Nitin Agarwal, MD

Nitin Agarwal, MD, joined the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery residency program in July of 2014. Prior to matriculating into the residency program, Dr. Agarwal received his Doctor of Medicine from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

His funded research activities focus on improving patient education to optimize patient outcomes. To date, he has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and 10 book chapters and has spoken at several regional and national conferences, with over 100 oral and poster presentations. His health literacy related research has been published in several high impact factor journals including JAMA Internal Medicine and featured by prominent healthcare-oriented news outlets such as Reuters Health. He is also the the co-editor of the book The Evolution of Health Literacy: Empowering Patients through Improved Education. In October of 2018, his multi-contributor guide for aspiring neurosurgeons, Neurosurgery Fundamentals, was released by Thieme Medical Publishers.

​Dr. Agarwal also maintains an active role in organized neurosurgery advocating for medical student and patient education. His article entitled “Improving Medical Student Recruitment into Neurological Surgery” was featured online by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. He was appointed as a member of the Young Neurosurgeons Committee of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and serves as Sections Division Coordinator and Top Gun Competition chair. He was also selected as a Council of State Neurological Societies socioeconomic fellow and continues to serve as a past resident fellow mentor as well as an alternate delegate appointee of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). In addition, he is an advocate for philanthropic support and has been placed on the board of directors of the Neurosurgery PAC, as a young neurosurgeon member, and served as a resident liaison for the Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation. In the fall of 2018, he was selected to be a part of the CNS Resident Fellows program for the 2019 to 2020 term. 

Dr. Agarwal is pursuing an enfolded fellowship in minimally invasive and complex spine surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and plans to complete further training in this subspecialty during post-residency through an approved fellowship with the Committee on Advanced Subspecialty Training (CAST) at the University of California, San Francisco. 

Outside of neurological surgery, Dr. Agarwal is deeply dedicated to martial arts, specifically the disciplines of Taekwondo, Krav Maga, and Jiu-Jitsu.