Dr. Martina Stippler is a national leader in traumatic brain injury research and medical education. She is the Vice-Chief of Neurosurgery and Director of Neurotrauma at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston. She holds an appointment as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Stippler leads the BIDMC multidisciplinary TBI committee, implementing programs to improve TBI care, from multimodality monitoring in severe TBI-injured patients to triage pathways for complicated mild TBI.

Dr. Stippler is a leader in neurosurgical medical education. In 2020, after completing a palliative care education and practice certificate program and a yearlong fellowship in Medical Education at Harvard Medical School Dr. Stippler focused on teaching residents and faculty skills for improving communication with patients and families experiencing severe injuries, including end-of-life and goals-of-care discussions. Her research has demonstrated a direct link between communication training, futile care, and moral injury/burnout in surgeons who provide emergency care. She also oversaw national initiatives to incorporate active teaching techniques in CME activities. Dr. Stippler has developed a national curriculum for neurotrauma care and is the Associate Program Director for the BMC/BIDMC neurosurgery residency program.

Dr. Stippler’s research interests are multi-modality TBI management, triage of mild TBI, and goal of care discussions in urgent settings. She has participated in many landmark TBI studies such as PROTECT, the RESCURE (acute SDH) trial, and BOOST III.

Dr. Stippler is an engaged leader with several national professional societies. She has been a member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) Executive Committee since 2016 and is the first woman to hold the position of Secretary of the Congress. As Chair of the CNS Foundation, she established and secured funding to improve diversity in neurosurgery, overcome disparities in neurosurgery, and provide training opportunities for international neurosurgeons. She is also one of the past presidents of Women in Neurosurgery, and she is the chair of the AANS/ CNS Section of Neurotrauma and Critical Care.

Dr. Stippler completed her neurosurgery residency program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where she also completed a master’s degree in clinical research. She maintains a busy complex trauma, spine, and endoscopic anterior skull base practice.