Michael Murphy is Director of Neurosurgery at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne Australia, a position he has held for 15 years. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Melbourne.

After graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1983, he completed his Neurosurgical training in Australia before undertaking further specialist postgraduate training in the UK and USA. He worked as a Senior Registrar at The Royal London Hospital, UK, before going to the USA, where he worked as a Chief Resident at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, which has one of the largest Neurosurgical Departments in the USA. He then completed a Cerebrovascular Fellowship at the South Western Medical Centre, University of Texas, in Dallas, Texas.

A minimally invasive approach is seen as integral to his Neurosurgical practice, as is a multidisciplinary team approach to complex conditions. He is involved in several multidisciplinary clinics for the management of tumours, neurovascular conditions, and epilepsy surgery and is one of the leading surgeons for “awake” craniotomies for epilepsy and tumour surgery in Australia, thereby reducing the risk of complications, and potentially increasing the extent of lesion resection.

Continued research and education are two factors which are very important to him. Michael Murphy has been a previous Supervisor of Neurosurgical Training at St Vincent’s Hospital and examiner of medical students at the University of Melbourne. He is a founder member of the Victorian Brain and Spine Centre set up to provide acute and elective neurosurgical care from St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne Campus.