Q&A: Adetokunbo Oyelese
Neurological Surgery
You realized you wanted to be a doctor at a young age. Why neurological surgery?
I suffered from childhood asthma, which put me in the hospital frequently. There was
something magical for me as an eight or nine year old, not being able to breathe one minute
and then, within seconds of an intravenous injection of aminophylline, having my lungs open
up. As a child, I dreamed of bringing that kind of relief to people. From a clinical and a research
standpoint, the study of the nervous system was always intriguing to me. I have a doctorate
degree in neuroscience. In neurosurgery, I found a complementary clinical discipline in which
to explore the intriguing scientific questions I had. I selected neurosurgery because it was a
perfect]hesis of my scientific and clinical interests.
Neurological surgery treats diseases and disorders of the brain, spinal cord and spine.
What does that entail?
Brain tumors, brain aneurysms, disorders of movement such as Parkinson’s disease, spinal
cord tumors and that also includes surgery for sciatica, disc herniations, back and neck pain.
It is a highly specialized, technically demanding discipline requiring several years of training
following medical school. This includes a seven-year residency training often followed by an
additional one to three years of further specialized fellowship training. In other words, a
neurosurgeon may spend seven to ten years in training following medical school to be
appropriately trained for what we do.
Why is neurological surgery necessary for patients?
Think of the brain as a computer that controls the body, the spinal cord and nerves as the
electrical wiring system that connects them together. Any process causing disruption to the
system and resulting in neurological impairment (loss of function) or pain and that is amenable
to surgical correction would be a potential cause. Joe Biden, Neil Young, Quincy Jones, Emilia
Clark and Sharon Stone had brain aneurysms. Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, John McCain,
George Gershwin and Bob Marley had brain tumors. George W. Bush, George Clooney, Peyton
Manning and many others have had back surgery. These are conditions that neurosurgeons
treat and perform surgery for.
What is your advice for patients afraid of seeing a doctor?
Like patients, doctors are human beings. They don’t bite (at least most don’t) and their job is
to help patients in the healing process. Look for the human being behind the white coat and
connect with them. The trust that results from this is the foundation of the doctor-patient
relationship.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Making people’s lives better! Everyone in this world touches lives in some form or another
whether it is consciously or unconsciously and either for the good or for the bad. The most
rewarding aspect of my job is looking back each day and seeing the lives of patients, of people
that I have touched each day, and to be able to go to bed each night knowing that it was for
the good.
“Doctors are human beings. They don’t
bite (at least most don’t) and their job is to
help patients in the healing process.”
— ADETOKUNBO OYELESE
Erica Chung [RIH]
Sajeev Handa [RIH]
Jill A. O’Brien [MIR]
Jeffrey Scott Riese [HCH, RIH]
Infectious Disease
Penelope Dennehy [HCH, RIH]
Erica Hardy [WI]
John Lonks [MIR]
David A. Lowe [KENT, WI]
Leonard Mermel [RIH]
Hadeel Zainah [KENT]
Intensive Care
Gerardo Pasquale Carino
[MIR, RIH]
Joseph Vincent Meharg [RW]
Internal Medicine
Pamela Harrop [RIH]
Warren E. Licht [MIR]
Tony C. Wu [RIH]
Maternal/Fetal Medicine
Stephen Carr [WI]
Dwight Rouse [WI]
Erika Werner [WI]
Nephrology
Keith Bartolomei
[FTM, MIR, RIH, RW]
Christopher Cosgrove
[KENT, MIR, RIH]
Daniel L. Dragomire
[FTM, KENT, RIH, WI]
Mohammed Faizan [HCH, RIH]
Robin Kremsdorf [HCH, RIH]
George Lee
[FTM, KENT, MIR, RIH, RW]
Charles E. McCoy
[FTM, KENT, MIR, RIH, RW]
Douglas Shemin [MIR, RIH]
Neuro-Developmental
Disability
Pamela C. High [HCH, RIH]
Neurology
Jonathan Cahill [MIR, RIH, WI]
Meryl Gail Goldhaber [KENT]
Norman M. Gordon [MIR]
Arshad Iqbal [KENT]
Julie Roth [RIH]
Neuromuscular Medicine
George M. Sachs [RIH]
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