Dr. Jorge A. Lazareff is an associate professor and director of pediatric neurosurgery at Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. He also serves as co-director of the hospital's pediatric brain tumor program.

In addition to treating hundreds of children each year at the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, he also volunteers his expertise to help children in other countries. Since February 2001, Dr. Lazareff has volunteered his medical expertise to help children both in Romania through the Romania Outreach to Christ's Kids (ROCK) Foundation, and more recently in Guatemala with the Healing The Children Foundation.

Dr. Lazareff hopes that by helping children in Central America, he can bring international attention to the devastating effects brought on by diseases of the central nervous system in developing nations. He is motivated by the fact that the Institute of Medicine reported last year that neurological disorders accounted for 15 percent of the total disease burden in the world's poorest nations, with less than 1 percent of global health funding going toward these often treatable maladies. Instead, the majority of medical funding in developing nations goes to combat infectious diseases.

Dr. Lazareff believes that the work doesn't stop once the surgery is complete, but it continues with educating the poor on how living conditions and nutrition can affect neurological diseases. He believes in enabling people by working with them one patient at a time.

A native of Argentina, Lazareff received his medical degree from Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aries and completed his residency in the same city. Before joining UCLA in 1993, he chaired the Department of Neurosurgery at Hospital Infantil De Mexico Dr. Federico Gomez. He is married with two children.

For more information, click here:
http://www.neurosurgery.medsch.ucla.edu/Faculty/Lazareff/Faculty_Lazareff.html