What's It Like to be a Neurosurgeon?
By: Brian Hoeflinger, MD
November 17, 2024 | #23
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Disclaimer: Opinions are my own. Not medical advice.
Medical Trivia of the Week
What is the average weight of the adult human brain? (the correct answer is at the end of this email)
- A) 1 pound
- B) 2 pounds
- C) 3 pounds
- D) 4 pounds
My Life as a Neurosurgeon
This week I thought we would take a break from the usual topics of medical conditions and get a bit more personal. Since you are reading a newsletter from a neurosurgeon, I thought it might be nice to talk about what it’s actually like to be a neurosurgeon.
First things first. What is a neurosurgeon? A neurosurgeon is a doctor/surgeon who both diagnoses medical disorders and diseases of the nervous system as well as operates on them. When most people think of a neurosurgeon, they probably think of a “brain surgeon”. A neurosurgeon does operate on the brain, but also operates on the spine, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves.
The training to become a neurosurgeon is quite rigorous and includes 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school and typically 7 to 9 years of residency. Some surgeons will go on to do a specialized fellowship, which adds another 1 to 3 years of training. When I finished all my training, I was 35 years old. If you consider that the average life expectancy for men in the United States is 74.8 years, then I used almost half of my life to become a neurosurgeon. Sounds crazy when you think of it that way but it is true. I’m now 60 years old and still going full speed, but the train is slowing a bit and we will talk about that a little later.
So now to the meat of this newsletter. What’s it been like being a neurosurgeon all these years? I can tell you that it’s been an adventure. My wife Cindy and I met between our first and second year of medical school in of all places the electron microscopy lab. It was kind of love at first site, and after dating 2 years, we got married in the last year of medical school. We then moved to Rochester, New York for our residencies. Seven years later, we had both completed our residency training (Cindy is a forensic pathologist MD/PhD) and we added three beautiful children as well as one chocolate lab named Coco to our family. We then moved back to our hometown of Toledo, Ohio where I started practicing full time in 1999. Two years later, we had our fourth child and my wife Cindy retired shortly thereafter to raise our kids. I greatly respect her for giving up her career for our children.
Life as a neurosurgeon has always been extremely busy. I spend long hours in the hospital taking care of sick or injured patients and I have missed out on much of my children growing up. I always tried to make it to as many of my kids activities as possible but I too often fell short. I learned right away during residency that something has to be number one in your life and for me that had to be neurosurgery. There was no other way. There is no part-time neurosurgery. We deal with life and death and people rely on us to help them every single day. The amount of human tragedy out there is just incredible and someone needs to be there for the patient and their family. I think as my children have grown up, they now realize and better understand the sacrifices that my wife and I have had to make.
Despite the long hours and sleepless nights, my career has been exciting and very fulfilling. I cannot describe in words to you what it feels like to actually save someone’s life. I don’t need any real gratitude from the patient or family. It’s just knowing that someone is still alive and living life as a result of you. I recently saw a woman in the office whose life I saved over 20 years ago. She would have died without the brain surgery I performed on her in the middle of the night so many years ago. She was in my office with her 2 grand daughters. She thanked me for saving her life but more specifically for giving her the chance to watch her own children grow up and now spend time with her grandchildren. That is the reward for what I do!
Podcast Episode
Check out Episode 1 of The Hoeflinger Podcast to learn more about my story:
YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Everywhere else
At my busiest and for many, many years, I was performing around 45 major surgeries a month and seeing up to 90 patients in the office each week. I was also taking trauma call every third day/night at a busy Level 1 trauma center. My days would routinely start at 5 am and often I would not finish until 7 or 8 pm in the evening. Then, there was trauma call every third night, which often lead to emergency surgery in the middle of the night.
Life was busy and I was away from home. I am not in anyway trying to sound arrogant or trying to draw your sympathy regarding my family life. What I am trying to do is give you an honest look into my life as a neurosurgeon. Family and work have always been at odds. Throughout my career, I have had exciting heart filling moments rushing to save someone’s life and I have had my fill of devastating tragedy that my efforts have fell short leaving a patient or their family in deep despair. These moments of excitement and despair where spent away from home and away from my family. Life is funny that way. We can only do so much for others before it compromises our life. But in the end, it is you and you alone who must live with your life and your decisions. I can never regret being a neurosurgeon because it has brought so much hope and healing to so many people. It has been the one constant in my life that has never changed. My family is everything else to me and when I leave work each day, it is home where my heart wants to be. As a career, neurosurgery has been everything that I thought it would be: challenging both intellectually as well as technically, exciting and gratifying, and top of the field of medicine. But every rose has its thorns and neurosurgery is no different.
Where to go from here? I am now 60 years old and I would like to slow down to enjoy life a bit more. Just the thought of sleeping in in the morning with no specific agenda except starting off with a nice cup of coffee and doing whatever I want to do sounds really nice to me. My plan is to retire by age 65 and keep moving forward particularly with social media in the future. I do enjoy providing content for people because for me it is relaxing, fulfilling and fun. I hope you have enjoyed this special newsletter. It’s a little different but I enjoyed writing it. Please let me know what you think because your feedback is very important to me.
P.S. - if you enjoyed this newsletter, you may enjoy my book that details my life as neurosurgeon and the loss of my oldest son, Brian (see below a synopsis).
My Book
Life and Death . . . Two words with such opposite meaning and which inflict such contradictory emotions and yet are so closely intertwined in our lives. As parents, we bring meaning and life into this world through our children. Our lives become defined as a result. We learn the joy, hardship, and responsibility of shaping an innocent life. But a day will come when that life will be taken. For some, death will come too soon. This is the story of my son, Brian Nicholas Hoeflinger, who died unexpectedly at age 18.
https://doctorhoeflinger.com/products/the-night-he-died-the-harsh-reality-of-teenage-drinking
Impactful Quote of the Week
"The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.”
- William Osler
All the best,
Brian Hoeflinger
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*the correct answer to the medical trivia of the week is:
C) 3 pounds
