Calixto Machado, M.D., Ph.D., FANN, graduated from medical school in 1976. He continued his medical training and became a Specialist in Neurology (1980) and Clinical Neurophysiology (1984). In 1990 he became the youngest medical doctor in sciences in Cuba. Machado received clinical training in specialized neurology centers in Sweden, Italy, and Austria. He has trained medical students, neurology residents, fellows, and doctorate students in neurosciences from around the world.

 

Machado has run numerous research protocols on: brain death, coma, persistent vegetative states and other disorders of consciousness, stroke, autism, near-death experience (NDE), and mystical experience. He has published more than 260 peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and 3 books. His book, Brain Death: A Reappraisal, has been recognized with great enthusiasm among neurologist, neurosurgeons, intensivists, and physicians specializing in transplants.

 

In 1992, Machado was the first Cuban neurologist admitted as a member of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), nominated as a Corresponding Fellow. He is past President of the Organizing Committee of the International Symposia on Brain Death and the International Symposia on Disorders of Consciousness.  Over the years he organized and chaired several International Symposia on Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness.

 

In 2005 he was bestowed with the American Academy of Neurology Lawrence McHenry Award for the excellence in neurology, and in 2011, he was awarded as the Researcher of Year by the International Academy for Child Brain Development (Philadelphia, USA), and by the International Association of Functional Neurology and Rehabilitation (Orlando, USA). He was the first Hispanic neurologist and neuroscientist from a developing country to receive these acknowledgements.

 

Machado is Senior Professor and Researcher in neurology and clinical neurophysiology at the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Havana, Cuba. He is the President of the Cuban Society of Clinical Neurophysiology. Leading the National Commission for the Determination of Death, he chaired the edition of the Cuban Law for the diagnosis of death. Machado is a Corresponding Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, Chairman of the Network on Defining Death of the International Association of Bioethics, member of The World Federation of Neurology, and the International League against Epilepsy. In the academic field, he is recognized as a world expert in neurological disorders in: brain death, coma, consciousness, neuroimaging, clinical neurophysiology, and stroke.

 

Appointments as visiting professor include: Miami University (Department of Philosophy and Bioethics), Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer, and Cornell University in New York, the Institute of Neurology at Columbia University, the Neuroanesthesia and Neurocritical Care Service at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the George Washington University, and the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Jackson's Memorial Center in Miami.

 

Machado has been invited as a key-note speaker by Johns Hopkins on several occasions; he has impressed the Neuroscience Critical Care team stimulating scholars to begin a fruitful scientific exchange with him. He has been supported by an International Visiting Scholarship Program co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University and a private foundation. He has continuously demonstrated a strong desire to develop and maintain close relations between U.S. and Cuban Neuroscientists. He is recognized by the American Academy of Neurology as the only bridge among American and Cuban scholars. You can contact Calixto at info@contemplative.net.