Rate My Professor Shay Mandler

Dr. Shay Mandler serves as a Senior Professional Practice Fellow in the Department of Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Otago, Wellington, part of the Faculty of Medicine within the Health Sciences Division. He earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) from Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania, in 2010, and obtained his Certificate in Orthopaedic Specialty (Cert Spec Orth) in 2019. His early career involved orthopaedic training at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, Israel, where he later worked as an orthopaedic consultant at Soroka University Medical Center and within the Clalit Healthcare system. Mandler pursued advanced subspecialty training in spine surgery, completing an adult spine fellowship at Auckland City Hospital and Middlemore Hospital in New Zealand, a paediatric spine fellowship at Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland in early 2021, and short-term fellowships at Soroka Hospital in Israel and Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. He holds the AOspine Global Spine Diploma and currently serves as faculty for the AOspine diploma program.

In his clinical practice, Mandler is a consultant spine surgeon at Capital & Coast District Health Board, affiliated with Wellington Regional Hospital, a position he has held since August 2021. At the University of Otago, he has been contributing since January 2022, focusing on educating medical students. His expertise encompasses comprehensive adult and paediatric spinal surgery, including deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis, degenerative disc disease, disc protrusions, spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, cervical radiculopathy, spinal trauma, osteoporotic fractures, and procedures like fusions, disc replacements, vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, and minimally invasive spinal injections. He also manages orthopaedic trauma. Mandler is actively involved in research and medical innovation, with publications addressing critical topics in spine surgery. Notable works include "Antibiotic-Resistant Spondylodiscitis With Canal Invasion and Aggressive Evolution to Epidural Abscess: A Case Series of Spontaneous Occurrence in 16 Patients" published in the International Journal of Spine Surgery in 2018; "Risk Factors for Distal Construct Failure in Posterior Spinal Instrumented Fusion for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study" in 2023; "A Comparison of ChatGPT and Expert Consensus Statements on Surgical Site Infection Prevention in High-Risk Paediatric Spine Surgery" in 2024; "Cauda Equina Syndrome During Labour - A Diagnostic Challenge and Proposed Management Algorithm" in 2025; and "A Knotless Locking Subcuticular Skin Suture Technique - 'Hadlow Suture'" in 2021. He maintains memberships in prestigious organizations such as the North American Spine Society (NASS), AOspine, AOtrauma, Israeli Orthopaedic Association (IOA), and Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA). Mandler achieved full New Zealand medical registration on 22 September 2020, with a vocational scope in Orthopaedic Surgery.