Dr. Richard Menger

Bio

Richard Menger, M.D., M.P.A, is a fellowship-trained neurosurgeon serving as Chief of Complex Spine Surgery at the USA Health. He has a specific focus on complex spinal reconstructions for spinal deformity in children and adults. He performs minimally invasive spinal procedures (MIS) and has a special expertise in the entire spectrum of state-of-the-art surgical and conservative management of pediatric scoliosis.

Trained in neurological and orthopedic spine surgery, he can assess patients from an interdisciplinary perspective. As a neurosurgeon, he completed the prestigious Advanced Pediatric Spinal Deformity Orthopedic Fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center in New York under the direction of Michael Vitale M.D., M.P.H., Richard Anderson M.D., and Lawrence Lenke M.D. During his neurosurgery residency at LSU in Shreveport, La., he received additional training with an enfolded fellowship in pediatric spinal deformity at Shriners Hospital for Children.

He is an honors graduate of Cornell University where he played four years of Division I rugby. He completed medical school with honors at Georgetown University School of Medicine where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and received the Barbara Bregman PhD award as the top graduate in neuroscience. To further his research mission, he received a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where he was awarded the Hale Champion Public Service Fellowship.

His research focuses on operative techniques, clinical outcomes, and the intersection of policy and economics on the delivery of spine surgery. He has authored numerous scientific papers in academic journals and is the lead editor of the textbook The Business, Policy, and Economics of Neurosurgery. His op-ed/policy work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Navy Times, the Hill and others. He has a joint appointment as Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Alabama.

He enjoys being on the water and spending as much time as possible with his wife and three daughters. He also serves as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy Reserve.