• Back to Faculty

Biographic Sketch

Dr. Ramsay is a Neuropathologist and Professor in the Department of Pathology at the London Health Sciences Centre and the University of Western Ontario.  A Neuropathologist is a specialist physician who identifies and interprets abnormalities in biopsies and autopsy samples of the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscle. 

He obtained his medical degree (MB ChB) in 1977 after undergraduate training at University College London, England and Glasgow University, Scotland. He subsequently trained both as a scientist and as a clinical doctor.  In regard to his scientific training, he obtained his Doctorate in Philosophy in 1982 from the Department of Physiological Sciences at the University of Oxford, England (where he studied how nerves undergo repair) and then, from 1985 to 1987, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, USA (where he studied the effects on muscle of removing its nerve supply).  His clinical training includes the equivalent of a Residency in Internal Medicine and Neurology from 1982 to 1985 at the City Hospital in Nottingham, England and at the Institute for Neurological Sciences in Glasgow, Scotland (leading to his admission as a Member of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom), and a Residency in Neuropathology at Queens University, Kingston, Canada from 1987 to 1990 (culminating in his admission as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada and of the Royal College of Pathologists).

Since he started work in London in 1990 he has maintained a broad expertise in both adult and pediatric neuropathology.  He has also developed proficiency in the histological diagnosis of brain tumours and has played a key role in setting up, and still directs, the London Brain Tumour Tissue Bank, which is a repository of brain tumours that are used for research by scientists throughout North America and elsewhere in the world.  He published extensively in the medical literature on a number of neuropathological subjects. 

He has also used his extensive experience in the clinical and basic neurological sciences to establish considerable expertise in Forensic Neuropathology and in particular in the interpretation of traumatic head injuries.  Since arriving in London, he has worked closely with Dr. M. J. Shkrum, a well-know Canadian Forensic Pathologist, with whom he has published a book, Forensic Analysis of Trauma: Common Problems for the Pathologist, in which much of their experience is described.  Dr. Ramsay has appeared on many occasions in criminal court as an expert witness for both the Prosecution and the Defense, and he is regularly consulted by criminal and civil lawyers for advice and assistance with their medicolegal cases.        

Selected Publications

1. Ramsay DA, Zochodne DW, Ludwin SK, et al. A syndrome of acute severe muscle necrosis in intensive care unit patients. J Neuropath Exp Neurol 52: 387-398, 1993.
2. McKeown MJ, Ramsay DA. Classification of astrocytomas and malignant astrocytomas by principal components analysis and a neural net. J Neuropath Exp Neurol 55: 1238-1245, 1996.
3. Fleming JC, Norenberg MD, Ramsay DA, et al. The cellular inflammatory response in human spinal cords after injury. Brain 129: 3249-69, 2006.
4. Shkrum MJ, Ramsay DA. “Forensic Analysis of Trauma: Common Problems for the Pathologist”. Humana Press, 2006.
5. Mahmud FH, Ramsay DA, Levin SD, et al. Coma with diffuse white matter hemorrhages in juvenile diabetic ketoacidosis. Pediatrics 120: 1540-46, 2007.