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Inactive Member

Elected: 1994

John J. Oró was born on September 28, 1950 in Lerida, Spain. He moved to the United States with his family in 1958 and settled in Houston, Texas. He received his undergraduate education at the University of Houston and his Doctorate in Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. His post graduate education was a surgical internship at the University of Texas and A neurosurgical residency under Dr. Clark Watts at the University of Missouri Health Sciences Center in Columbia, Missouri. After completion of his residency, Dr. Oró received an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Missouri Health Sciences Center where he developed special interests in spinal surgery and surgery of the skull base. In January, 1988, he was appointed Acting Chief of Neurosurgery and in September was promoted to Associate Professor. He became Director of the Neurosurgery Residency Training Program in 1990 and became Chief of Neurosurgery in April, 1991. He became Professor of Neurosurgery in July 1999.

As Chief, Dr. Oró has focused on the treatment of neurospinal disease, cerebrovascular disease, neuro-oncology and skull base surgery. He is director of the Walter E. Dandy Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit. In 2000, he extended the University neurosurgical service to Columbia Regional Hospital where he established a surgical program and clinics for the evaluation of patients with the Chiari malformation and brain tumors.

Dr. Oró's research interests have been in the electrophysiology of the spinal cord and spinal cord injury. His laboratory has published basic research in the field including studies on the effects of shock, temperature, hypoxia and ischemia on the somatosensory and motor evoked potentials; the affect of agents on graded spinal compression and on the effects of transcranial motor stimulation in humans. Currently Dr. Oró is performing a large prospective study on the presentation, treatment and outcome of patients with the Chiari malformation. He is also an investigator in Missouri Model Spinal Cord Injury System and on "A 12-Week Multicenter Randomized Double Blind Placebo Controlled Preliminary Study to Determine the Efficacy and Safety of Donepezil and Hydrochloride in Patients with Persistent Mild to Moderate Memory Impairment Resulting from a Single Closed Head Injury."

Dr. Oró is investigating access to medical knowledge. This has led to pioneering efforts in the use of the Internet in neurosurgery. In 1994 he launched the award winning NeuroSource Internet directory which facilitated access to hundreds of neurological and neurosurgical sites. He also developed a proposal called "Neurosurgery Online: A Proposal for a National Neurosurgical Online Service" which was presented at the Missouri State Neurosurgical Society Annual Meeting and as the Fourteenth Annual J.J. Keegan Lecture at the Iowa Mid-West Neurosurgical Society meeting in 1994. Later that year he served in the newly established AANS & CNS Joint Computer Task Force where the proposal became part of the plans resulting in the development of the NEUROSURGERY://ON-CALL® (N://OC®) web site. He served as the third editor of N://OC® from 1997-1999 and directed the sites reorganization. During his editorship, the site received the World Class Web Site award. He then developed, and currently manages and edits, the award winning NeuroWorld® web site, one of the largest neuromedical directories on the Internet. He is also developing an online textbook of neurosurgery, the Hyperbook of Neurosurgery, which is freely accessible worldwide and can be accessed from any clinic, ward, or operating room with Internet access. He frequently lectures and writes on the use of the Internet in medicine and neurosurgery.

In 2000 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the AANS and heads the Division of Communications for the AANS. Among his service activities, Dr. Oró was a founding member of the Columbia Independent School established in 1996 and served on the Board of Trustees of the school until 1999.

Dr. Oró and his wife Suzanne, have four sons: 18 year old John, 16 year old Ryan, 11-year-old Michael, and one-year-old Alex.