Steven C. Kirshblum, M.D.

Senior medical officer, West Orange campus, and director of spinal cord injury rehabilitation

Dr. Kirshblum specializes in spinal cord injury medicine

Dr. Steven Kirshblum is a nationally recognized expert in spinal cord injury rehabilitation and research who serves as senior medical officer and director of spinal cord injury services at Kessler Institute. Board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and spinal cord injury medicine, Dr. Kirshblum is also the chief medical officer for Kessler Foundation and co-director of its Centers for Spinal Stimulation, Spinal Cord Injury Research, and Outcomes and Assessment Research. Additionally, he is the chief academic officer for Select Medical’s rehabilitation hospital division.

As the project co-director of the Northern New Jersey Model Spinal Cord Injury System, one of only 18 federally-designated centers in the country, Dr. Kirshblum oversees the spinal cord injury research and its translation to patient care. He also chairs the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and is a professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and is program director for the spinal cord injury medicine fellowship program.

A prolific writer and researcher, Dr. Kirshblum has written hundreds of articles, abstracts, monographs and book chapters, and is the editor of the textbook, Spinal Cord Medicine (now in its third edition). He has delivered more than 500 lectures and keynote addresses at national and international meetings. He has also written a children's book about spinal cord injury.

Dr. Kirshblum has been honored by numerous professional and humanitarian organizations and is consistently named among the top physicians in his field by independent surveys. He is a member of the board of trustees for the American Spinal Injury Association and a past President of the Academy of Spinal Cord Injury Professionals and American Paraplegia Society. He also serves on numerous advisory boards and foundations for spinal cord research.

Dr. Kirshblum earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey and his medical degree from the University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School, where he received the prestigious Dean’s Award. He completed a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and was named chief resident. He joined Kessler Institute in 1990.