John Houten, MD

John K. Houten, MD, is a nationally renowned board-certified neurosurgeon specializing in computer-assisted image-guided surgery, spinal motion preservation techniques, and difficult revision surgery. He is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of Spine Surgery at Mount Sinai South Nassau. Conditions frequently treated in his practice include Lumbar Stenosis, Pseudoarthrosis, Spinal Cord Tumors, Spondylolysis, Herniated Discs, Neck Pain, Cervical Radiculopathy, and Cervical Myelopathy.

Dr. Houten graduated from the New York University School of Medicine with Alpha Omega Alpha honors and was awarded the Valentine Mott Medal in surgery. He then competed a neurosurgery residency and spinal surgery fellowship at New York University Medical Center. 

His research interests include degenerative disease of the spine, spinal cancer reconstruction, neurological manifestations of spinal disease, and revision spinal surgery. In addition to seeing patients in the office and performing surgery, Dr. Houten is actively conducting clinical research in many facets of spinal degenerative disease and has published more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles. He serves as Section Editor for Spine and Neurotrauma for the scientific journal World Neurosurgery and is an Editorial Advisor for BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. He also serves as a reviewer for more than a dozen other scientific journals including Neurosurgery, Spine, Pediatric Neurosurgery, Journal of Neurological Sciences, British Journal of Neurosurgery, and Journal of Robotic Surgery.

Dr. Houten lives in Midwood section of Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, Dr. Gila Weinstein, a plastic surgeon with whom he has collaborated on a number publications describing specialized closure techniques for spinal surgery.