There is hardly an international meeting of importance that would not have Professor de Oliveira either as a speaker or a panellist. Professor de Oliveira’s name has been closely associated with neurosurgical anatomy and microsurgical technique. He obtained his medical degree from Santa Catarina Federal University School of Medicine in Florianopolis in Brazil in 1969. His neurosurgical residency in Montevideo in Uruguay followed by a fellowship in microsurgical anatomy at the University in Florida in Gainesville. Dr de Oliveira maintains a close association with the Department of Neurosurgery and the University of Florida where he has been an Associate Professor from 1989 and Professor of Neurosurgery from 1996. Between 1985 and 1998 Dr de Oliveira headed the São Paulo Neurological Institute and subsequently became the Director of the Institute of Neurological Sciences in São Paulo while heading the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical Sciences School, State University of Campinas – UNICAMP. Dr de Oliveira is the President of the Brazilian Neurosurgical Congress in 2008.

There is hardly any cranial region or surgical approach that has not Dr de Oliveira’s name attached to it. Dr de Oliveira has been a co-author of numerous seminal publications in neurosurgical anatomy and microsurgical techniques, and the textbook he co-edited with Dr Laligam Sekhar Cranial Microsurgery: Approaches and Techniques is a classic (see below). Professor de Oliveira has not only published extensively, but he generously shares his surgical knowledge and skill around the globe. Professor de Oliveira is the Director of an excellent annual hands-on course in neurosurgical anatomy based in Braga, Portugal.

Written by Thomas Santarius