UofT Neurosurgery Hits It Out of Central Park!
For the second year in a row, the Division of Neurosurgery
at UofT organized a team to take part in the 8th Annual
Neurosurgery Charity Softball Tournament in New York
City’s Central Park, June 4th, 2011. This Tournament,
supported by the New York Yankees, brought together
22 neurosurgical teams from across the continent. Some
of the notable programs included: Johns Hopkins,
Emory University, Columbia, Harvard, University
of Pennsylvannia, Penn State, and the University of
Pittsburgh. The Division of Neurosurgery at UofT was
the only Canadian entry in the tournament.
In sharp contrast to the previous year when the UofT
team won only one game out of many starts, this year the
Toronto squad was successful at defeating Northwestern
University in Chicago, the University of Utah, and the
University of Colorado before losing to the Barrow
Neurological Institute, a phoenix team which went on
to win the entire tournament.
This year, the proceeds from the Tournament were used
to support the Neurosurgery Research and Education
Foundation (NREF) of the American Association of
Neurological Surgeons. The NREF has been pivotal at
supplying research fellowship funds to neurosurgery
residents. In fact, over the years, many neurosurgery
residents have applied for and received research awards
from the NREF including Betty Kim, Greg Hawryluk,
and Demitre Serletis.
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 UofT Neursosurgery Team
Figure Legend: Right to left kneeling: Dennis Izukawa (Trillium Neurosurgery),
Ossama Khan, Shobhan Vacchrajani, Carlo Santaguida, James Rutka, Sumit
Jhas, Mehdi Shahedi
Right to left standing: Chris Wallace, Greg Hawryluk, Ryan Alkins, DJ Cook, Julius
Ebinu, Scellig Stone, Brian Drake, Taufik Valiante, Emily Neilson (base coach).
This year’s neurosurgery team from Toronto was elated
with its relative success and progress since last year.
All the more so since baseball is not the national sport
or pasttime of Canada or Canadians. “Now if it were
only hockey, we would show our American colleagues a
thing or two!”, said DJ Cook, one of the players on the
UofT Team. The entire UofT Team would like to thank
Andres Lozano, Professor of Neurosurgery, and Dan
Family Chair for his support of the Tournament.
James Rutka
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