Abhinav, Neurosurgery

It is a long and laborious process to become a doctor in any country. In New Zealand, this process involves several years of practicing as a registrar after medical school. Abhinav is in his final year as a neurosurgical registrar and the only thing standing between him and his next placement is an interview. A nervous interviewee, Abhinav has asked for coaching and I’ve been asked to sit down with him for a mock interview. Ask a neurosurgeon anything and everything I’ve ever wanted to know while on company time? You don’t have to ask me twice!

Abhi and I sit at the small round table in the staff kitchen and I launch into the interview by looping back to a previously interrupted conversation about meningiomas. Meningiomas are benign brain tumors and they’re Abhi’s favorite surgery to perform. They grow around the meninges, the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord, and are only removed after they encroach on other brain areas and cause pain or loss of function. They are not life-threatening and Abhi likes seeing the before and after scans as tangible evidence that he has helped someone. He tells me that recent studies have shown that Pacific Islanders suffer from higher rates of meningiomas than any other ethnic group and he theorizes that this is due to nuclear testing in the Pacific since this is the only type of brain tumor that is caused by radiation. Of course, more research is needed to rule out a genetic link and to establish this as a primary cause. Abhi’s least favorite cases are glioblastomas which are always fatal. 

“It’s heartbreaking,” he says, “when a young guy comes into the ER for something else and just happens to get an MRI. You’re looking at him—just married and a baby—and you’re looking at the scans and you know: he’s going to die within the year.” 

I ask him how he deals with cases like this and like the child who came in the day before with an eeling spear through their eye. He tells me that of course he has empathy and sympathy for every instance but that if he were to break down over every tough case, he wouldn’t be able to do any work. He’s learned to distance himself from the emotions. This toughness that he’s learned, it’s a skill that I don’t have and I respect him for it. 

We talk about travel and he tells me about time he spent training in England and Australia. At the end of his training in England he had a two week break that he spent on spontaneous travel in Italy. This surprises me somewhat—it takes a lot of courage to travel without a plan in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. I think Abhi’s got more strength and confidence than he realizes, he just needs to relax. 

From his time training in Australia, Abhi realized how much he likes New Zealand’s public health system. There’s a mix of public and private here but it’s nothing like in Australia where patients are given preferential treatment based on their insurance status. In Australia, surgeons would fight over cases with a higher payout from private insurance and leave public patients to be entirely cared for by student registrars. He attended care management meetings where the first question asked was the patient’s insurance status and witnessed how the answer to that question would sometimes affect whether the patient received surgery or not. It’s clear from his darkened expression and furrowed brow that Abhi has a strong sense of fairness, something that he later lists as a trait of an ideal colleague. 

Abhi enjoys learning and his favorite topic is the history of how languages developed. Abhi speaks Hindi and Punjabi as well as English and he has a strong sense of devotion to family. He lists his parents as his primary support system and says that no matter how hard things get, he knows he can go home even if it’s just for a meal. His parents factor strongly in his five year plans—they are not getting any younger and it is important to him to be able to support and care for them like they have cared for him. 

If I were a hiring manager, I’d hire Abhi without a second thought. The two most important qualities of any health professional are competence and concern and there’s no doubt that Abhi has both. During this brief interview, Abhi’s friendliness and earnest straightforwardness shone through, making it clear that he would be a pleasant colleague. Abhi’s strongest selling point is simply this: if I were to need a neurosurgeon—if perhaps my child were stabbed in the eye with an eeling spear—and he walked in the room, I would not be disappointed.  

Any mistakes in regards to the science are my own.