Robert M. Levy, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine–Jacksonville, built an international reputation as a preeminent researcher and neurosurgeon specializing in implanting devices to modify brain function and treat chronic pain.
Now, Levy is heading a different type of building project, coming to the college this month to grow the neurosurgery department in Jacksonville.
Levy comes to town from Northwestern University with big plans, hoping to develop the department into a regional and national leader – and says he was lured here in part by the college’s commitment to those goals. He plans to double the staff to ten neurosurgeons within two years and envisions a neurosurgery residency program within five years.
"The potential for building a regional and nationally recognized neuroscience center and neurosurgery department is unbelievable," Levy said.
In his 24 years at Northwestern, Levy was a tenured professor in three disciplines, chief of the section of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery and director of the Gamma Knife center.
Robert C. Nuss, M.D., dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville, said the college is fortunate to have attracted someone with Dr. Levy's credentials.
"Dr. Levy's appointment will enhance an already robust neuroscience program and I have great expectations that under his leadership the department will grow and flourish in clinical, educational and research endeavors," Nuss said.
Levy is one of the leaders in his specialty, known as neuromodulation – using electrical or chemical devices to treat neurologic disorders. The techniques are currently used for people with ailments including chronic pain, Parkinson’s Disease, headaches and epilepsy.
Lately, Levy's research has centered on novel applications of neuromodulation therapies on a variety of disorders to restore neurologic function. Emerging applications include the treatment of medically refractory psychiatric disorders, traumatic brain injury, obesity and paralysis after stroke or spinal cord injury. Levy is editor-in-chief of Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface. He serves on the board of directors of the International Neuromodulation Society and the North American Neuromodulation Society.
Levy's clinical practice focuses on the treatment of brain tumors, stereotactic and functional neurosurgery as well as radiosurgery – the use of highly focused radiation to treat disorders of the brain or spine.
At Northwestern, Levy used the Gamma Knife facility for those procedures. The same technology is available in Jacksonville, but Levy is also looking to take advantage of the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute on the Jacksonville campus to treat brain disorders.
Levy has served as chair for the section on pain for both the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He twice won the William Sweet Award from those organizations for research in pain and also won the quadrennial research award of the World Federation of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery. He has been named each year as one of the Best Doctors in America.
Levy said the department needs to develop in three key areas: clinical service to patients in the region and, hopefully, the nation; clinical and translational research, and education.
"We must address all three of those things in order to succeed in our mission and my vision," Levy said.
Levy did his undergraduate and Master's studies in brain research at Northwestern. He moved to Stanford University, where he earned a Ph.D. and M.D., searching for a field where he could do translational research and take what he did in the laboratory into the clinic where he could help patients.
"The immediacy and the technical intricacy of neurosurgery, combined with the slow and methodical process of research seemed like an excellent balance," Levy said.
Levy was chief resident of University of California, San Francisco at San Francisco General Hospital at the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
"We didn't know what it was then, but the neurologists I was working with, we were the first ones to see these illnesses," Levy said.
Much of his early research focused on the disease and he and his colleagues wrote the first textbook on HIV and the nervous system.
Yet as knowledge surrounding the disease grew and treatments expanded, the need for neurosurgeons in treating and researching HIV dropped dramatically.
"We researched our way out of the disease, which is a wonderful thing," Levy said. "To be able to see the arc of a disease where you first define it and then clarify it and the treatments improve to the point where you're less needed in the treatment of that disease, is a very satisfying thing."
As chair of neurosurgery, Levy will be co-director of the Neuroscience Institute with Alan R. Berger, M.D., professor and chairman of the neurology department.
"It was not only the challenge of building the department, but the opportunity of working with such an outstanding group of individuals that made it an easy choice for me," Levy said.
Berger said he was interested in having a new chair who understood the importance of neurology and neurosurgery working together. He found that in Levy, as well as an accomplished neurosurgeon with an international reputation.
"He brings instant credibility, both in recruiting faculty and in leading the department," Berger said.
Levy comes to Jacksonville with his wife, Dr. Amity Ruth, a neuropsychologist who specializes in dementia and childhood learning disabilities, and their 3-year-old son. He also has two adult sons, a graduate student in political philosophy in Vancouver, British Columbia, and a vegan chef in Seattle.