Dear Colleagues
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Amin Kassam, MD, to the position of chair, Department of Neurological Surgery, in the School of Medicine. Dr. Kassam received his medical degree from the University of Toronto, having been an undergraduate at that same university. He was a resident in neurosurgery at the University of Ottawa and he completed course work for a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology from that same university during his residency. He moved to our institution in 1997, and he has been a member of our faculty continuously since that time. Dr. Kassam holds board certification from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Amin’s academic and research achievements have been recognized throughout his career. He held many academic scholarships as an undergraduate and medical student, including the George Brown Memorial Award for Research of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine. In recent years, he has been the Hitselberger Lecturer of the American Academy of Otolaryngology and the M.T. Richard Lecturer at the University of Ottawa. In 2005, Dr. Kassam delivered the President’s Invited Lecture at the International Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons’ annual meeting, and he was co-chair of the first World Congress for Endoscopic Surgery of the Brain, Skull Base, and Spine.
Dr. Kassam has authored or co-authored 82 peer-reviewed research articles published in the journals relevant to his interests
Amin has been a frequently invited lecturer, session moderator, and panelist, most recently speaking at the Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Florida, Gainesville, Stanford University, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the University of Virginia, and other institutions in this tier. He has also offered many lectures at international and national meetings as well as local meetings, and he has served on many national committees.
Amin is a member of the executive board of the North American Skull Base Society and a member of several advisory boards. Currently, he is the principal investigator of one NIH R01 grant and a co-investigator of another.
Dr. Kassam is the director of the UPMC Center for Cranial Nerve Disorders and co-director of the Center for Cranial Base Surgery. His career has been focused on cranial nerve disorders, including trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm, as well as cerebrovascular disease. In recent years, he has led the development of endonasal cranial skull base surgery, including operative removal of tumors, pituitary lesions and vascular anomalies. Amin has developed a very close working relationship with Dr. Carl Snyderman in the Department of Otolaryngology to refine endonasal approaches for numerous brain lesions, and this work has been widely recognized nationally and internationally.
Dr. Kassam has had primary responsibility for the training of residents and fellows in minimally invasive skull base surgery, transsphenoidal endoscopic surgery, and stereotactic endoscopic-assisted intraventricular tumor removal. He has been an excellent role model who is dedicated to teaching students, residents, fellows, and international trainees – of whom he has had many. He has developed an instructional laboratory to teach advanced microendoscopic surgical techniques to neurosurgeons and otolaryngologists from the United States and worldwide. Amin maintains a very active clinical practice and is highly sought nationally and internationally as a surgical consultant.
Please join me in celebrating Dr. Kassam’s appointment as chair of one of the world’s leading departments of neurological surgery.
Arthur S. Levine, MD
Senior Vice Chancellor
for the Health Sciences, and
Dean, School of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
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