I3Spine

John Michael Duff was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. e graduated from the Royal College Surgeons in Ireland medical school in 1988. Following internship in Beaumont hospital, Dublin, Ireland, he subsequently pursued his general surgery training as a Halsted resident at the Johns Hospital Hospital, Baltimore MD, USA from 1990-92. He then did a full neurosurgical residency training program at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA from 1992-97 with an interest in spine and skull base surgery.

He also spent a 6 month pediatric neurosurgical rotation with Dr. Ian Johnston in the Childrens Hospital, Sydney, Australia. Residency training was followed by a skull base surgery fellowship with Dr. Laligam Sekhar at the George Washington Hospital, Washington DC, USA. Following fellowship, Dr. Duff spent 18 months in Geneva University Hospital working with Professor Nicolas de Tribolet.

In July 2000, Dr. Duff took up an academic faculty position as an assistant Professor of neurosurgery at Tufts University, New England Medical Center & St. Elizabeths Medical Center, Boston MA, USA. He also served as chief of neurosurgery at St Elizabeths Medical Center from 2002-2003.

Dr. Duff returned to Switzerland in 2004 as chief physician for spinal neurosurgery to the university hospital of Lausanne (CHUV).

In January 2019, he moved his full-time clinical practice to the Clinique de Genolier and Clinique de Montchoisi, in la Côte region between Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland.

Dr. Duff is one of the rare neurosurgeons in Switzerland who has performed in excess of 4000 spine surgeries, many of which are complex or revision surgeries. Dr. Duff has a research interest in surgical robotics of the spine, and is a robotics U.S. patent co-holder. He was part of a team which developed a surgical robot at the EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, the technology of which has subsequently been integrated into clinical use around the world.

His main clinical interests are complex reconstruction of the cervical spine and craniovertebral junction, image guided intra & extradural spinal surgery, & minimally invasive surgery of the spine. He also has extensive experience with revision spine surgery. Dr. Duff has been an advocate and active proponent of advancing these techniques to reduce morbidity of surgery and these techniques enable sophisticated surgery to be performed even in advanced elderly age groups.

Dr. Duff was formerly chairman of the spine section of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) from 2019-21. He has been a frequent faculty member of surgical education and training spine courses with EANS, AO Spine, Eurospine, and EUCMISS for minimally invasive spine surgery. He recently participated in the Global Neurosurgery Course 2023 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which is the largest neurosurgical course in sub- Saharan Africa. Dr. Duff is a highly sought after conference speaker. He has been a frequent invited speaker at various national and international conferences worldwide each year over 15 years. Dr. Duff is a fully Board Certified neurosurgeon in the USA, has the European Board Certification in neurosurgery, and the FMH (federal boards) equivalence in neurosurgery in Switzerland. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS), and of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (FAANS).

Dr. Duff was director and founder of Avaton Surgical (2020-2022).

Since 2023, he is the founder and director I3 Spine.

Dr. Duff is seeing patients based in Switzerland or abroad. Consultations are currently being held either in Genolier or in Lausanne, through French or English.