Ayub Khan Ommaya

Ayub Khan Ommaya (born April 14, 1930 in Rawalpindi , † July 10, 2008 in Islamabad ) was a Pakistani neurosurgeon . He invented the Ommaya reservoir named after him .

Life

Ommaya studied medicine at King Edward Medical College in Pakistan until 1953 , where he received his MD . He then studied physiology, psychology and biochemistry at Balliol College at Oxford University with a Rhodes scholarship until 1956 . He finished his studies with a master’s degree. From 1960 to 1980 he worked at the National Institutes of Health , where he was head of neurosurgery from 1974 to 1979. From 1980 to 1985 he was also Chief Medical Advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . From 1980 to 2001 he was a professor at George Washington University . His most important invention, the Ommaya reservoir , a catheter system used , among other things, for chemotherapy of brain tumors , which is implanted in the ventricular system of the brain , was made in 1963.

Ommaya was known as the "singing neurosurgeon". The trained opera tenor often sang before and after operations to the delight of his patients.

In 2001, Ommaya retired. He died in 2008 of complications from Alzheimer's disease .