Wade S. Smith, MD,PhD
Director, UCSF Neurovascular Service
Daryl R. Gress Endowed Chair of Neurocritical Care and Stroke

Dr. Smith is director of the UCSF Neurovascular Service. Dr. Smith received his MD from the University of Washington and his PhD in neurophysiology at the same institution in 1989. He came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989 for residency training in the Department of Neurology and later completed a critical care medicine fellowship in 1994. He helped establish the service with Dr. Daryl Gress, by creating the UCSF Stroke Service and later assumed the Directorship in 2002.

Dr. Smith is a neurointensivist: a neurologist trained in both Critical Care and Neurology. He directs the UCSF Neurological Intensive Care unit, a 20 bed ICU dedicated to the care and resuscitation of patients with neurological injury. The majority of patients treated at UCSF have diseases of the brain's arteries or veins, including stroke and cerebral aneurysm. Dr. Smith and his colleagues believe that a patient with a neurological problem significant enough to require intensive care deserves treatment by a neurointensivist.

Dr. Smith is also expert in stroke and transient ischemic attack and sees patients as well in the outpatient clinic. Many of the patients he evaluates are patients seen for second or third opinion, but he also sees patients on primary referral.

Dr. Smith's research interests include

• CT, CT angiography and CT perfusion imaging of the brain
• Cerebral aneurysm and subarchnoid hemorrhage, including the treatment of cerebral aneurysm, method of treating (clipping vs. coiling), and establishing centers of excellence for aneurysm treatment
• Reperfusion techniques in ischemic stroke, including thrombectomy
• Neuroprotective agents

List of Dr. Smith's Publications

©2006 UCSF Neurovascular Service