Dr. McCormick Named New York Magazine’s Top Doctor – 18th Straight Year

As a public service to its readers, New York Magazine annually publishes its roster of Best Doctors, arranged by specialty, from communities in the New York City metropolitan area. For the 18th year in a row, Dr. Paul C. McCormick has made this prestigious list in the category of Neurological Surgery.
“It is an honor to be selected by my peers and referring physicians as a Best Doctor for 2021,” Dr. McCormick says of the accolade. “As a physician and spine neurosurgeon my commitment is to relieve pain, restore function, and improve the quality of life of all my patients. It is both gratifying and humbling to be recognized for the quality of care provided to my patients.”
New York Magazine’s Best Doctors 2021 spotlights 1,390 physicians from throughout the tri-state region. Each year a new, highly selective list is compiled based on a peer-review process conducted by the independent research firm Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. “The idea is that medical professionals are best qualified to judge other medical professionals,” the magazine explains on its website. “And if one recommendation is good (think of your doctor referring you to a specialist), multiple recommendations are better. Licensed physicians vote online for those doctors they view as exceptional.”
Dr. McCormick’s 18th straight appearance among New York’s Best Doctors follows other recent distinctions in the medical community, including the 2019 Super Doctors list published by The New York Times Magazine. As director of The Spine Hospital at The Neurological Institute of New York and an attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. McCormick is a renowned neurosurgeon who specializes in treating a range of spinal disorders, including spinal cord tumors, herniated discs and spinal stenosis.
A former football star for the Columbia University Lions, Dr. McCormick treats many New York–area professional and amateur athletes, relying on the expertise of his supporting team in the operating room and the clinic. “It’s important to have a team approach to conditions of the spine, in athletes and non-athletes,” he explains in a video on the New York-Presbyterian website. “Surgery is the last thing we want to do for many of these conditions. And if these patients do undergo surgery, we need to rehabilitate them.”
For spinal patients, Dr. McCormick adds, the ultimate goal is a return to form. “Getting back to play, getting back to their level of expertise and their capability, that is going to be a goal of treatment,” he says. One measure of success is recognition—and continual recommendations—from peers and patients in the medical community.