Prof. Dr. Mentor Petrela studied at the Faculty of Medicine in Tirana and graduated Cum Laude. He specialized in Neurology under Professor B. Preza after training in Neurosurgery with Professor Xh. Kurti.
He earned his Neurosurgery diploma from René Descartes University in Paris following his specialization with Professor Raymond Houdart. For four decades, he practiced neurosurgery at Mother Teresa University Hospital in Tirana. His main fields of expertise include microsurgery, vascular surgery, skull base surgery, and brain tumors, having performed over 17,000 operations in his career. Over three decades, he established and led the Department of Neurosurgery, developing all its subspecialties. As head of the Department of Neurosciences, he founded the Neurology specialization program and the Neurosurgery specialization program at the Faculty of Medicine in Tirana.
He is a Professor at a university in France and was the first elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Tirana, as well as Director of UHC Mother Teresa. His original research has been published in leading neurosurgical journals in the U.S. and Europe, including an article in The New York Times titled “The Terrible Beauty,” dedicated to Awake Craniotomy.
He was knighted Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by French President François Hollande. A Fellow of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, an Honorary Member of the French Neurological Society, and a Senior Member of the World Academy of Neurological Surgery, he remains actively engaged in scientific presentations.
As the founder of the Albanian Neurosurgical Society, the Albanian Society of Neurology, and the Stroke Albanian Society, he currently serves as president of two of them. He continues to teach and practice at the American Hospital in Tirana. He is also a Corresponding Member of the Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts.