The Twisting Path

Allan Hamilton was born in Queens, New York. He spent his childhood in New York City wondering why the only place he could find horses was in Central Park or why anyone owned a car when cabs always seem to go faster. He also was curious why Teddy Roosevelt, his childhood hero, was never at home when he visited at the family residence at Sagamore Hill. Turns out Teddy had died in 1919 but it took years before Allan was made aware of that sad fact.

Allan’s grandfather periodically whisked him away to Europe to expose him to the joys of reading books, riding horses, and pondering why monarchies went out of style.

Allan started off adulthood in confusion: he applied to a wide variety of colleges and found himself accepted in a music conservatory, a program in agricultural engineering, and fine arts painting program. Seeing that there were more naked ladies in the latter direction, Allan began trying to be an oil painter at Ithaca College.

One of the highlights of these “lost years” at Ithaca was signing up for more than two years of creative writing classes under the tutelage of Rod Serling, the great story-teller and producer behind the classic TV series, “The Twilight Zone.” Like anyone who could spin a yarn, Rod had a great ear as a listener. Rod also introduced his writing students to some of the “greats” in Science Fiction, including Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury.

Being a lackluster painter (all of his original oil paintings were given to his mother and have since just been mercifully lost), Allan would go on to land his first big job after graduation as a janitor (actually, assistant) at the First Presbyterian Church in Utica--a largely forgotten mill town lost in the heartland of Central New York State.”

Facinated by animal biology, Allan landed a part-time job mopping floors and disinfecting cages at a veterinary hospital being run by Dr. “Chip” Bliss in the outskirts of Utica where he was intrigued by surgical procedures. He took a job at Whitesboro Central High School, teaching eleventh and twelfth grade Honors English. He began attending Mohawk Valley Community College, starting to take pre-medical classes.

neuro surgery class During the summer of 1973, Allan met his future wife, Jane Fisher. They were married in 1975 and Allan finished his pre-medical studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. In 1977, they moved to Boston to attend graduate school. Jane would complete her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston College in 1981. Allan would get his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1982. He would complete his surgical internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 1983 and complete a year-long National Institutes of Health research fellowship under Dr. Peter Black.

In 1983, he would enter the Neurosurgical Residency Training Program at the MGH in 1983. Allan and Jane had two sons, Josh and Luke, while living in Boston. In June of 1990, the Hamilton family moved from Boston, MA to Tucson, AZ so he could live out West where it would be easier to own horses. He took a position teaching Neurosurgery at the University of Arizona, and the couple had a daughter, Tessa.

Devastating Injury Leads to Innovative Breakthroughs

Shortly after starting in Tucson, Allan was called up to Active Duty in November 1990 to serve with the 365th Evacuation Hospital in Operation Desert Storm. He ultimately returned home with a serious back injury that prevented him from returning to work until June of 1992. During that interval of lying on his back in a full-body cast and re-learning to walk, Allan developed new ideas about how to use computer, image-guided techniques to treat tumors in the body with high intensity radiosurgery. Tumors had been treated inside the skull with radiosurgery for more than three decades. Allan worked closely with a gifted crew of medical physicists, lead by Dr. Bruce Lulu, to become the first team in 1993 to treat human patients for cancerous tumors with radiosurgery outside of the head. In 1995, Allan and his team would be awarded the Bernard Cosman Award for Innovation in Neurosurgery. Later, that same year, Allan and the University of Arizona would become the first American recipients of the Lars Leksell Award from the European Society of Neurosurgery. It was awarded to the team in Tucson, Arizona by an international jury for a pioneering contribution in the field of Neurosurgery. Currently, several thousand patients have gone on to receive treatment for tumors on the spine and elsewhere outside the skull using Allan's principles and many of his designs which were awarded patents. In 1995, Allan went to help test dissolvable chemotherapy wafers that can be implanted teaching med students into areas in the brain where tumors were removed. These implants would help prevent any remnant cells from growing back. A major advantage of such so-called “intra-cavitary implants” is that patients do not suffer any of the usual side effects of chemotherapy such as nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, hair falling out, or bone marrow suppression.

Allan is a fully tenured Professor of Neurosurgery and also has appointments as a Professor in Radiation Oncology, Psychology, and Computer and Electrical Engineering at the University of Arizona. He has served as the Chief of Neurosurgery from 1995-2004 and as Chairman of the Department of Surgery--one of only two neurosurgeons at the time to lead an entire surgical department--from 1997-2004. He has received dozen of awards and honors including:

Voted by his peers as “One of the Best Doctors in America” for thirteen consecutive years
The Bernard Cosman Award, the highest honor in the U.S. for innovation in neurosurgery
The first American neurosurgeon to be awarded the Lars Leksell award, the highest international award for innovation for discovering and developing the field of extra-cranial radiosurgery.
Recognized as “One of the Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century”
Robert G. Ojemann Award from the Upjohn Company for Outstanding Educator in Neurosurgery
Arizona Dean’s Teaching Scholar Award for Teaching

He and his family host several conferences annually at their ranch to help empower cancer patients and survivors to mobilize their spiritual awareness for a better recovery and quality of life following life-threatening illness. In keeping with his janitorial origins, he’s still quite fond of mucking out the stalls in his barn.

Keeping Heritage Alive

Family heritage plays a role in everyday life for Allan. He enjoys exploring his Scottish heritage as a member of the Clan Hamilton and even has the Scottish titular designation of "Lord" or “Laird.” He’s fond of finding occasions to wear his Hamilton tartan kilt and refuses to reveal if he does or does not wear underwear underneath it. Read More about the Hamilton Clan. allan and romeo

Allan's grandfather was an avid horseman and Austrian cavalry officer who had many opportunities to ride and train with the famous Viennese Spanish Riding School housed in the Hapsburg palace in Vienna. Allan thus acquired an interest in horses at a very early age.

“Here I am with my beloved Lipizzaner stallion “Romeo” on my small ranch, located on the east side of Tucson near the Rincon Mountains. The bloodlines for these magnificent horses can be traced back more than 450 years. I decided to raise this breed of horses because my grandfather used to ride them in the Habsburg Palace in Vienna—in front of the Emperor Franz Josef, no less!”