Meet the Chief: Hear from Michael McDermott, M.D., chief medical executive at Miami Neuroscience Institute, as he elaborates on his pioneering work in neurosurgery and his surprising hobbies.
what are the qualities that I think have helped me in my career? Um energetic, goal driven, fastidious, curious. I was attracted to the nervous system in medical school because first elective in neurosurgery they told me to find the chief resident 20 minutes later was helping him with an acute subdural hematoma in the or so I thought okay this stuff is really cool. I'm going to do this not the neurology thing. So I came from San Francisco after being there for 30 years total you know I'm just happy to be here trying to create something for you know the patients South Florida. I came here to build an academic program. Many opportunities for research basic science and clinical and a lot of the basic science research comes from the clinical world. The clinicians know what the problem is. They just don't know what the solution is. So once you get people together in a room there's just something that happens where you can create a spark that other people start thinking about it a different way than you have and that's how progress happens. I listened to um what used to be called lounge music back in the day. So instrumental but some vocals but quiet. I don't listen to a C. D. C. Or anything like that. If you're taking a tumor out of somebody's brain stem after they've had open surgery, radiosurgery twice and now you're going back again. You know it helps calm you a bit so I think it's useful. I'm married to Corley who I met when I was a neurosurgery resident. She was a neurosurgery nurse and um I have two boys. Um I like things outside of neurosurgery, trying to you know, balance everything. In 97. I took techniques of racing. I bought a car formula ford when I'm driving the car. I'm not thinking about my family, my work, my responsibilities or anything. So it was a total break and it was fun. I had my own wine label neurosurgery sellers with an S. Depending on the grape varietal that I name it based on your anatomy part and then the white wines are white. Your anatomy, the red wines are dark, your anatomy. Do I have a model that I live by? My motto is treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. If you're gonna talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. That's kind of my thing.
