Brian S. Im, MD

Since I was a child, I’ve wanted to pursue a career that would enable me to help others. My mother, who was a rehabilitation nurse, inspired my love of science and rehabilitation medicine. During medical school, I gravitated toward neuroscience and psychiatry, which made brain injury medicine a natural fit for me.

At NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital, I provide neurological rehabilitation for people who have been hospitalized with brain injuries that result from trauma, lack of oxygen, stroke, brain tumors, brain surgery, infection, or autoimmune diseases. I am part of a medical team that works closely with patients and their families, offering a wide range of neurological rehabilitation services. I’m incredibly proud of our collective commitment to patient care.

I coordinate medical and rehabilitation care for those in our acute inpatient brain injury rehabilitation unit. I also provide consultation services for patients during their acute care stay, such as helping them prepare to leave the hospital and recommending brain injury recovery treatments. For example, I help guide baclofen pump management to treat spasticity, a disorder that causes muscles to contract involuntarily and prevents people from controlling them effectively. I also offer pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment for cognitive, behavioral, and physical recovery.

I am co-director of the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems (TBIMS) program at Rusk Rehabilitation, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). Our research is focused on healthcare disparities among people with traumatic brain injury.

I also participate in several research projects. I am a co-investigator on an MRI imaging study looking at brain sodium composition after traumatic brain injury. I am also a co-investigator on therapist-driven projects looking at management for shoulder subluxation, a partial joint separation caused by muscle weakness after brain injury, as well as left neglect after stroke, which is when people demonstrate a lack of awareness to the left side of their bodies and environments.

In 2017, I received an award from the Brain Injury Association of New York State for my work with brain injury patients.