Adjunct Professor
Director, Neurosurgery Resident Research
Areas of Interest
spinal disorders, spinal cord injury, brain injury, glioma
Dr. Walters is a neurosurgeon and clinical epidemiologist who is retired from a full time clinical practice in general neurosurgery, focusing on spine, brachial plexus, and peripheral nerve, to pursue her interest in applied evidence-based medicine. She is an Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery and Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Visiting Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. She also holds the position of Director of Clinical Research in the Department of Neurosciences at Inova Hospital System in Virginia, and is a Professor of Neuroscience and a Research Professor of Pharmacy and Outcomes Science at Virginia Commonwealth University – Inova Campus, and an Affiliate Professor of Molecular Neurosciences at George Mason University. Previously, she held academic appointments that included Clinical Professor of Neurological Surgery at New York University School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, and was also Director of Outcomes Research in the Department of Neurosurgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She was formerly an Associate Professor and the Neurosurgery Residency Program Director at Brown University School of Medicine. Her experience in clinical research involves the design and implementation of randomized controlled trials, case-control studies, and meta-analyses, and she has written extensively on study design and assessment of the quality of medical literature, including being the author/co-author of eighteen monographs on critical appraisal, as well as editorials and book chapters on statistical aspects of neurosurgical research. She has extensive experience in survey methodology and has developed a statistical technique for use in generating evidence for use in algorithms when randomized controlled trials cannot be done. She has been a lecturer, tutor, and course designer for several educational programs on critical appraisal of the medical literature for practicing clinicians, graduate students, postgraduate trainees, and medical students. She is the co-editor of the neurosurgical textbook, Evidence-based Neurosurgery.
For many years, Dr. Walters was the chairperson of the Practice Guidelines Committee of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, a member of the Outcomes Committee of the AANS/CNS, and a member of the Committee for the Assessment of Quality of the AANS/CNS. Her guidelines activities have included the development of the Guidelines for the Management of Severe Head Injury, the Guidelines for Prehospital Management of Traumatic Brain Injury, Guidelines for the Surgical Management of Traumatic Brain Injury, Guidelines for Penetrating Brain Injury, Acute Spinal Cord Injury Guidelines, Guidelines for the Treatment of Low Grade Gliomas, Guidelines for the Management of the Neurobehavioral Consequences of Traumatic Brain Injury and the Lumbar Fusion Guidelines. Her work on the Spinal Cord Injury Guidelines was recognized by the United States Congress for its achievement. She was also honored by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons for her guideline work with their Exceptional and Distinguished Service Award. She was the 2011 recipient of the Anthony Marmarou Lectureship in Neurotrauma at the CNS, and the first recipient of the Haines Family Lectureship in Neurosurgery Clinical Research at the University of Minnesota in 2012. She gives courses on guideline development, and writes frequently on outcome measurement for neurosurgeons. In addition, she has been involved with research on women in medicine and surgery, including undergraduate medical education, and is author or co-author of several publications on this topic, including the Annotated Bibliography of Women in Medicine.
Drs. Mark N. Hadley, Beverly C. Walters, and other faculty members within the UAB Division of Neurosurgery have published multiple compilations of medical evidence-based guidelines for neurosurgical disorders. The guidelines were developed with the support of the Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
Education
Medical School
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Graduate School
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
M.Sc.
Internship
The University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Residency
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Fellowships
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Contact
Campus Address
FOT 1060
Patient Appointments and Questions
205-934-7170