Dean Chou, MD

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Dr. Chou is the Chief of theSpine Division, Professor, and Vice Chair of Neurosurgery at the ColumbiaUniversity Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Chou has many years of experience andexpertise in scoliosis, spinal deformity, spinal tumors, and degenerative conditions of the spine. He haspioneered many minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat these complexconditions, and is also an expert in traditional open surgery. Whenpossible, he uses the least-invasive treatment techniques,providing an individualized, thoughtful approach to every patient.  Dr. Chou attended medicalschool at the University of California, San Francisco, completed his residencyin Neurosurgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and undertook a fellowship incomplex spinal surgery at The Barrow Neurological Institute under one of thelegendary pioneers of spine surgery, Dr. Volker Sonntag. He is board certified by the American Boardof Neurological Surgery. Prior toColumbia, he was on faculty at the University of California of San Francisco,rising to the rank of full Professor of Neurosurgery and Orthopedics, and eventually the Associate Director of the UCSF Neurospine Center.  He is a Castle Connolly Top Doctor and hasbeen elected by his peers for 10 consecutive years to the “BestDoctors in America” list, according to Best Doctors, Inc. Dr. Chou has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications in a wide variety of neurosurgery and spinejournals. He sits on the editorial boards of the following journals; Journal of Neurosurgery:Spine, Neurosurgery, and PLOS ONE. He is on theadvisory board of the journal, Spine. He serves as Treasurer and on the Board ofDirectors for the Lumbar Spine Research Society (LSRS) and serves on theMembership Committee for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons(AANS).  He also sits on the Executive andScientific Program Committees of the AANS/Congress of Neurosurgeons Section onDisorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves, and he has served as an abstractreviewer for many organized meetings. He is a two-time recipient of the HaroldRosegay Resident Teaching Award and has been awarded the Alumni AchievementAward from The Johns Hopkins Department of Neurosurgery.  He has served as abstract reviewer andfaculty member for such organizations as the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS),the North American Spine Society (NASS), the Congress of Neurological Surgeons(CNS), the AANS, the LSRS, the Global Spine Congress, and the InternationalMeeting for Advanced Spinal Techniques (IMAST).