Our first Chairman of the Neurosurgery department at Emory, Dr. George T. Tindall, was a pioneer in the field of neurosurgery. Dr. Tindall graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1948. He received his M.D. in 1952 from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha. After entering the surgical training program at Duke University, he completed his training in 1961. Dr. Tindall has played a leading role in organized neurosurgery. He has published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals on a variety of neurosurgical subjects, including his major research interests of vascular disease, head injury and pituitary tumors, and has contributed numerous chapters to neurosurgical textbooks and co-authored several others. In 1973, he was appointed Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery and Professor of Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine. During the next 23 years, he sought to enhance the clinical, research and publications activities of Emory's Neurosurgery program. In 1989, through his leadership, the program achieved departmental status. Upon his retirement in 1997, Dr. Tindall became Professor Emeritus. Through his forward-thinking, Dr. Tindall provided an excellent foundation upon which our department now continues to build; a foundation that set standards of excellence to which we all remain committed.
2024 Tindall Lecture - October 4
John G. Golfinos, MD
John G. Golfinos, MD, is the Joseph P. Ransohoff Professor and the Gray Family Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine. He is neurosurgeon-in-chief at NYU Langone Medical Center. Golfinos is a native New Yorker, raised on concrete, and did his undergraduate work at Princeton University before obtaining his medical degree from The College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1988. Proximity to rail and subway allowed him to avoid obtaining a driver’s license in true New Yorker fashion until he moved to Phoenix, AZ, for his residency. He trained in neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) under the renowned Robert F. Spetzler, completing his residency in 1995, including a molecular biology fellowship in the lab of Joan Shapiro and Adrienne Scheck, also at the BNI. Golfinos was subsequently recruited back to New York in 1995 by Patrick J. Kelly, MD, the newly appointed Chair of the NYU Neurosurgery Department. Golfinos is a national and international expert in neurosurgical oncology, particularly at the skull base and especially in the treatment of vestibular schwannomas and neurofibromatosis type II. He is a past president of the North American Skull Base Society.
Golfinos has spent his entire career at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, becoming a tenured associate professor and then chair of the department in 2009 upon Kelly’s retirement. He co-founded the NYU Gamma Knife Radiosurgical Unit in 1998, the first of its kind in New York City. Along with J. Thomas Roland, MD, of ENT, he also co-founded the NYU Neurofibromatosis Center, one of the largest centers for patients with both NF1 and NF2 in the country. He is currently the co-director of the NYU Brain and Spine Tumor Center and has over 150 peer-reviewed publications. He was honored with the Wholeness of Life Award from Pastoral Services at NYU Langone, still the only neurosurgeon so honored.
Under Golfinos’ leadership, the department of neurosurgery has risen to become the number one-ranked department of neurosurgery in the US News ranking of best neurology and neurosurgery programs in the country. The department also expanded in his tenure to have the largest neurosurgery residency in New York City. He has served for the last ten years as the Head Injury Consultant for the Major League Baseball Players’ Association and served for twelve years on the Board of Trustees of the Trinity School in New York City. His limited time away from neurosurgery is spent on piano (residency applicants are sometimes surprised to find that he has a full keyboard in his office) and tennis, and devotion to answering the question of whether laughter really is the best medicine. Above all, Golfinos cherishes his family, including his wife Stephanie and three children, Jason, Chloë and Phoebe who, while avoiding medicine, have set out in life to help others.
Previous Distinguished Professors
| Michael T. Lawton MD | Barrow Neurological Institute |
| Jacques Morcos, MD | University of Miami |
| Fredric B. Meyer, MD | Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine |
| James T. Rutka, MD | University of Toronto |
| Hunt Batjer, MD | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center |
| Ralph G. Dacey, MD | Washington University |
| Andres Lozano, MD | University of Toronto |
| Anil Nanda, MD | Louisiana State University HSC Shreveport |
| Robert Solomon, MD | Columbia University |
| Mark N. Hadley, MD | University of Alabama |
| Douglas Kondziolka, MD, MSc | University of Pittsburgh |
| Michael L.J. Apuzzo, MD, PhD (hon) | University of Southern California |
| Arthur L. Day, MD | Harvard University Medical School |
| Albert L. Rhoton, MD | University of Florida |
| Robert F. Spetzler, MD | Barrow Neurological Institute |
| Mitchel S. Berger, MD | University of California at San Francisco |
| Warren R. Selman, MD | Case Western Reserve University |
| Roberto C. Heros, MD | University of Miami |
| Volker K.H. Sonntag, MD | Barrow Neurological Institute |
| M. Gazi Yasargil, MD | University of Arkansas |
| Issam A. Awad, MD | Yale University |
| Robert G. Ojemann, MD | Harvard University Medical School |
| Jules Hardy, MD | University of Montreal |
| Edward R. Laws, Jr., MD | University of Virginia |