NASS DFNS CLASS OF 2026
Chris Summa, MD, MBA
Palo Alto Medical Foundation
Santa Cruz, CA
Orthopedic Surgeon
NASS Member Since 2003
What is your favorite memory from a NASS Annual Meeting or other event?
My favorite memory from a NASS Annual Meeting is from the 2016 meeting where Dr. Michio Kaku was the guest speaker. The journey he took us on, from bedside MRI to recording dreams to sending our essence on the tip of a laser to distant galaxies, has stayed with me and has been the fodder for innumerable conversations. I look forward to seeing at least some of these ideas come to fruition in my lifetime!
What skills do you believe are most important for today's spine professionals to develop?
Along with the necessary skills of empathy, patience, introspection and the desire to continually improve, keeping up with the explosive expansion in technology will be absolutely necessary. This expansion in technology is wide reaching and involves many facets that were not present at the beginning of my career. Social media has become a powerful portal to educate our population as a whole as well as our individual patients and their needs. Intraoperative technology is evolving rapidly and will provide improved outcomes, though it will require the development of new skills in order to be utilized safely and efficiently. Most recently, we are now witnessing the beginning of the integration of AI in documentation, surgical planning, and patient education which will certainly affect all aspects of our practice. Learning how to harness all of these tools and remaining diligent as they mature will be critical to lead the charge for continually improving the outcomes for our patients.
What originally drew you to the field of spine care?
Very early in my medical education, I had the opportunity to see the spine through an amazing Neurosurgery mentor who focused on engineering/mechanical principles as the foundation for treating the spine, which resonated with my engineering background. I then moved through my Orthopedic residency where I was exposed to adolescent scoliosis patients with their complex deformities, obvious postural challenges and self-consciousness. Routinely, following their extensive reconstructive surgeries, they would bloom with improved self-esteem and excitement. These experiences showed me that despite the complexity of the spine and spine patients, with thoughtful planning and an appreciation of biomechanics and the human body’s ability to heal, we could achieve amazing improvements in not only pain and function but also the psychosocial aspect of our patients.