Neurosurgery

The Department of Neurosurgery at NIMHANS is one of the oldest in the Country and at present is one of the largest in the world. Though the first neurosurgical procedure, a leucotomy operation, the first in the country was performed on 21st September 1942 by Dr.MV Govindaswamy and Dr. BN Balakrishna Rao at the Hospital, it was not until 1958 that the Department came into existence. Dr Raja Marthanda Varma, joined the AIIMH in 1958 and started the Department. He later went to become the director of AIIMH in 1969.  His first assistant was Dr. GN Narayana Reddy.  It was due to the combined efforts of these two neurosurgeons that neurosurgery escalated to new heights.

The MCh Neurosurgery course was started in 1966, again of the earliest in the country. In 1973, the Neurocenter, where the Department is based at present was opened in 1973 by the then President of India. In 1974 when Dr. Varma became the Director of NIMHANS, the responsibility of the department fell on the able shoulders of Dr. GN Narayana Reddy who went on to become the Director of NIMHANS in 1979.

The Department has grown by leaps and bounds, helmed ably by a succession of Heads including Prof BS Das, Prof KVR Sastry, Prof Chandramouli BA, Prof Indira Devi And Prof Sampath S. The Department was initially expanded in the 1990’s when four new operation theatres were built. The Golden Jubilee Neurosciences trauma and emergency block wasopened in 2008. As a tribute to Prof R M Varma , the newly constructed Subspecialty Block has been named after him. This was inaugurated by the President of India in 2015.​

We take pride in both the clinical and research activities and at present, we are one of the largest departments in the world. With more than 6000 surgeries per year and an academic output  of more than 75-100 peer published articles per year, we have been consistently ranked in the top three departments of the country. With more than 175 students over the past 30 years, our alumni are spread far and wide and continue serving the nation. In the coming years, we hope to create centres of excellence in the Department along with a focus on subspecialisation and postdoctoral fellowships. We are involved in cutting edge research including robotics, international collaborations on trauma and other pathologies. We hope that in the coming decades, the Department will continue to grow in stature, enrich the knowledge  and continue to serve the people of this great nation.  

Jai Hind

Prof Dhaval Shukla

Professor and Head,

Department of Neurosurgery, NIMHANS