Mark Dexter

B.Sc(Med)(Hons), M.B.B.S. (Hons 1), FRACS

Job Title

• VMO - Paediatric Neurosurgery - Children's Hospital at Westmead
• VMO - Neurosurgery - Paediatric Epilepsy Surgery - Sydney Children's Hospital
• VMO - Neurosurgery - Westmead Adult Hospital
• VMO - Neurosurgery - Westmead Private Hospital
• Head Department of Neurosurgery - Westmead Adult Hospital
• Area Director of Neurosurgery - Sydney West Area Health Service

Professional background

Mark graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in medicine and surgery. His early postgraduate surgical training was at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. He then went on to complete his Australian neurosurgical training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Royal North Shore Hospital and the Children's Hospital at Westmead. He then spent two years at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas as a fellow in Neurosurgery developing expertise in cerebrovascular and paediatric neurosurgery at the Dallas Children's Hospital.

Special interest

Cerebrovascular surgery - including management of arteriovenous malformations, aneurysms and occlusive cerebrovascular disease such as Moya-Moya disease in children.

Epilepsy surgery - for both children and adults - including temporal lobectomy, cortical resections, hemispherectomy and invasive epilepsy evaluations involving implantation of subdural grid electrodes.

Facial pain - surgery for trigeminal neuralgia - including microvascular decompression and motor cortex stimulation.

Brain tumours - for both children and adults - gliomas, astrocytocytomas, medulloblastomas, neurofibromatosis, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, metastases and skull base surgery

Surgery for spasticity - intrathecal baclofen pumps

General paediatric neurosurgery - hydrocephalus, craniofacial etc

Positions of responsibility

Mark is the Area Director of Neuosurgery for the Sydney West Area Health Service and is head of the neurosurgery department at Westmead Adult and Private hospitals. This involves the education and training of medical students, residents and registrars rotating through the neurosurgical service.

He is on the Medical Advisory Board of the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association.

He is involved with the three Children's hospitals collaborative epilepsy surgery program.

Mark is the neurosurgeon for the multi-disciplinary epilepsy service at the Children's hospital at Westmead(working with Dr Deepak Gill) and at the Westmead Adult Hospitals (working with Dr Andrew Bleasel). He performs baclofen pump surgery for the multi-disciplinary spasticity treatment program (working with Dr Scheinberg).

He is the Westmead representative on the Greater Metropolitan Clinical Taskforce for Neurosurgery. He is currently completing the modular statewide Clinical Leadership Program with the Clinical Excellence Commission.

He is the 2008 invited speaker for Paediatric Neurosurgery at the Annual Meeting of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia.

Contact

Dr Mark A.J. DEXTER
Neurological Surgery for Adults & Children
Suite 8 Westmead Private Hospital
Cnr Mons and Darcy Rds
Westmead NSW 2145
Australia

Phone 61 2 9633 1900
Fax 61 2 9633 1917