As anyone who’s ever been a parent (or teacher, or pediatrician, or coach) can tell you, children are not just little adults – they are fundamentally different creatures in terms of emotional maturity and mental development. As any doctor can tell...
Rohan Ramakrishna, MD
Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery
Part of achieving good outcomes for our patients requires defining what success looks like. For a patient with a brain tumor, success means meeting three criteria. First and foremost, we want to do no harm, so the patient should not be...
Caitlin Hoffman, MD
Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery
The link between an Antiguan painter and a New York neurosurgeon seems unlikely at best, but life does have a way of making some rather extraordinary connections. I was recently introduced to the work of Frank Walter (1926-2009), whose paintings...
Philip E. Stieg, PhD, MD
Neurosurgeon-in-Chief
A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about 17-year-old Kenny Bui, who died in 2015 after his post-concussion return to football. Nobody had done anything wrong, according to concussion protocol – the teen had passed a...
Over the past couple of years there has been an explosion of new data proving the benefits of two things: early intervention for stroke, and mechanical embolectomy using endovascular techniques. We have long known that “time is brain,” but we...
Philip E. Stieg, PhD, MD
Chair and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief
Margaret and Robert J. Hariri, MD ’87, PhD ’87 Professor of Neurological Surgery
The past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in our understanding of the brain and how it works – new findings about plasticity, for example, have allowed us to revise our expectations about recovery after traumatic injury or stroke — and...
By Roger Härtl, MD
Director of Spine Surgery and Neurotrauma, Weill Cornell Medicine
Director, Weill Cornell Medicine Center for Comprehensive Spine Care
Earlier this month I was honored to serve as international faculty for a two-day seminar in Najaf, Iraq, sponsored by AOSpine Middle East. This was my third visit to Iraq for an AOSpine course, but my first time in Najaf. Although these teaching...
As a pediatric neurosurgeon, a large part of my job involves talking with anxious parents about their child’s upcoming surgery, and carrying families through a process they are never truly prepared for. As a parent myself, I cannot imagine how...
Philip E. Stieg, PhD, MD
Neurosurgeon-in-Chief
I know what to expect when I mention “awake craniotomy” to anyone – the very mention of undergoing brain surgery while awake usually makes people shudder. It’s not surprising, since we all like to keep our skull intact and our brain protected. The...
By Kenneth Perrine, PhD, ABPP-CN, and Amanda Sacks-Zimmerman, PhD, ABPP-CN
Neuropsychologists at Weill Cornell Medicine Neurological Surgery
Patients who are referred here for neurosurgery are often a bit confused when they’re scheduled for time with a neuropsychologist before or after surgery. What does a psychologist have to do with neurosurgery, anyway?
