Professor of Neurosurgery
Lahey Hospital and Medical Center
Burlington, MA, US
Zoher Ghogawala, MD, FACS
Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, Lahey Hospital & Medical Center
Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
Co-Director, Comparative Effectiveness Research Institute
Zoher Ghogawala, MD, FACS serves as the Charles A. Fager Chair of Neurosurgery at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center and is Professor of Neurosurgery at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is active in the surgical treatment of patients with disorders of the spine and carotid vascular disease. His research focuses on comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and neurosurgical outcomes, exploring the effectiveness, benefits and sometimes harmful results of different treatment options. He was the principal investigator the recently completed national, externally funded SLIP study, a randomized clinical trial that compared fusion versus no fusion following spinal decompression. This study was published in New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Ghogawala has recently received NIH and PCORI funding support to conduct a multi-center prospective RCT that aims to compare ventral versus dorsal surgery options for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM-S Trial). The trial randomized 163 patients with cervical myelopathy and results of the trial were just published in JAMA in March, 2021. He has published over 100 scientific publications and has given over 100 invited visiting professor lectures. Dr. Ghogawala recently edited and published a textbook entitled, “The Evidence for Neurosurgery” as well as co-authored the newly updated Lumbar Fusion Guidelines. Dr. Ghogawala has served as the Vice-President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and is the Chair of the Registry Committee for the Cervical Spine Research Society. In 2022, Dr. Ghogawala was appointed to the Board of Governors for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). He is also on the Board of Directors of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and the Cervical Spine Research Society. He is currently the incoming President of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and he is currently the Past Chair of the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves. Dr. Ghogawala completed his undergraduate degree magna cum laude at Harvard University, and graduated from Harvard Medical School with high honors in 1991. He completed his residency training in neurological surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Friday, March 17, 2023
3:10 PM – 4:40 PM EST