripheral Nerves for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)/Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) as well as chair of the Quality Improvement Workforce of the AANS/CNS and past AANS representative to the AANS/CNS Washington Committee.Dr. Knightly is currently Co-Chairman, Board of Directors, for NeuroPoint Alliance and a founding member of the American Spinal Registry (ASR) executive committee. A Vice-Chairmen and Director on the American Board of Neurological Surgeons (ABNS), he has also had appointments on several committees within the AANS, American College of Surgeons as well as the National Quality Forum.  His other subspecialty interests include the management of traumatic neurological injuries and have served as Head of Neurotrauma, Morristown Memorial Medical Center Trauma Center and is currently as Unaffiliated/Independent Neuro-Trauma Consultant for the National Football League and the New York Jets.

Practice Management Fundamentals: It's Not Just CPT Codes featuring guest contributors, Semmes Murphey Clinic CEO John A. Lewis and Daniel Hoit, MD, FAANS.Dr. Daniel Hoit grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His college and medical school were completed at Johns Hopkins University and Yale. While at Yale, he developed an interest in neurosurgery and went on to complete his training at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston. As a resident, he further refined his interest in vascular and endovascular neurosurgery. His research there focused on new endovascular devices and medical imaging technology for the treatment of brain aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, and cerebrovascular occlusive disease.After residency, he completed a fellowship with Semmes Murphey, and the University of Tennessee in endovascular neurosurgery and has remained with the group and academic practice in a faculty position. He maintains a general neurosurgical practice with a focus on vascular disorders. As part of the vascular group, he continues to be actively involved in the process of medical device and outcomes trials and serves as the Surgery Center Director at Semmes Murphey.Mr.  John Lewis joined the Semmes Murphey Clinic in February 2002 as Chief Operating Officer and transitioned into his current role of Chief Executive Officer in August, 2009. John began his career in public accounting with the audit group at Price Waterhouse. Following that, he held various senior leadership roles in Finance, Information Technology and Project Management in several industries, including manufacturing, logistics and healthcare. John is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Information Technology Professional, a Fellow in the American College of Medical Practice Executives and certified in IT Project Management. John holds a Bachelor of Accountancy degree from the Patterson School of Accountancy and a Master of Business Administration from Christian Brothers University. His current and previous community activities include service as President of the Porter-Leath Books from Birth Board (Imagination Library), Past-President of the National Neurosurgery Executives’ Resource and Value Education Society (NERVES), Executive Board Member of the American Heart Association, Board Member for the Memphis Library Foundation and Past Senior Warden and Current Endowment Committee Chair at Church of the Holy Communion.

Host Paul J. Camarata, MD, FAANS, and JNS Social Media Committee Member, Lior Elkaim, MD welcomes neurosurgery leader Christopher Graffeo, MD.  Dr. Graffeo is a neurosurgeon with OU Health in Oklahoma City, primarily focusing on brain tumors, as part of OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Graffeo was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, where he studied literature, art history, and philosophy. After returning to New York City and working for several years as an editor and a musician, he enrolled in the post-baccalaureate premedical program at Columbia University and went on to medical school at NYU.As a resident and fellow at Mayo Clinic Rochester, Dr. Graffeo's academic and clinical activities focused on complex cranial surgery, with a special interest in open cerebrovascular techniques, skull base tumors, radiosurgery, and neuroanatomy. After residency graduation in 2021, Dr. Graffeo completed an open cerebrovascular and skull base fellow with Dr. Michael Lawton at the Barrow Neurological Institute.He has joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma Department of Neurosurgery as an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, where his practice will focus on skull base and cerebrovascular diseases.   He has published 190 peer-reviewed publications and 6 book chapters and serves on multiple editorial boards, including the Journal of Neurosurgery. He has received dozens of state, national, and international awards, including the Balfour Award and Mayo Brothers Foundation Award, which are the highest honors given to Mayo Clinic trainees for research and clinical achievements, respectively. 

