Executive Director
Chairman and Founder
Nabeel S. Alshafai MD FRCSC FEANS FAANS ABNS(Eligible)
A/Professor Nabeel S. Alshafai is the founder and chairman of the Nabeel Alshafai Neurospine Centre which was established in 2020 in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The project is a dream to bring the highest quality Neurosurgery to the middle east specifically in the GCC to serve the local population starting with the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A/Professor Alshafai graduated from King Faisal University Medical School, with the third highest score in his class. Following his graduation, he immediately joined neurosurgical residency training at the University of Toronto in Canada under the supervision of Professors Jim Rutka, Chris Wallace and Charles Tator. He then did a travelling fellowship year in Europe at reputable centres while visiting professor’s J Schramm (Bonn, Germany), J. Hernesniemi (Helsinki, Finland) and U. Ture (Istanbul, Turkey). During his training in Toronto, he was involved in elective rotations in skull-base surgery under the supervision of professors Fred Gentili and Michael Cusimano. He passed three neurosurgery board exams 2012/2013: The Canadian Royal College of Surgeons (FRCSC), The European Board of Neurological Surgery (EBNS) and The American part one Board of Neurological Surgery exams (ABNS). Then he did a complex spine fellowship year under the supervision of Prof. Michael Fehlings at the Toronto Western Hospital. Nabeel’s experience with exams made him passionate and determined to create a review course for his colleagues which would make it easier to collect, study, and synthesize knowledge relevant to neurosurgical practice and board exams. In 2013 he established the Comprehensive Clinical Neurosurgery Review (www.ccnreview.com) which has become one of the main neurosurgical events world wide. This was followed by further state of the art annual courses world wide ,but mainly held in Europe. He consequently, founded The Alshafai Academy which is a Canadian non for profit organization (www.alshafaiacademy.org) head quartered in Toronto city. This academy runs a number of educational annual training courses and publishes leading research projects in esteemed international neurosurgical journals. A/Professor Alshafai’s research interests are in spine injuries, innovation in cranio-cervical junction surgical approaches, brain concussion and innovation in neurosurgical training.
In early 2015, he was recruited from Canada as a consultant neurosurgeon and spine surgeon at The Antwerpen University Hospital in Belgium. He was an Assistant Professor at the University and the Residency Training Program Director at the Hospital. In October 2015 he was elected to be the new Chair of Post-graduate Educational Commitee for the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies EANS (www.EANS.org). He has become an examiner for the European Board of Neurological Surgery (EBNS) and is a member of the International committee representing the EANS. In 2017, A/Professor Alshafai was recruited to his home country, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He took the challenge and founded the first department of Neurosurgery at the Royal Commission Hospital in Jubail Industrial City. The department has been able to grow exponentially and perform complex cranial and spinal surgeries since 2018 with more than 200 cases in a short time. In 2020, the department of Neurosurgery will have eight members in neurosurgeons and a fully equipped, modern neurosurgical operating theatre.
