Ralph G. Dacey Jr., M.D., the Henry G. and Edith R. Schwartz Professor and Chairman of Neurological Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and neurosurgeon-in-chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has been named chairman of the American Board of Neurological Surgery.
Established in 1940, the board sets the standards for training neurosurgeons in the United States and administers certification examinations for those seeking to practice neurosurgery in this country. Dacey has served as a director of the board since 1999 and as secretary since 2000.
“This position is considered to be the pinnacle award in the field of neurosurgery,” says outgoing chairman Arthur L. Day, M.D., professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and program director of neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It requires someone who’s really thoughtful but also very well balanced and able to deal with the variations that come up in today’s tumultuous medical environment. Ralph was chosen because he has all these qualities, and because he has done an excellent job leading the organization as secretary of the board for the past four years.”
Dacey is recognized for his long and distinguished career in neurosurgery, but he says the honor of serving as chairman is a particularly gratifying accomplishment.
“Neurosurgery is very complex, and training and certifying neurosurgeons is a terrific responsibility,” he says. “I think this is extremely important for our society. We’re constantly working to make the board’s operations more efficient and more accessible and transparent to the public so that people can have confidence in their specialists.”
According to Dacey, this is an exciting time for the organization because it is developing a new process for maintenance of certification. The new approach will be implemented within the next 18 months, and will require neurosurgeons to regularly become recertified throughout their careers.
“Maintenance of certification requires a continuous commitment to education and self-assessment,” Dacey explains. “This will really improve our specialty, and our board is very proud of this important project.”
In addition to having an active general neurosurgery practice and serving as the neurosurgery consultant for the St. Louis Rams, St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals, Dacey is internationally recognized for his contributions to understanding and treating conditions that affect blood vessels in and around the brain, including aneurysms and blood vessel malformations.
Among his extensive clinical accomplishments, he helped develop a device that uses magnets to guide surgical instruments through the brain and performed the first human magnetic surgery in 1998. Magnetic surgery allows surgeons to work through small holes in the skull on regions deep within the brain while avoiding damaging other critical brain structures.
Additionally, through basic science research with Hans H. Dietrich, Ph.D., research assistant professor of neurological surgery, Dacey developed a way to study individual, hair-like microvessels located deep within the brain.
Dacey joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1989 after serving on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1970 at Harvard University and a medical degree in 1974 at the University of Virginia.
He has held numerous leadership positions within the neurosurgery community, including having served as president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery, Neurobiology of Disease and Perspectives in Neurological Surgery. He also is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board and the Board of Directors of Stereotaxis Inc., a St. Louis-based biomedical device firm.
Dacey also has received several prestigious awards, including the 2003 Grass Foundation Award from the Society of Neurological Surgeons in recognition of his accomplishments in and longstanding commitment to neurosurgical research.
The full-time and volunteer faculty of Washington University School of Medicine are the physicians and surgeons of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.