NEIL KAHANOVITZ, M.D.
Dr. Kahanovitz is a native of Baltimore and attended
Randolph-Macon College and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
He completed an orthopedic surgery residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical
Center and a fellowship in spinal surgery at the Hospital for Special
Surgery in New York City. He is board certified in orthopedic surgery
and is a member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, Scoliosis
Research Society, North American Spine Society and Orthopedic Research
Society. In 1991, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Randloph-Macon
College.
From 1982 until 1989, Dr. Kahanovitz served as Chief
of Back Surgery at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City.
From 1989 through March 2002, he served as the Director of Spine Surgery
at the Washington Hospital Center and was a member of the Anderson Orthopedic
Clinic in Arlington, Virginia. His expertise is in both surgical and
conservative care of patients with spine disorders. Dr. Kahanovitz has
published more than fifty scientific articles, twelve book chapters
and a book entitled Diagnosis and Treatment of Low Back Pain.
He is currently on the editorial boards of Spine, Orthopedics
Today, the Mosby spine surgery series and is Deputy Editor of The
Spine Journal. In recent years, he has given over two hundred national
and international presentations at medical conferences.
In 2000, he served as President of the North
American Spine Society after ten years of service on the Board of Directors.
In 1998, Dr. Kahanovitz was awarded the Volvo Award for Low Back Pain
Research as well as the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar
Spine research award.
Dr. Kahanovitz was awarded the Order of the Supreme
Soviet Medal of Personal Courage in 1990 (the highest civilian honor
awarded in the former Soviet Union) for his work in Russia and Armenia
with victims of the Armenian earthquake. Continuing the spirit of international
medical cooperation, Dr. Kahanovitz began an exchange program between
Soviet and American physicians and organized the first American-Soviet
spinal surgery course in Moscow in 1990. In 1994, he was awarded a Commendation
from the Office of the Attending Physician of the United States Congress
for his support in caring for members of Congress and the Supreme Court.
Out of growing political concern for both political
and socioeconomic issues affecting quality patient care in the United
States, he founded the non-profit Center for Patient Advocacy in 1995.
Since then, he has testified numerous times before the Senate and House
Subcommittee hearings investigating a wide variety of health care issues.
In 1999, he was appointed to the Health Care Financing Administrative
Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee.
Dr. Kahanovitz worked his way through medical school
while traveling around the United States as a circus performer. First
as a clown in a trampoline act and briefly as an aerialist, he continued
to perform after medical school during vacations. During his residency,
he became part owner of an elephant act which he sold after his fellowship.
His interest in show business was rekindled in 2000
when he produced the musical comedy Pageant in London's West
End. Pageant was nominated for two Olivier awards and won one.
In 2001, Dr. Kahanovitz produced Pageant in Chicago. In 2000,
his ten year old daughter Kate made her Broadway debut in Annie
Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters. Kate, now 14, recently completed
her first solo pop music recording after playing the lead in The
Secret Garden at Philadelphia's Media Theater. Older sister Alexia,
20, is enrolled in the New York University Dramatic Writing Program
after graduating from the Professional Children's School six months
early. In 200, Alexia co-starred in the Century Theater's Off-Broadway
revival of Ibsen's The Wild Duck. In June 2002, her first play
was produced in one of London's most reputable fringe theaters.
