Roger Härtl, M.D., is Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and Chief of Spinal Surgery and Neurotrauma at the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Dr. Härtl, who is currently the Leonard and Fleur Harlan Clinical Scholar in Neurological Surgery, also serves as the Neurosurgeon for the New York Giants football team. Dr. Härtl is also actively involved in improving neurosurgical care in developing countries and is the leader of Weill Cornell's Global Health Neurosurgery initiative in Tanzania.
Dr. Härtl's clinical interest focuses on simple and complex spine surgery, minimally invasive spinal surgery, neurotrauma, and neurocritical care medicine. In order to achieve the very best in patient outcomes, Dr. Härtl's practice emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to disease processes, and he works very closely with other specialists such as neurologists, pain specialists and physical therapists. The practice is a leader in advanced surgical techniques, including computer navigation for spinal surgery and lateral-access spine surgery.
Dr. Härtl received his M.D. from the Ludwig-Maximillians University in Munich, Germany. In 1994 Dr. Härtl came to the Weill Cornell Medical College as a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Surgery and the Brain Trauma Foundation to pursue research in traumatic brain and spinal cord injury. He completed another fellowship in Neurocritical Care at the Charité Hospital of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, followed by a surgical internship at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He completed his neurosurgery residency at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center after which he pursued specialized training in complex spine surgery at the Barrow's Neurological Institute in Phoenix under Dr. Volker Sonntag. In 2004 Dr. Härtl returned to re-join the Department of Neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.
His scientific work focuses on the pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury and the treatment of brain edema and intracranial hypertension in brain-injured patients. He is a leader in the application of evidence-based medicine to neurosurgery and worked with the Brain Trauma Foundation in New York on the development of treatment guidelines for the medical and surgical management of head injury now used nationwide. Together with the Biomedical Engineering Department at Cornell he is currently working on tissue-engineering techniques for the repair and regeneration of degenerated spinal discs, the most common cause of back and neck pain. Dr. Härtl has lectured and published extensively on the surgical treatment of spine disorders, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury.
