U Of L Hires New Neurosurgeons

Nine neurosurgeons will join the University of Louisville staff.In March, the Norton Neuroscience Institute opened with the announcement that the facility would share eight neuroscientists with the University of Louisville. University officials said the doctors could not be professors at the university while also working at Norton, and said that by accepting the new jobs, the doctors had resigned.The school has now hired an interim chair of neurosurgery and eight new doctors to replace the lost staff. School of Medicine Dean Edward Halperin says the previous doctors will no longer work at U of L."Discussions between the attorneys of Norton Health Care and those of the University of Louisville have hinged on the requests of these eight neurosurgeons for several conditions for their faculty appointments," he says. "Conditions including not having the university appoint new full-time faculty or not having that faculty practice on our own trauma center."But the doctors' students will likely remain."They're concerned about transitions and change," he says. "We are, however, perfectly capable of telling the Residency Review Committee of the United States that the University of Louisville has a full compliment of faculty in neurosurgery as well as the other necessary fields, neurology, neuro-imaging and neuropathology."Halperin says the new additions will also let U of L’s trauma center keep its Level One designation.