Neurosurgery, Health Policy, and the Free Market: A Conversation with Richard Menger

Can a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School hold on to free market principles? Evidently so! We talk health policy and economics with our guest Richard Menger, MD, MPA, a neurosurgeon serving as Chief of Complex Spine Surgery at the University of South Alabama.

Dr. Menger completed medical school with honors at Georgetown University School of Medicine where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and received the Barbara Bregman PhD Award. He then trained at Louisiana State University Shreveport and at Columbia University for a fellowship in scoliosis treatment. At the Harvard Kennedy School of Government he completed a Master in Public Administration and was awarded the Hale Champion Public Service Fellowship.

Dr. Menger has authored numerous scientific papers in academic journals and is the lead editor of the textbook The Business, Policy, and Economics of Neurosurgery. His op-ed/policy work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Navy Times, The Hill and others. He has a joint appointment as Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Alabama.