Assoc. Prof. Dr. TAHSİN ALİ ZIRH

Dr. Ali Zırh was born on October 8, 1960, in Ankara, Turkey. He completed his primary and secondary education in Ankara and graduated as a Medical Doctor from Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine in 1983.

Between 1983 and 1985, he fulfilled his mandatory government service in Gaziantep. He began his neurosurgery residency in 1988 at Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery. During his training, he attended numerous international courses and observerships, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, UK (The British Council, 1990); Warnemünde, Germany (1989); Zaragoza, Spain (1991); Jerusalem, Israel (1992); Bruges, Belgium (1993, European Association of Neurosurgical Societies, EANS); and Antalya, Turkey (1994, World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies, WFNS). He also participated in clinical programs at Glasgow Institute of Neurological Sciences (1990); Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pittsburgh (1992); Department of Neurosurgery, University of Virginia (1992); Department of Neurosurgery, University of Washington (1992); Division of Neurosurgery, Toronto Western Hospital (1994); and Department of Neurosurgery, The Johns Hopkins Hospital (1994). Dr. Zırh became a neurosurgery specialist in February 1994 and completed a master’s in Neurophysiology at Marmara University Institute of Health Sciences in March 1994.

In September 1994, he completed the fifth EANS training course in İzmir, passed the exams, and obtained the EANS diploma, and also passed the European Board of Neurosurgery Primary Examination the same year. He began his neurosurgery residency in 1988 at Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery. In 1997, Dr. Zırh returned from the United States and began working at VKV American Hospital, performing functional neurosurgery procedures, including microelectrode recording and stimulation at the single-cell level, as well as deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgeries, techniques available at only a few centers worldwide. From January 2009, he continued these interventions at Medicalpark Bahçelievler Hospital, allowing patients covered by the Turkish Social Security Institution to access these procedures.

Since January 2015, he has continued surgical interventions at Medipol Mega University Hospital, and since September 2018, he has been examining patients at the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center (PARMER) at Medipol University. With over 31 years of clinical and surgical experience in functional neurosurgery, Dr. Zırh has successfully performed more than 1,700 surgeries for Parkinson’s and other movement disorders and over 1,200 deep brain stimulation (DBS) implants. These achievements have established him as the leading figure in movement disorder surgery in Turkey and positioned his center as an international training and reference center. Dr. Zırh has an extensive academic record, including numerous publications in international journals, eight book chapters, and more than 150 congress presentations.