Dr. Khatib’s Introduction
Dr. Reza Khatib has had a remarkable career that reflects his life-long commitments to medicine and to rendering community service to people of all faiths. As an internationally renowned neurosurgeon, his clinical accomplishments have been responsible for major breakthroughs in diagnosis and treatment for neurological oncology, intracranial aneurysms, skull-based tumor surgery, spine, and spinal cord surgery.
From the beginning of his career Reza was profoundly saddened and professionally frustrated by the plight of patients and their families suffering from glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a devastating form of brain cancer for which a cure is yet to be found.
His life’s work was to become the search for a GBM cure, and he undertook his commitment to medicine from a very early age He recalls that when only ten years of age, in Mashhad, he admired a very popular public official and security officer who in the line of duty sustained a head injury, and succumbed within a few hours. The autopsy revealed an epidural hematoma, and Reza learned soon after that a neurosurgeon would have been able to save the official’s life. It was at that moment that his commitment to medicine began.
Reza finished his initial training at Tehran Medical School in 1956 and came to the United States in 1958. A one year internship at Harlem Hospital (New York City) was followed by one year residency in pathology at Barnet Memorial Hospital (Paterson, New Jersey), followed in turn by a one year neurological residency at Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital (Brooklyn, New York).
Georgianna Clifford Khatib
Georgianna and Reza enjoyed a loving marriage together for 57 years. “Georgie" was a graduate of St. Joseph’s College. As a special educator, Georgie enjoyed a successful teaching career before accepting a promotion to the principal for all five of New York City’s borough schools for the language and hearing impaired.
The Khatib philanthropic achievements both here and in Iran have become well known, and over many happy married years together, Georgie always encouraged and shared her husband’s altruistic spirit and personal energy. Their team efforts to bring people together have included projects for the study of comparative religions at two American universities. And the good doctor’s clinic for the indigent and the first hospice in Mashhad also carry Georgie’s mark. (Read more about these achievements elsewhere on this site)
Dr. Khatib in New York.
Origins of the Khatib Foundation
It was in Brooklyn that Reza first met Dr. Abraham Rabiner, Chief of Neurology, who introduced him to Dr. Jefferson Browder and Dr. Al Cook, serving as Chairman of Neurosurgery at Downstate Medical School and Kings County hospital, where Reza began a five year neurosurgical residency. Beginning in his first year of his residency.
It was also during that first resident year that Reza met Dr. Andy Parsa at Downstate Medical School, and then involved in GBM research at Columbia University.
Dr. Parsa Impressed Reza from the first day they met with his intelligence and the energy he devoted to his research, and it was at that time that Reza decided to assist Dr. Parsa financially during his residency and activities at Columbia University, University of California in San Francisco and The Northwestern University. The result of their association endures as the Khatib/Parsa Endowed Chair for Treatment of Skull-Based Tumors at the University of California, San Francisco.
The late Dr. Parza is survived by his wife, Dr. Charlotte Shum, associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Dr. Shum also serves as a Trustee to the Dr. Reza Khatib Foundation.