The School of Medicine and Yale-New Haven Hospital -- YNHH -- have established a department of neurosurgery and named Dr. Dennis D. Spencer as the first leader of this free-standing department, which was previously a section within the department of surgery.
"In order for a section to evolve into a separate department, there has to be a strong academic foundation," states Dr. Gerard N. Burrow, who made this announcement along with Joseph A. Zaccagnino, president and chief executive officer of Yale-New Haven Hospital. "Under the guidance of Drs. William Collins and Dennis Spencer, the section has matured and developed an outstanding academic reputation. Dr. Dennis Spencer, a superb clinician, teacher and researcher, is the ideal individual to become the first chairman."
Dr. Spencer, who is internationally known for the surgical treatment of neurological diseases causing medically intractable epilepsy, is also the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery and an attending surgeon at YNHH.
The new department's program encompasses epilepsy surgery, neuro-oncology, neuropsychology, neurovascular surgery, pediatric neurosurgery, stereotactic radiosurgery, and stereotactic and functional neurosurgery. The Functional Imaging-Neuropsychology Laboratory supports many of these activities.
In future years, neurosurgery at Yale will provide an environment in which basic discovery remains the driving force, increasingly high standards of patient care will be the expected outcome, and the highest quality of education will result, says Dr. Spencer. "As our faculty neurosurgeons and surgeons-in-training deliver increasingly complex treatments for patients with many neurological diseases, they will combine clinical and basic science experience to provide a unique appreciation and understanding of the human nervous system and its disorders," he predicts.
Yale's neurosurgery section was organized in 1918 under Drs. Samuel Harvey and William German, both of whom trained under Dr. Harvey Cushing, the so-called "father of American neurosurgery." In 1934, Dr. Cushing and his longtime collaborator in neuropathology, Dr. Louise Eisenhardt, came to Yale, which was developing a strong tradition in surgery of the nervous system. Neurosurgery continued to expand at Yale, and during the 1940s, a three-year training program was formalized at the New Haven Hospital. In 1944 the first issue of Yale's Journal of Neurosurgery was published.
A member of the faculty since 1977, Dr. Spencer has been head of neurosurgery since 1987. He developed a widely used surgical approach for patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and, with psychiatry professor Dr. D. Eugene Redmond, pioneered stereotactic cellular replacement therapy for patients with Parkinson's disease.
In addition, Dr. Spencer directs the surgical component of the Yale Epilepsy Program, in which faculty and fellows conduct research, train surgeons and other health professionals, and treat patients from throughout the world. The interdisciplinary epilepsy program embraces neurosurgery, neurology, neuropsychology, psychiatry, social work and neuroradiology.
Dr. Spencer's own research centers on the neurobiologic study of human tissue involved in epilepsy. He and his colleagues have employed in vivo and in vitro technologies to examine brain tissue removed during surgery. Their laboratory discoveries have helped to define the pathogenesis of human epilepsy and to place basic research into the context of human disease.