Venita M. Simpson, MD

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Get to know Neurosurgeon Dr. Venita M. Simpson, who serves patients in Portsmouth, Virginia.

Dr. Simpson has joined the precious minority of black women – the 1% – who are neurosurgeons in the United States. An active-duty Navy neurosurgeon, she is stationed at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia.

As the U. S. Navy’s oldest, continuously-operating hospital since 1830, Naval Medical Center Portsmouth proudly serves past and present military members and their families. The nationally acclaimed, state-of-the-art medical center, including its ten branch and TRICARE Prime clinics located throughout the Hampton Roads area, additionally offers premier research and teaching programs designed to prepare new doctors, nurses, and hospital corpsmen for future roles in healing and wellness. It is a patient-driven TRICARE facility entrusted with the health readiness of the United States armed forces.

Graduating with a 4.0 GPA from high school, medical school was a life-long dream for Dr. Simpson. “I was inspired to go into medicine since I was 7-years-old after I had surgery. I was just amazed at all the gadgets in the hospital. I fell in love with neurosurgery after witnessing deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders and how life-changing a seamless placement of electrodes in the brain could alter and enhance someone’s life.”

A 2011 graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine, she went on to further her education. She became the first African-American woman to complete residency in Neurological Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in 2019. During her residency at Baylor she had the privilege to train at the nationally  recognized Texas Children’s Hospital for pediatric neurosurgery and MD Anderson Cancer Center for neurosurgical oncology. Remaining at the same educational venue, she also completed an enfolded complex spine fellowship in 2019.

In good standing with a number of professional organizations, Dr. Simpson is a member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Women in Neurosurgery, and the North American Spine Society.  She was recognized in the 2020 North American Spine Society Top 20 Spine Surgeons under 40. She credits her ability to stay committed to medicine and the advancement of women and minorities in medicine to doctors who paved the way and many organizations such as the National Medical Association, being on the admission council for the GEMS program at Georgetown and the local Houston Medical Forum chapter.

“I met Dr. Ben Carson several times while I was a medical student at Georgetown, and he was still on staff at John Hopkins. He gave me a great deal of inspiration but moreover, Dr. Alexa Canady resonated with me more so because not only was she Black, she was a woman. In a field dominated by white men, it can be intimidating, but she persevered and I definitely have pulled strength from her” stated Dr. Simpson.

Neurosurgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, surgical treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system. Neurosurgeons are doctors who diagnose and treat problems with the nervous system, often by performing surgery on the brain or spine. They treat strokes, tumors, certain types of birth defects, infections, and head or spinal cord injuries.

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