UChicago Medicine this week pulled off a major shakeup in Chicago’s neurosurgery scene, bringing on four senior brain and spine surgeons at once as part of a broader plan to expand complex care across its system. The moves align with department chair Mohamad Bydon’s push to grow subspecialty programs and take on more complicated referrals, and hospital leaders say the new additions will boost capacity for tumor, vascular, trauma and pediatric cases.
According to Crain's Chicago Business, the new hires are Youssef Comair, MD, who has been tapped as section chief of neuro-oncology; Timothy Witham, MD, stepping in as section chief of spine surgery; P.B. Raksin, MD, focusing on neurotrauma and neurocritical care; and Ryan Naylor, MD, PhD, who will handle vascular and endovascular work. Crain's also highlighted the group in a photo with Bydon on the Hyde Park campus.
As UChicago Medicine has detailed, Bydon was named the inaugural chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery in 2025 and has led an aggressive recruiting drive that has added roughly eight faculty members since he arrived. The department, which was spun out as a standalone unit in 2021, now has about 18 neurosurgeons and is building out subspecialty programs designed to position the hospital as a referral hub for the most complex cases.
New surgeons bring national pedigrees
Becker's Spine Review reports that Comair comes to Chicago with prior academic leadership roles at Johns Hopkins, UCLA and Baylor, along with extensive experience in awake craniotomy and pediatric epilepsy surgery. Naylor arrives from the Mayo Clinic with a focus on neurovascular and endovascular procedures. Witham brings a background in robotic and minimally invasive spine surgery, while Raksin adds trauma and neurocritical care expertise developed at Rush University.
New tools and programs
The health system has also invested in new hardware to match its growing roster. A hospital press release republished by Newswise notes that UChicago Medicine recently launched an advanced robotic spine program and installed a state-of-the-art intraoperative MRI, or iMRI, suite that provides live imaging during complex procedures. Hospital materials indicate the iMRI is positioned between two operating rooms in the Center for Care and Discovery and can trim an hour or more off the longest surgeries, which officials say can improve both safety and throughput.
What this means for Chicago patients
UChicago’s neurosurgery services are spread across its Hyde Park flagship along with affiliated hospitals and clinics, and administrators say the new hires and technology are intended to keep more patients in the region for high-level care instead of transferring them elsewhere, according to the department’s information page at UChicago Neurosurgery. The system says that could mean shorter waits for specialty consults and more access to complex procedures and clinical trials for patients throughout Chicagoland.
Taken together, the latest appointments are being cast as another key step in a multi-year buildout under Bydon that aims to make UChicago a national destination for difficult neurosurgical cases. Hospital officials say patients with advanced tumor, spinal or vascular disease should see broader access to subspecialty care and clinical trials in the coming months.