Practice Management Fundamentals: It's Not Just CPT Codes - What is Venture Capital and Private Equity in Neurosurgery and Why You Should Care, featuring guest contributor, John "Jack" Knightly, MD, FAANS.John Knightly, MD, FAANS is a practicing neurosurgeon with a subspecialty interest in minimally invasive and complex spine surgery, he is currently the Past-President, Atlantic Neurosurgical Specialists and Altair Health as well as Chief of Quality Department of Neurosurgery Atlantic Neuroscience Institute.  His other areas of specialty interest and research include healthcare policy, outcomes and registry science, and quality improvement. He has served as Chair of the Joint Section on Disorders of Spine and Peripheral Nerves for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)/Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) as well as chair of the Quality Improvement Workforce of the AANS/CNS and past AANS representative to the AANS/CNS Washington Committee. Dr. Knightly is currently Co-Chairman, Board of Directors, for NeuroPoint Alliance and a founding member of the American Spinal Registry (ASR) executive committee. A Vice-Chairmen and Director on the American Board of Neurological Surgeons (ABNS), he has also had appointments on several committees within the AANS, American College of Surgeons as well as the National Quality Forum.  His other subspecialty interests include the management of traumatic neurological injuries and have served as Head of Neurotrauma, Morristown Memorial Medical Center Trauma Center and is currently as Unaffiliated/Independent Neuro-Trauma Consultant for the National Football League and the New York Jets.

Host Paul J. Camarata, MD, FAANS, and JNS Social Media Committee Member, Lior Elkaim, MD welcome neurosurgery leader Hugues Duffau, MD. Dr. Duffau discusses approaches to low-grade gliomas, amongst other topics.Hugues Duffau, MD, PhD, is Professor and Chairman of the Neurosurgery Department in the Montpellier University Medical Center and Head of the INSERM 1191 Team "Plasticity of the central nervous system, human stem cells and glial tumors" at the Institute of Functional Genomics of Montpellier (France). He is an expert in the awake cognitive neurosurgery of slow-growing brain tumors, as low-grade gliomas, a routine which he has developed since more than twenty years. His fundamental approach is centered on the concepts of the brain connectomics and neuroplasticity, breaking with the traditional localizationist view of cerebral processing. For his innovative work in neurosurgery and neurosciences, he was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa six times, and he was the youngest recipient of the prestigious Herbert Olivecrona Award (Nobel Prize of neurosurgery) from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Professor  Duffau has written five textbooks and over 500 publications in international journals ranging from neurosurgery and neurooncology to fundamental neurosciences, including cognitive sciences and brain plasticity, for a total of more than 45,000 citations and with an h-index of 113.  He gave more than 690 invited lectures, and was invited as a visiting professor in more than 60 institutions. He is member of Editorial boards of many journals (as Brain and Language, Neurosurgery or Neuro-oncology) and ad-hoc reviewer for around 100 journals (over 950 reviews) including: New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Oncology, Nature Medicine, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Nature Reviews Neurology; Annals of Neurology, Brain, Cerebral Cortex, Trends in Cognitive Science, Current Biology, etc. 

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.

Host Paul J. Camarata, MD, FAANS, and JNS Social Media Committee Member, Lior Elkaim, MD welcome neurosurgery leader Zoher Ghogawala, MD, FAANS to discuss his career journey and much more.Zoher Ghogawala, MD, FACS serves as the Charles A. Fager Chair of Neurosurgery at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center and is Professor of Neurosurgery at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is active in the surgical treatment of patients with disorders of the spine and carotid vascular disease. His research focuses on comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and neurosurgical outcomes, exploring the effectiveness, benefits, and sometimes harmful results of different treatment options.  He was the principal investigator the recently completed national, externally funded SLIP study, a randomized clinical trial that compared fusion versus no fusion following spinal decompression.  Dr. Ghogawala has served as the Vice-President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and is the Chair of the Registry Committee for the Cervical Spine Research Society.  He is also on the Board of Directors of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and the Cervical Spine Research Society. He is currently the 1st Vice-President for NASS and he is currently the Past Chair of the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves. Dr. Ghogawala completed his undergraduate degree magna cum laude at Harvard University, and graduated from Harvard Medical School with high honors in 1991. He completed his residency training in neurological surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Inpatient or Outpatient: ASCs - Moving to Outpatient Care: Spine Techniques featuring Bryan B. Barnes, MD, FAANSDr. Barnes is a fellowship-trained, board-certified neurosurgeon with a particular interest in spine surgery, including minimally invasive surgical techniques.A native of Rhode Island, Dr. Barnes joined Georgia Neurological Surgery and Comprehensive Spine in 2005. He completed his pre-medical education at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and his medical education at the University of Connecticut in Farmington. He went on to complete a general surgery internship and neurosurgery residency at Emory Clinic in Atlanta. He then completed a fellowship in spine surgery at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery and is a clinical assistant professor of neurology at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership in Athens.Since residency, Dr. Barnes has focused on outpatient spine surgery and minimally invasive techniques that help speed patient recovery by using small incisions. He has three U.S. patents pending for spinal implants and minimally invasive spinal systems, and recently completed a textbook chapter on robotic spine surgery. Other areas of clinical interest include redo spine surgery, spinal tumors, and spinal trauma.

