Our neurosurgeons

Mr Nicholas Maartens 

MBChB, FRCS, FRACS, FRCS(surgical neurology)

Mr Nicholas Maartens is the principal of   Melbourne Pituitary Neuroendocrine service and Brain & Spine Surgery Centre and a leading Australian Neurosurgeon. He works in private, has an academic public appointment at the Alfred Hospital and is a senior lecturer at Monash University.

After being awarded the Alec Brooke Scholarship, he underwent medical school training graduating MBChB at the University of Cape Town SA. He undertook his surgical training at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith in London UK, obtaining his surgical FRCS. He then undertook training as a neurosurgical registrar at the prestigious Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford UK as one of the last registrars of renowned neurosurgeon Mr Christopher Adams. 

During this time, he worked extensively with Prof Peter Teddy and Prof Giles Brindley FRS, undertaking the equivalent of a pain fellowship, assisting in the implantation of the first brain telemeter. 

He has been awarded the Ron Tasker Award for pain management by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. After obtaining a further FRCS fellowship in Surgical Neurology and being accredited by the Intercollegiate Royal College of Surgeons as a specialist neurosurgeon, he was then awarded a scholarship to undertake a pituitary skull base fellowship at the Virginia Health Sciences Centre in Charlottesville USA under Prof Ed Laws Jr, arguably the leading international pituitary neuroendocrine service. 

In 2002, Mr Maartens was appointed as a Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and awarded an honorary clinical fellowship in the Department of Surgery at Melbourne University and his FRACS by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He worked in the skull base team with Prof Andrew Kaye and A/Prof Rob Briggs and was responsible for spinal oncology. 

During this time, he set up the multidisciplinary Pituitary Clinic. Together with Prof Peter Colman he introduced the Australian Pituitary Tumour database which has been adopted nationally. In 2011, he was invited to transfer to the Alfred Hospital and Monash University where he is now a consultant and a senior lecturer.

Today Mr Maartens heads the Pituitary Neuroendocrine Service at the Alfred Hospital and is the director of the Melbourne Pituitary Neuroendocrine Service and Neuropaedia.

He has undertaken more than 13 000 neurosurgical procedures, has published more than 50 peer reviewed articles - many in Neurosurgery and Journal of Neurosurgery and has authored more than 10 book chapters. He regularly presents both nationally and internationally.

He is both a general neurosurgeon specialising in complex and minimally invasive spine surgery, cranial microsurgery and is a specialist endoscopic skull base pituitary surgeon emphasisng a caring evidence based approach to patient care. 

He is affiliated to the William Buckland Radiotherapy Centre neuro-oncology service, at the Alfred Hospital where he is part of the brain and spinal neuro-oncology team and where he leads the pituitary neuroendocrine surgical service. 

 Mr Iwan Bennett 

BSc, MBBS, PhD, FRACS

Mr Bennett is an Australian- and internationally-trained neurosurgeon. He obtained his medical degree at the University of Queensland and started his medical career at the Gold Coast Hospital. His neurosurgical training also began at the Gold Coast Hospital, and then moved on to Sydney including posts at the RPA, Westmead, and Westmead Children's. His senior training was undertaken in Melbourne at the Royal Melbourne and The Alfred hospitals. During his training, Mr Bennett was fortunate enough to work with some of Australia's most experienced and eminent surgeons including Prof. Michael Besser, Prof. Andrew Kaye, and Prof. Jeffrey Rosenfeld.After completing his neurosurgical training and receiving his Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Mr Bennett moved to London, UK to obtain further experience and sub-specialist training. He undertook a post at Imperial College Hospital Charing Cross as Specialist Registrar to Mr Kevin O'Neill. He then completed the Imperial Skull Base Fellowship under the mentorship of Mr Nigel Mendoza and Mr Ramesh Nair.​Upon returning to Australia, Mr Bennett was appointed as a Neurosurgeon at The Alfred in Melbourne, a major public teaching hospital and the state's trauma centre. There he is also the Department of Neurosurgery's Junior Medical Staff supervisor. Mr Bennett's private patients are treated at The Alfred, as well as Cabrini Malvern and Epworth Richmond private hospitals.​Mr Bennett cares for adult patients with a wide variety of brain, spine and peripheral nerve conditions. He has a particular interest in the microsurgical and endoscopic treatment of skull base tumours including vestibular schwannomas or 'acoustic neuromas', meningiomas, and pituitary region tumours.During his neurosurgical training Mr Bennett completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne in the field of brain cancer treatment and throughout his career he has published multiple papers and presented at local, national and international meetings. His work has attracted many awards and grants including those from the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, The Brain Foundation, and the Cure for Life Foundation. Today, Mr Bennett is an Adjunct Lecturer at Monash University, and his current research projects cover such topics as novel treatments for epilepsy, management of trigeminal neuralgia, minimally invasive brain surgery, and brain tumour biobanking