Dr. Kassam serves as the chairman and leads the multidisciplinary team for Intent Medical Group at Endeavor Health Advanced Neurosciences Center, a global treatment destination and training site for innovative neurological care. He is highly experienced in minimally invasive neurosurgery and is a pioneer of new and innovative surgical techniques, including endonasal brain surgery, conscious surgery and robotic neurosurgery. Treating patients from all over the world, Dr. Kassam has performed approximately 10,000 surgeries, allowing patients with the most complex neurological conditions to find hope and live their lives to the fullest. Grounded in a unique clinical practice, Dr. Kassam has developed an exceptional patient experience.

Having led teams that performed many groundbreaking procedures, Dr. Kassam remains an active global destination surgeon and educator. During the past two decades, he has led four neurosurgery programs and has trained a generation of surgeons from across the world on the minimally invasive techniques that he and his teams have pioneered.

Dr. Kassam is widely recognized as a leader in technological developments that advance the field in service of the patient and define next-generation care. He is sought out by the technology sector as a transformative innovator and has founded or held leadership roles in several technology start-up companies. Their efforts have been directly applied and shown to improve patient outcomes, as published in peer reviewed articles. He’s also held executive healthcare administration leadership roles which has enabled him to translate these innovations through integrated service line delivery models.

Dr. Kassam is the founder and CEO of Neeka Enterprises, previously served as the Chair of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, and recently served as the Chief Scientific Strategist, Vice President for Neurosciences, and Chairman of Neurological Surgery for Advocate Aurora Healthcare in Wisconsin.

Specialties

• Cerebrovascular Pathology
• Minimally Invasive Parafascicular Surgery
• Robotic Neurosurgery of Primary and Secondary Brain Tumors
• Skull Base and Spinal Tumors
• Trigeminal Neuralgia

Education

• Medical School: University of Toronto Medical School
• Internship: University of Toronto Medical School
• Residency: University of Ottawa, Postgraduate Medical Education

Professional Accomplishments

Dr. Kassam has published more than 320 peer-reviewed articles, three textbooks and 80 book chapters. He has given more than 250 lectures globally and served as a distinguished guest for multiple international meetings and societies.

He has a Hirsch index of 80 (the Hirsch index represents an impact score of a scientist’s publications on world literature; an h-index score of 80 represents one of the most significant impact scores in the history of neurosurgery), an RG-impact score of 47 (98th percentile) and his work has been cited over 25,000 times. He authored the first- and third-most-cited articles in his field during the past decade and published a sentinel atlas of the human subcortical network: “The White Matter Chassis.”

Most recently, Dr. Kassam has focused on publishing a neuro-oncology textbook that outlines the key corridors to access the deep regions of the brain, as well as his role as the chief medical officer for the National Hockey League Alumni Association. His team is completing a trial that examines social determinants of health (SDoH) and quality of life of the alumni via a digital wellness platform to enhance self-efficacy and peer-to-peer connectivity. This represents one of the largest decentralized, multinational virtual trials in this cohort. The machine learning-enhanced platform from this trial will be foundational for more generalized trials anticipated over the years in broader populations, such as veterans and other vulnerable cohorts subject to health equity disparities.

Additionally, with the emergence of the pandemic, Dr. Kassam has focused on resource optimization. His team of data science engineers created and published AI-infused tools, which include web-based multi-parametric predictive COVID modeling that anticipates surges and hospital bed capacity and informs strategic planning.

Strategic Partnerships

Dr. Kassam has developed a broad partnership network as chief medical officer at the National Hockey League Alumni Association and an econometrics and optics consultant for Stryker Corporation. His broad and deep range of partnerships, combined with a track record of implementing purposeful, seamless patient-centric integrated service lines across diverse ecosystems, positions him to provide direct patient care which is data-driven and personalized for each patient and family’s needs.

Dr. Kassam has emerged as a strategic thinker who can work across multiple disciplines and bring people together to make meaningful change in the service of patients.