|
 NICHOLAS
T. ZERVAS (1962)
[extract
dated 1983] Dr. Nicholas T. Zervas has been Chief of the Neurosurgical Service
from1977 (to 2000). Born in Lynn Massachusetts, he graduated from
Harvard College in 1950 and four years later from the University of Chicago School
of Medicine. His honors thesis was based on research with Dr. Theodore Rasmussen
on differential motor responses to stimulation of the motor cortex. He trained
as a surgical intern at New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center, and as an assistant
resident in neurology and neuropathology at the Montreal Neurological Institute.
At Montreal he began his studies in vascular research, examining the effect of
corticosteroids on middle cerebral artery ligation in the monkey. After two years
of service in the Army Medical Corps, he began his training at MGH. During his
elective year of MGH training he traveled abroad to study stereotactic cerebral
surgery with Professor Jean Talairach and Gabor Szikla at the Hospital Ste Anne
in Paris. Dr.
Zervas spent five years at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia as Assistant
Professor before returning to Massachusetts and becoming Chief of Neurosurgery
at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He held that post for 10 years before joining
MGH as Chief of Neurosurgery in 1977. At that time he was also named Professor
of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr.
Zervas developed a radiofrequency procedure for transnasal stereotactic thermal
hypophysectomy to treat patients with diabetic retinopathy, metastatic breast
carcinoma, and acromegaly. He was also active in modifying stereotactic operations
for treating disorders of movement and carried out the first stereotactic cerebellar
ablations for Parkinson's disease. With Professor Eric Cosman of MIT and Dr. Paul
Chapman, he developed the first telemetric intracranial pressure-monitoring device
applicable to ventricular shunting procedures. Together with Professor Richard
Wurtman of MIT he documented, for the first time, disorders of catecholamine metabolism
resulting from cerebral ischemia. His current interests are cerebral vasospasm
and pituitary neoplasms. As
a youth, Dr. Zervas was a serious student of piano. He has continued his interest
in music by serving as a Trustee of the New England Conservatory of Music, as
an Overseer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Chairman of the Council on Arts
and Humanities of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In
addition to numerous national anti international committee obligation, Dr. Zervas
has served as president of the Boston Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, and
is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Neurosurgery, Stroke, and the Journal
of Applied Neurophysiology. He is also Historian of the Inter national Society
of Stereotactic Surgery. | 
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