Dr. Philip Stieg is the Margaret and Robert J. Hariri Professor of Neurological Surgery and Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at Weill Cornell Medical College and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Stieg’s expertise is in cerebrovascular disorders, skull base surgery, and traumatic brain injury. He is also a widely published author and internationally known lecturer, and has been consistently named one of the nation’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly. Another area he promotes his field is as the host of the podcast “This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg.” In each episode, Dr. Stieg presents a view into how the brain works, what can go wrong, and what we know about how to fix it. He gives life-saving information and timely advice on how to live a brain-healthy life.
Dr. Stieg graduated from Milwaukee Lutheran in 1970. “My time with teachers like Mr. Bachelor in physics and Mr. Dobberful and Miss Moeller in English were life changing. They motivated me to always put in the extra effort. Ed Haeger coached the swim team when I was on the team. As a coach and athletic director, he was always there to listen. A great educator overall.”
He received his B.S. in 1974 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, his Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neuroscience from Albany Medical College of Union University in 1980, and his M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1983. He trained at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School (Parkland Memorial Hospital) with Drs. Duke S. Samson and H. Hunt Batjer. He completed a fellowship in the laboratories of Drs. Lars Olson and Tomas Hokfeldt in cell transplantation for restorative neurological function at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Following internship and residency at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, in 1989 Dr. Stieg moved to Boston, where he joined Brigham and Women’s Hospital, The Children’s Hospital of Boston, and Massachusetts General Hospital, before being recruited to establish a Department of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell.
Dr. Stieg is internationally known as a lecturer dedicated to the training of other neurosurgeons. In 2000, he founded the Department of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell. In 2010, he created the Neurosurgical Innovations and Training Center for Skull Base and Microneurosurgery, the first neurosurgical teaching facility to allow real-time global collaboration at multiple sites. In 2013, he launched New York’s first multidisciplinary Concussion and Brain Injury Clinic staffed by neuro-specialists, and in 2016 he spearheaded the launch of the Center for Comprehensive Spine Care, where patients receive a range of multidisciplinary services. This comprehensive approach is part of Dr. Stieg’s vision for reshaping care for patients with complex conditions of the central nervous system. He has also nurtured an ambitious effort in Global Neurosurgery, with faculty members participating in in-country programs in Tanzania, Senegal, Antigua, Mexico, Peru, and more.
Dr. Stieg’s research interests include cerebral protection as well as restorative function. He is also interested in neural transplantation and neuronal regeneration after stroke. His initial studies focused on understanding the mechanisms of injury in the central nervous system after trauma. His laboratory was one of the first to develop and characterize primary cultures of astroglial cells.
Dr. Stieg has held numerous editorial responsibilities with a number of journals and publications, such as Neurosurgery, World Neurosurgery, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of Neurovascular Disease, Neurosurgical Focus, Stroke Council Newsletter, and Cerebrovascular Newsletter. He is one of the editors of the definitive textbook on AVMs, Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations, with a new and completely overhauled edition of that volume due out in 2023. Dr. Stieg also provides his expertise in trauma as a sideline consultant for the National Football League and as a consulting neurosurgeon to the New York Giants, and he is also an advisor to the Department of Defense on traumatic brain injury.
In 2022, Milwaukee Lutheran honored Dr. Stieg with the Cum Deo, or “With God,” award at graduation, and he gave the commencement address. He urged the graduating class to never stop learning, reading, or understanding life’s situations. He said to get out of their circle when they can and hear from people who have different opinions. He closed with an emphasis to learn, listen, be humble, strive for integrity, and seize the future.
