Roger Härtl

Roger Härtl, MD
Roger Härtl, MD
Occupation	neurosurgeon
Known for	Research in neuroscience & neurosurgery
Scientific career
Fields	Physician & Neurosurgeon
Institutions	Weill Medical College; New York Presbyterian Medical Center

Roger Härtl, MD is a board-certified neurological surgeon. He is Chief of Spinal Surgery at the Weill Cornell Brain & Spine Center in New York and the neurosurgeon for the New York Giants. Härtl has been named one of the Top 50 Spine Surgeons in the United States as well as one of the Top 10 Spine and Neurosurgeon Leaders at Non-Profit Hospitals. He was named one of New York’s Top Doctors by New York magazine after he saved the life of New York firefighter Eugene Stolowski, whose leap from a burning building left him critically injured. He is also currently the Leonard and Fleur Harlan Clinical Scholar in Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Professional expertise

Härtl's scientific work focuses on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and he has lectured and published extensively on the surgical treatment of spine disorders, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury. In conjunction with the Brain Trauma Foundation in New York, where he serves as a member of the Medical Advisory Board, Härtl helped develop the treatment guidelines for the medical and surgical management of head injury that are now used nationwide.

Education

Härtl received his M.D. from the Ludwig-Maximillians University in Munich, Germany. He completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Weill Cornell Medical College as well as the Charite Hospital of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, followed by a surgical internship and residency at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He completed his neurosurgery residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, after which he pursed specialized training in complex spine surgery at the Barrow's Neurological Institute in Phoenix under Dr. Volker Sonntag. He has worked with Weill Cornell Medical College’s Department of Neurosurgery in New York since 2004.

Grants and awards

In 2011 Härtl and his colleague at Cornell in Ithaca, Dr. Larry Bonassar, were awarded a $100,000 grant from the NFL to help develop a new generation of artificial discs for the spine. Härtl and Bonassar have also received $400,000 in funding from AOSpine and the AOFoundation.

Tanzania Neurosurgery Project

Härtl and his team bring vital neurosurgical equipment to Bugando Medical Center and train local surgeons to perform basic neurosurgical procedures. His team was able to perform the first spinal instrumentation procedures on patients with serious injuries to their spine. Not only did they perform the first complex occipito-cervical instrumentation procedure in this part of the world, but they we were also able to train two of the local surgeons, who, since then, have been able to perform more than 20 similar surgeries on patients in need. The program has the potential to greatly upgrade the way developing countries deliver health care. His team is doing “hands-on” training of doctors in Tanzania, empowering them with a high level of expertise in neurosurgical procedures. Providing the highest level of surgical training to these eager, talented surgeons impacts every other level of care—nursing, anesthesia, intensive care treatment, general ward care. Setting the bar high encourages a positive response and team effort involving all areas