Sessions You Can't Miss at 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting featuring John K. Ratliff, MD, FAANS, FACS   #AANS2023Dr. John Ratliff is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Surgery, Neurosurgery Residency Program Director, Vice Chair for Operations, Department Quality Officer, and co-Director of Spine and Peripheral Nerve Surgery at Stanford University.Dr. Ratliff chaired the Scientific Program Subcommittee for the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting in Los Angeles. He recently served as Chair of the Joint AANS/CNS Washington Committee, organized neurosurgery’s most valuable advocacy resource, and is Vice Chair of the Council of State Neurosurgery Societies.  He is Advisor to the RBRVS Update Committee.  He has served as Chair of the National Neurosurgery Quality Council.  He has served on multiple task forces for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Quality Forum, as well as recently serving as a scientific review committee member for the National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Back Pain Consortium Research Program (BACPAC).  

Communication Tips:  Healthcare Finance Basics: How to Speak the Language of Administrators featuring guest contributor Cheerag D. Upadhyaya, MD, MBA, MSc, FACS, FAANS.Dr. Cheerag D. Upadhyaya is a Clinical Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  He also serves as Chief Transformation & Business Strategy Officer for the Department of Neurosurgery.  He has completed research fellowships at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute / National Institutes of Health and as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar.  He completed his neurosurgical residency at the University of Michigan.  He then completed a fellowship in complex and minimally invasive spine surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.  Most recently he completed his Master's in Business Administration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He has been awarded the Scoliosis Research Society Edgar Dawson Traveling Fellowship and AANS/CNS Spine and Peripheral Nerve Outcomes Committee Award.  He is a member of the Scientific Program Committee and Executive Committee for the AANS/CNS Spine and Peripheral Nerve Section.  Dr. Upadhyaya serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.

Host Paul J. Camarata, MD, FAANS, and JNS Social Media Committee Member, Lior Elkaim, MD welcome neurosurgery leader Andres M. Lozano, MD, PhD, FRCSC to discuss his career journey, his research, and much more.Dr. Lozano was born in Sevilla, Spain and moved with his family to Ottawa at a young age. He obtained his MD degree from the University of Ottawa and his PhD in Neurobiology and neurosurgical training from McGill University. He received postdoctoral training in movement disorders at Queen Square, London, UK and in cell and molecular biology in Toronto. He was appointed to the University of Toronto in 1991, and in 1999 he became the youngest individual to be appointed Full Professor in the Department of Surgery. In 2014 he was appointed to the rank of University Professor, the highest and most prestigious academic rank at the University of Toronto. He is the former Chairman of the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto and holds with it, the Dan Family Chair in Neurosurgery. He also holds the RR Tasker Chair in Functional Neurosurgery at University Health Network and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience.

Communication Tips: Breaking Bad News Tips and Guide featuring guest contributor Sean M. Lew, MD, FAANS.Dr. Sean Lew has subspecialty training in pediatric neurosurgery and is board certified in both neurosurgery and pediatric neurosurgery. He has particular interest and experience in the surgical treatment of pediatric epilepsy, pediatric brain tumors, moyamoya disease and craniocervical anomalies.He is active in clinical research with an emphasis on pediatric epilepsy, pediatric cervical spine surgery, general pediatric neurosurgery, surgical techniques and outcomes. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and his research has been presented nationally on numerous occasions.