Alumni

Spotlight: James Ausman, MD, PhD, 1964-1965; 1969-1972

A native of Milwaukee, WI, Dr. Ausman obtained a BSc degree from Tufts University in Boston in 1959 and graduated as an MD from Johns Hopkins Medical School three years later. In 1964, he received a master’s degree in physiology at the State University of New York in Buffalo, after which he pursued surgery and neurosurgery training in Chicago and at the University of Minnesota. He then went to work for the National Institutes of Health, receiving a PhD in pharmacology from George Washington University School of Medicine in 1969. He became a staff member at the U of M in 1972, eventually becoming an assistant professor of neurosurgery and pharmacology.

Chairman at Henry Ford
In 1978, Dr. Ausman was named Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. In 1991, he became professor and head of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he expanded his work in microsurgery, cerebrovascular surgery, particularly aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, and by-passing cerebral ischemia. He has written and developed procedures for neurovascular surgery and novel approaches to the pineal region and midline tumors. Dr. Ausman has more than 200 publications and 80 chapters in neurosurgical books to his credit.

Publication editor
He was editor-in-chief of Surgical Neurology from 1994 until 2009, when it ceased publication. In 2010, he became founding editor-in-chief of Surgical Neurology International. He is an honorary member of the Brazilian, Argentinean, Chilean, and Peruvian Societies of Neurosurgery, and a Corresponding Member of the German Society of Neurosurgery. Through his James I. and Carolyn R. Ausman Educational Foundation, and his vehicle, Surgical Neurology International (SNI), Rancho Mirage, CA, Dr. Ausman recently expanded his humanitarian and educational mission.

Neurosurgery Summit
Dr. Ausman organized at his expense the SNI Neurosurgery World Education Summit that took place, June 5-6, 2021. And on July 28, he participated in another webinar organized by the Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons in which he gave the first lecture, “The Most Important Lesson I learned in Medicine.” These seminars have been provided online, worldwide, and are free to physicians and patients via his publication Surgical Neurology International.

He and Carolyn, his wife of 53 years, have two daughters.

(Source: Wikipedia)