Keith Black Interview (page: 3 / 5) Pioneering Neurosurgeon	Print Interview

How would you describe yourself as a kid? What kind of kid were you?

Keith Black: I was happy. I was happy and I was inquisitive.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. As early as I can remember, I always had a sense of fascination with biology -- anything related to biology. Even though it's not politically correct to say now, when I was eight years old one of the things I would enjoy doing was to go out with my BB gun with my friends and shoot birds to get them back to the house to operate on them. To save them, to get the BB out, you know, to do the surgery to remove the BB. And, you know, dissected frogs. My father actually saw me dissect a frog heart, and observed my sense of curiosity with science, and then went out and got me a chicken heart and I dissected that. And then he went to the slaughterhouse and got me a larger cow heart -- which was really incredible, because here is this big, huge heart with all these different chambers -- and allowed me to dissect that. It really instilled a sense of curiosity in me, but my love was always science and always biology, and I had a sense of fascination with that.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

How do you explain that? Kids get fascinated by a lot of things, but rarely do you hear about someone that young doing the kinds of things you did with respect to science and biology.

Keith Black: I think I was lucky.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I think one of the true gifts that one can have is to find out what it is that they truly love to do. For some people it's playing the piano. For others it might be swimming, or some sort of athletic event. To me it was science, and I happened to get lucky enough to find my love for science, which I still love. What that allows me to do essentially is -- as a scientist and as a neurosurgeon -- I don't work when I go to work. I mean it's what I love to do. If I didn't get paid for what I wanted to do, I would want to pay to do it. So one is very blessed to find what it is that they love to do. The other thing that it does, it allows you to really devote the focus, the hours, the intensity into whatever it is, to become very good at it. Whatever you do, you're going to have to spend a lot of time perfecting your craft, perfecting your art. So if I'm up late working on a research project, or working to save a patient's life, it's not work for me. It's what I enjoy doing, and it's not difficult to do if you're having fun.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

When you were growing up, was there any event, or a teacher or role model that influenced you or inspired you to do what you ended up doing?

Keith Black: I wouldn't say it was one event. I had a very supportive family. I consider my father to be the ultimate educator. So even though there was never any pressure -- you know, "You got to bring home this grade..." or "You have to go do this." He was sort of the invisible hand. He would observe what one loved to do and he would cultivate that. He was a teacher.

My brother is very different for me. My brother is in an entirely different field. He's pursuing business. We were both sort of cultivated and challenged in the environment. I grew up in an intellectually challenging environment, in that when we sat down for dinner at the table, it was always some sort of intellectual debate with my father, at a very young age. You would come in and say, "The sky is blue." He would say, "No, it's not blue." You would sit there for 30 minutes trying to convince him that the sky was blue.

Were there any books you read in childhood that were particularly important to you?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Keith Black: Some of the books that I really enjoyed were books by some of the African American authors. You know, (James) Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain. It sort of gave a sense of warmth and understanding of one's own environment in some of those books. There was never any book, except for one, related to medicine. I remember reading The Making of a Surgeon when I was in probably about the sixth or seventh grade. And that was a book that kind of got me focused, I think, on the career path. And I remember, one thing in there I still remember is that you can always tell you've really arrived as a surgeon when the nurses in the hospital ask you to be their physician.

Any there are particular teachers that you remember?

Keith Black: There were a few teachers along the way, but it was a combination. It was more of a mosaic, rather than one teacher that really stood out.

There are many young, talented, smart people who do not achieve. How do you explain the fact that you were able to do what others were not?

Keith Black: I think it's a combination of luck, discipline, the right nurturing and the right environment. Luck, in the sense in that I found what I love to do. Had I been directed to a different career I might not be as successful. If Michael Jordan was playing baseball, he might not be Michael Jordan as we know him. I think one of the most important things is to find what you love to do, and if you're lucky enough that what you love to do is also what you have a talent at doing, that's a real plus. And then, having the right nurturing, and having the drive. You have to have the drive. It's not good enough just to say, "Oh, I'm really good at this." You have to work at it. You have to develop your craft, to develop your art, and to perfect it.

You spoke of your initial reaction showing up at the University of Michigan, being scared. Do you ever have doubts, fear of failure?

Keith Black: Not anymore. You know, you've sort of been through it all in terms of a career. I've done almost 4,000 operations for brain tumors. I'm thinking of what's going to happen ten or 12 steps before. I'm anticipating what's going to happen in the operation, and I'm comfortable with where we are. I have an intensive drive to find a cure, but I know that we can only do the best that we can do. I think there are other things I have more of a fear about, trying to be the man that my father was in terms of being a good father, really providing the inspiration, nurture, and foundation to my kids that he provided to his.

How do you find time to do all that? To be the doctor, the scientist, the father and the husband?

Keith Black: You just try to be very disciplined in your schedule and get lucky enough to have a wonderful wife and an incredible mother for your kids.

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