Spine surgeons and neurosurgeons were active in the first half of the year, with some joining new private practices while others were promoted within larger health systems or named president of professional societies.
A disproportionate share are department chair transitions rather than lateral practice jumps — six of the 40 involve a surgeon stepping into a chair or division head role at an academic medical center, including at UVA, Wake Forest, Jefferson Health, Rush, Emory and the University of Tennessee, suggesting institutions are actively refreshing neurosurgery leadership in 2026.
Practice-level hires, meanwhile, skew toward filling out community and regional systems — Banner Wyoming, Mississippi Sports Medicine, Southwest Medical Center in Kansas — rather than concentrating in a single metro or health system, which reads less like consolidation and more like steady, distributed demand for spine and neurosurgical coverage outside major academic hubs.
Here are 40 spine and neurosurgeon moves this year so far.
January
1. Gino Chiappetta, MD — joined Alliance Orthopedics in Fair Lawn, N.J.
2. Daniela Abrams, MD — joined Banner Wyoming Medical Center in Casper
3. Neil Patel, MD — named president and board chair, Spine Team Texas in Southlake
4. Bassel Diebo, MD — named co-director, Spine Center at The Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I.
5. Jacob Hoffmann, MD — joined Mississippi Sports Medicine in Jackson
6. Paul Park, MD — named neurosurgery chair, University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine in Memphis
February
7. Anthony Asher, MD — named president, Prisma Health Neurosciences Institute in Greenville, S.C.
8. Aaron Dumont, MD — named chair of neurosurgery, University of Virginia School of Medicine (Charlottesville); starts June
9. Paul Kim, MD — named chair of neurosurgery, Wake Forest University School of Medicine/Advocate Health Charlotte, N.C. campus
10. Nameer Haider, MD — named chief innovation officer, SynerFuse
March
11. Lonnie Loutzenhiser, MD — joined Box Butte General Hospital in Alliance, Neb.
12. Todd Albert, MD — named chief medical officer, Legent Health
13. Oszkar Szentirmai, MD — joined HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce
14. Zak Ibrahim, MD — joined Southwest Medical Center in Liberal, Kan.
15. David Matusz, MD — joined Spine Associates of NYC
16. Griffin Baum, MD — joined Archbold Neurology/Neurosurgery in Thomasville, Ga.
17. Vijay Yanamadala, MD — named vice chair of neurosurgery, Fairfield Region, Hartford HealthCare’s Ayer Neuroscience Institute in Connecticut
18. Ali Ravanpay, MD, PhD — named program director, University of Washington neurological surgery residency in Seattle
19. Michael Kelly, MD — joined the spine division, Stanford (Calif.) Medicine department of orthopedic surgery
20. Stavropoula Tjoumakaris, MD — named chair of neurosurgery, Jefferson Neurosurgery/Jefferson Health in Philadelphia
21. Thomas Lee, MD — named vice president of strategy, SynerFuse; neurosurgeon and assistant professor
22. Rajiv Sethi, MD, PhD — named chief of orthopedic spine surgery, UCSF Health department of orthopedic surgery
23. John O’Toole, MD — named chair of neurological surgery, Rush University in Chicago
24. Dan Peterson, MD — joined Ascension Seton Southwest Hospital in Texas
April
25. Franklin Lee, DO — joined the practice of Marc Agulnick, MD in Garden City, N.Y.
May
26. Bruno Lazaro, MD — joined Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
27. Shaden Marzouk, MD — named CEO, Spire Orthopedic Partners
28. Khalid Odeh, MD — joined Michigan Orthopaedic Specialists in Dearborn
29. E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD — elected president, American Association of Neurological Surgeons
30. Jeffrey Hills, MD — joined SMAIO’s scientific advisory board
31. Philip Meinhardt, MD — joining Memorial Hospital in Carthage, Ill.
32. Gregory Zipfel, MD — elected president, Society of Neurological Surgeons
June
33. Dani Terrell, MD — joined North Oaks Health’s North Oaks Neurosurgery Clinic in Hammond, La.
34. S. Garrett Whipple-Bones, MD — joined North Oaks Health’s North Oaks Neurosurgery Clinic
35. Jeffrey Gerdes, MD — joined CentraCare Health
36. David Prior, MD — joined OrthoArizona in Phoenix
37. Ben Burch, MD — joined Atlanta Spine Institute’s Sandy Springs, Ga.
38. Suraj Sulhan, MD — joined Dallas Neurosurgical & Spine
39. Guy McKhann II, MD — named chair of neurosurgery, Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, effective Sept. 14
40. Steven Schiff, MD, PhD — neurosurgeon named director of NIH’s Fogarty International Center and NIH associate director for international research
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
