Boulder Neurosurgical & Spine Associates

Dr. Villavicencio graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA in 1995, and went on to complete a neurosurgical residency at the renowned Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC in 2001. He then went on to do a specialty orthopedic spine surgery fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA in 2002 and is one of only a handful of surgeons in the country with dual neurosurgery and orthopedic spine training.

Dr. Nelson received his Medical Degree with Alpha Omega Alpha honors from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. He completed an internship in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery and neurological surgery residency under the tutelage of Robert Grossman, MD; a program that emphasized development of technical skills in the operating room. At the time, Baylor’s program was renowned for an unequaled surgical case load exceeding 5,000 neurological procedures each year at the largest medical center in the United States. During his residency, Dr. Nelson received the esteemed Kinjiro Iwata Award for outstanding contributions to Baylor’s Neurosurgical Department. At the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, Dr. Nelson expanded his skill and experience in complex spinal instrumentation under Ziya Gokaslan, MD. Dr. Nelson’s areas of clinical interest continue to include neurosurgical oncology, including tumors of the pituitary gland, and complex spinal surgery with an emphasis on minimally invasive techniques.

Dr. Rajpal received his Medical Degree from the University of Wisconsin, where he continued his training through a residency program in Neurological Surgery. During his training, Dr. Rajpal was the youngest Neurosurgical resident to receive the much coveted Resident Academic Achievement Award, an award he went on to collect twice. For his research on spinal cord injury, Dr. Rajpal was also presented both the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Synthes Spine Fellowship Award (2006) and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves Mayfield Basic Science Award (2007). These national awards are conferred to a single Neurosurgical trainee per year. After residency, Dr. Rajpal went on to complete a combined Orthopedic and Neurological Surgery Spine Fellowship at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. While at the Cleveland Clinic, he gained experience in the latest techniques in spinal oncology, minimal access surgery, and complex spinal deformity.