Roger D. Smith, MD

Dr. Smith attended USC School of Medicine and interned at Los Angeles County Hospital.  After serving with the Marine Corps and Navy in Vietnam, he finished a one-year general surgery residency at Tulane and a five-year neurosurgical residency at Barrow Neurological Institute.  During and after residency, two years were spent in Zurich and London studying cerebrovascular disease and microsurgery.  He was a full-time faculty with the LSU Department of Neurosurgery for 14 years and part-time faculty and in private practice for eight years before joining Ochsner in 2001.  He has served as Chairman of Neurosurgery at Ochsner and Tulane and has been Program Director for the combined Tulane/Ochsner Department of Neurosurgery and neurosurgical training program.  He has also served as President of the Louisiana Neurosurgical Society, the Orleans Parish Medical Society, and the Louisiana State Medical Society. 

His clinical interests are primarily in cranial and functional neurosurgery.  He treats cerebrovascular diseases such as aneurysm and vascular malformations, brain tumors, both benign and malignant, pituitary tumors. He performs Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders through Ochsner’s Movement Disorders Center.  He is experienced in managing trigeminal neuralgia and other pain syndromes.  He remains deeply involved in medical education and residency training and in health care system reform.