Prof. Ghassan Skaf is a Lebanese/American Neurosurgeon based at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Beirut, Lebanon. He  specializes in complex spine surgery with a special interest in traumatic and non-traumatic spinal cord injury and spine oncology.

Ghassan Skaf is a Lebanese/American Neurosurgeon based at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Beirut, Lebanon.

Dr. Skaf specializes in complex spine surgery with a special interest in traumatic and non-traumatic spinal cord injury and spine oncology.

Dr. Skaf is Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery and Professor of Neurosurgery at the American University of Beirut and Director of the American University of Beirut Medical Center Spine Program.

He is the AOSpine Middle East Board director of Education (Neuro) and the past inaugural President of the scientific committee and Disciplinary Board of the Lebanese Order of Physicians for six consecutive years.

Dr. Skaf is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (USA) and holds the American Board of Neurosurgery and fellowship in Spinal Neurosurgery from University of Toronto.

Professor Skaf completed his MD at Saint Joseph University followed by Neurosciences research at the University of Southern California and Neurosurgery junior residency at UCLA Medical Center. After a core training in General Surgery Cleveland Clinic Foundation, he joined the University of Toronto where he completed his training in Neurosurgery, and was awarded his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in Spine Surgery.

Dr. Skaf pursued a Global MBA at the School of Business, University of Oxford Brookes, Oxford, UK. This degree has provided him an understanding of the signals in an open competitive market that work under a price system.

Dr. Skaf has extremely busy and active clinical practices that attracted country leaders and celebrities from the Middle East and the Gulf Region. He has been honored with several awards and medals for his service.

His Basic research on Spinal Cord Injury under the supervision of his mentors at the University of Toronto (Drs. Charles Tator and Michael Fehlings) has impacted his clinical practice in dealing with timing of decompression in Acute Spinal cord injury and on how spinal trauma is managed. At the international level, Dr. Skaf was involved in many tasks to develop clinical practice guidelines for Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy and Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury. He is consultant to many international companies for new innovations in Spine Surgery and development of Spinal Instrumentations namely Medtronic USA and Johnson & Johnson USA.

Dr. Skaf scope of interest went beyond Neurosurgery and Spinal Surgery. He led efforts over the past several years to establish Neuro-Spinal hospitals in Kuwait, Iraq and a specialized rehabilitation center in Saudi Arabia. He was on several occasions a keynote speaker on environmental pollution and its impact on diseases of the nervous system and cancer. He is heavily involved in research in the Medical Error domain, held many TV and Radio interviews and wrote many books and newspaper articles on the subject. He has carried out audits and reports for quality improvement as well as clinical and medico-legal investigations.

Dr. Skaf is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Balamand and is President of its Medical Committee, an Honored Member of the International Who’s Who of Professionals and Man of the Year Lebanon of Who’s Who International Registry in 2012. A Member of the Lebanese Society of Neurosurgery, Member of the World Association of Lebanese Neurosurgeons and the Saudi Commission for Health Specialists. President of SKAFF League in Lebanon and the world. Gold Member of the AOSpine International and Board Member of AOSpine Middle East. Member of AO Alumni Association and the European Union of Medical Specialists. Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the North American Spine Societies, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Member of the American Medical Association, the International Neurotrauma Society and the section on Neurotrauma and critical care of AANS. Dr. Skaf is editor and reviewer to several journals namely American Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Probe Surgery, Global Surgery Case Reports, Journal of Current Trends in Clinical Case Reports, The Open Pharmacoeconomics & Health Economics Journal, The Open Neurology Journal, Neurological Surgery, Austin Anaplastology, Global Spine Journal, Dataset Paper in Science, Pan Arab Neurosurgery, Lebanese Medical Journal and Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion