About Prof. Dr. Andrew J. Fishman

Dr. Andrew J. Fishman is an Otologist/Neurotologist & Cranial Base

Surgeon.  He was recruited as Director of Neurotology & Cranial

Base Surgery and Director of the Cochlear Implant Program at

Neurosciences Department of the Northwesern Regional Medical

Group Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield Illinois, USA. in January

2013.  The program features an elite team of clinicians recruited

nationwide from major academic institutions including University of

Iowa, Loyola, Northwestern University and Brown.  These physicians

also partner with the CDH Cancer Center and Procure Center in

Warrenville Illinois, and Northwestern Medicine at Delnor Hospital in

Geneva Illinois, providing comprehensive and multidisciplinary care

for a broad range of conditions.

 

Dr. Fishman has been recently awarded a prestigious research grant from the NIH (National Institute of Health) to study the effects of infrared light stimulation on the neural system of the inner ear.  The project plan hopes to enhance the ability to develop high resolution neural prostheses.  His preliminary work and progress has been published in the Journal SPIE, the official journal of the International Society for Optics and Photonics.  This grant is a culmination of his close research collaboration with Professor Claus Peter Richter of Northwestern University School of Medicine.

 

In  2014, Dr. Fishman was awarded the prestigious endowment of the Douglas L. Johnson Chair of Neurosciences.  Funding provided, established a comprehensive 3D technology enabled Cranial Base Surgical Laboratory for training surgeons in advanced cranial surgical procedures. Prior to joining the Northwestern Medicine Regional Medical Group, Dr. Fishman served as Associate Professor of Otolaryngology and Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University School of Medicine.  There he collaborated with the biomedical engineering department and performed important clinical and laboratory research culminating in the first reported stimulation of the human inner ear with a unique LASER implant.  There he performed numerous clinical trials including the placement of a unique cochlear implant designed to preserve the remaining hearing in partially deafened patients.

 

He received his Board Certification in Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery in 1997 and completed a fellowship in Neurotology and Cranial Base Surgeon at New York University in 1998 under the mentorship of Noel Cohen, M.D. He then went on to join the faculty there, where he supervised the surgical component of the Cochlear Implant Program for the Manhattan Veterans Affairs Hospital, and served as the Medical Director of the Vestibular Unit at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation. At NYU, he performed pivotal laboratory and clinical research, which ultimately lead to the development of one of the cochlear implant electrodes currently in use today. 

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In 2005, he went on a yearlong medical mission to South India, where he developed a Cranial Base Surgery and Cochlear Implant Program at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (Kochi, Kerala). 

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In 2007 Dr. Fishman was granted the honorary appointment of International Professor at the Nicolas Copernicus University of Medicine in Bydgoszcz, Poland for his work in that country over the past 15 years.  This work led to the establishment of a Cochlear Implant Program at the Children’s Hospital in Bydgoszcz, Northern Poland.  And in 2012, he continued his work in Poland to develop a program for treating complex Head & Neck tumors as well as computer image guidance techniques for advanced Endoscopic Sinus and Skull Base Surgery at the NATO Military Hospital.  He also continued his work with the Children’s Hospital concentrating on the development of techniques to reconstruct congenital ear malformations as well as the reconstruction of facial movement.  

 

He has consulted with the United States Navy at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, where he is called to perform cranial base surgeries to remove acoustic neuromas and other tumors, as well as the placement of Cochlear Implants in children with inner ear abnormalities.

 

In 2018 , Dr. Fishman was granted an adjunct academic appointment to the University of Missouri Medical Center for his work training surgeons in advanced procedures utilizing 3D surgical video technology.

 

He has produced numerous publications of original research and clinical reviews, as well as authored textbook chapters and articles in both the English and Polish languages. His published areas of expertise encompass cochlear implants in both children and adults, auditory brainstem implants, management of acoustic neuromas, meningiomas, neurofibromatosis, congenital inner ear abnormalities, stapes replacement surgery, facial nerve surgery, and surgery for infections of the middle ear and mastoid including a technique which he developed for “total tympanic membrane reconstruction (TTMR)”