Mark Norman Hadley, M.D., FACS, was born in 1956 and raised in Napa, California. In high school, he was active in sports, scholastics and student government. During his senior year, he served as student body president, class salutatorian and was nationally ranked in the boy’s mile and half-mile runs. 

In 1974, Hadley accepted a four year academic-athletic scholarship to run track at Stanford University, where he graduated as a four year varsity letterman with a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1978.

Hadley began his medical education in upstate New York at Albany Medical College in the summer of 1978, where he was profoundly influenced by Professor of Surgery and Neurosurgery A. John Popp, M.D. He received his medical degree in 1982.

Hadley completed his general surgery internship at the University of California under F. William Blaisdale, M.D., and began his post-graduate neurosurgical training in 1983 at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, AZ, under mentors Robert F. Spetzler, M.D., Volker K.H. Sonntag, M.D., Andrew E. Shetter, M.D., John R. Green, M.D., and others.

Upon completing his neurosurgical training in 1988, Hadley served three years as a neurosurgeon in the United States Air Force before accepting the position of assistant professor of neurological surgery under Richard B. Morawetz, M.D., at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He was promoted to associate professor in 1993 and professor in 1997.

His main areas of clinical and scientific interest are disorders of the human spine and spinal cord and he has been actively involved in medical student, resident and fellow education throughout his career at UAB.

Hadley served as the director of the Neurosurgery Residency Training Program from 2001 to 2018 and the director of the Neurosurgical Spinal Surgery Fellowship program from 1995 to 2008. He has served as the medical director of an active regional Think First Injury Prevention Program and as team physician to the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham athletic programs.

In 2005, Hadley was honored by his patients with the Charles A. and Patsy W. Collat Endowed Chair in Neurological Surgery. He has been named by Castle and Connelly as a “Best Doctor in America” consecutively since 2001. Hadley has also been recognized as a neurosurgeon in the “Top 1% in Specialty in the United States” by U.S. News and World Report.

In 2008, Hadley helped create and teach the MedID program in the UAB Collat School of Business, and he currently teaches Collat undergraduate business students in the fall semester each year in medical economics and medical industrial distribution.

In 2014, Hadley was appointed to the UAB Collat School of Business faculty, becoming one of only a few members of the University of Alabama System to be appointed to two different schools of academia on the same campus.

In 2023, Hadley was awarded the prestigious distinction of University Professor of the University of Alabama System for his more than 30 years of teaching and mentorship of undergraduate, nursing, medical and graduate students in the Collat School of Business and Heersink School of medicine, as well as residents and fellows in the Department of Neurosurgery.

Hadley has authored more than 200 scientific articles and chapters in medical textbooks and authored or edited several compilations in various neurosurgical journals. Hadley has performed laboratory research on spinal cord injury, spinal cord perfusion and on genetically engineered rhBMP devices on bone healing and spinal fusion. He has also is the recipient of two Department of Defense grants, totaling nearly $4 million.

Throughout his career, Hadley has been a visiting professor at major universities around the U.S. and has received a variety of prestigious honors. He has been active in organized neurosurgery since his residency training, serving in multiple executive roles.

Hadley, a busy clinical neurosurgeon caring for patients with spinal cord or spinal column pathology, remains committed to excellence in patient care and post-treatment outcomes, and the education of undergraduate students, medical students, resident trainees and faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Education

Medical School
Albany Medical College

Internship
University of California

Residency
Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, Arizona

Contact

Campus Address
FOT 1030

Patient Appointments and Questions
205-934-7170

Email
mnhadley@uabmc.edu