Arnold Menezes, MBBS, a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery who as a clinician, researcher, educator, and scholar became one of the world’s foremost experts on skull-base surgery, died Oct. 30. He was 81 years old.

A native of India, Menezes joined the UI faculty in 1974 following residency training in surgery and neurosurgery and fellowship training in pediatric neurosurgery at Iowa. Over the course of his 50-year career, Menezes treated thousands of patients from Iowa and around the nation and world. He was internationally known for his expertise in the surgical treatment of the craniocervical junction — the area where the skull meets the spine. He developed neurosurgical procedures at the base of the skull, and he described dozens of disorders and abnormalities that occur in this region of the brain and spine: basilar invagination, Chiari malformation, and others.

A prolific scholar, Menezes helped strengthen the specialty of neurosurgery with his published research and through workshops, national and international presentations, and participation in organizations such as the North American Skull Base Society, of which he was a founder. Beginning in the late 1970s, he created and maintained a database of patient cases he and his colleagues had treated — a database that grew to include thousands of cases.

“Over time, every medical textbook would include a major chapter on the craniocervical junction,” Menezes says in a profile from 2024. “Iowa became known as the center of excellence for this. We were describing the problem and designing the solution.”

Throughout his career, he was contacted by neurosurgery colleagues from across the country and around the globe for his insight and expertise, and he taught and mentored dozens of neurosurgery trainees. He received numerous awards for his work, including the Franc D. Ingraham Award for Distinguished Service and Achievement, the highest honor given by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and its Congress of Neurological Surgeons Section on Pediatric Neurological Surgery.

Menezes stopped performing surgeries in recent years but continued to participate in clinical work, writing, and teaching and mentoring neurosurgery trainees.  

Menezes’ obituary is available online.  

To learn more about Menezes, read this American Medical Association profile on Menezes from December 2024.