Time Capsule: Menezes marks 50 years of neurosurgery expertise

When Arnold Menezes, MBBS (74R), posed for this photograph in 2004, he was already three decades into a distinguished career at the University of Iowa as a neurosurgeon, researcher, teacher, and the world’s foremost expert on surgical approaches to the craniocervical junction—the area where the skull meets the spine.

In 2024, Menezes marks 50 years of service at Iowa. Since the 1970s, he has designed numerous neurosurgical procedures at the base of the skull and expanded understanding and treatment of conditions such as Chiari malformation, basilar invagination, Down syndrome, and others. He has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and helped develop spinal neurosurgery programs in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America.

Menezes stopped performing surgeries about a year ago, but he still reviews cases and sees patients in clinic, prepares manuscripts for publication, and works with resident and fellow physicians training at Iowa. And he stays in touch with many of the hundreds of patients and families he has treated throughout his career.

Matthew Howard, MD, chair of the UI Department of Neurosurgery who has worked with Menezes for over 30 years, still marvels at his colleague’s resilience.

“He identified a terrible, unsolved problem, and he dedicated himself to understanding and fixing it,” Howard says. “And he’s still getting after it.”