Dr. Allan Hamilton ~ Biography
Allan Hamilton started his working life as a janitor. He would eventually go on to graduate from Harvard Medical School and complete his neurosurgical residency training at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Hamilton holds four professorships at the University of Arizona in Neurosurgery, Radiation Oncology, Psychology, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Hamilton is a decorated veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm. He was also the commanding officer assigned to lead a dangerous medical research expedition that was based for nearly two months at 16,000 feet under arctic conditions on Mt. McKinley.
Dr. Hamilton was recently awarded the title of Regents’ Professor by unanimous vote of the Arizona Board of Regents; it is the highest accolade the state can bestow upon an academician and is given to less than one percent of all eligible faculty. He has been chosen by his neurosurgical peers as “One of America’s Best Doctors” for the last nineteen consecutive years and selected as one of the top one hundred neurosurgeons in the United States. He has held positions as Chief of Neurosurgery, Chairman of the Department of Surgery, and is the Director of a multi-disciplinary medical simulation and innovation think-tank at the Arizona Health Sciences Center. He has authored more than twenty medical textbook chapters, seventy peer-review research articles. Dr. Hamilton has been decorated by the Republic of France for his scientific discoveries in neurosurgery and the Republic of Gabon for his philanthropic work over the last 25 years in Africa.
Dr. Hamilton has written three non-fiction books: The Scalpel and the Soul in 2008, Zen Mind, Zen Horse—The Science and Spirituality of Training Horses in 2011. His most recent book, Lead With Your Heart—Lessons from a Life With Horses (2017) is a collection of 112 essays on leadership, spirituality, and transformation and received the Nautilus God Award for nonfiction, the Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal, and the Independent Book Publishers (“IPPY’) award. His books have been translated into several languages. He is currently working on a fourth book on the human brain.
He has been the subject of two award-winning documentaries and has been featured on the NBC “Today” Show, ABC News, CNN, and PBS. He is a frequent guest on NPR. For the last several years Dr. Hamilton has served as medical script consultant on more than three hundred episodes of the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy. Look for a stellar performance where Dr. Hamilton plays—of all things—a surgeon. A show-stopper for sure!!
