It is brain surgery

BY HANNAH HERNER

s the youngest surgeon at the Howell Allen Clinic, Ernest Wright did not expect to become president of the company.

Wright says he would have been happy just taking care of his patients as a neurosurgeon. But he tells the Post he feels honored to have been nominated to the leadership role late last year by his peers, people he trusts with his own family members’ treatment.

Howell Allen is home to 15 brain and spine surgeons, whereas many hospitals have just a few on sta . With surgeons ranging from Wright at 37 years old up to 70 years old, he says he is astounded by just how well the group works together.

“I think people can see neurosurgery as this very solitary enterprise where it’s one person,” he says. “ at’s never, ever the case. It’s a huge team of people. And that’s more true with cancer care than anything else.”

Having such a large team means the clinic can attract cutting-edge technologies, like the intraoperative MRI at partner organization Ascension Saint omas West and laser brain surgery, technology that can help make surgeries more e ective and less invasive.

“No matter if you trained ve years ago, like myself, or if you trained 25 years ago, like a lot of my partners, we’re all learning that new technology and bene ting within the group,” Wright says.

As a leader, it’s important to Wright for the organization to become more cost sensitive for insurance companies and employers. His goal is to perform surgeries with less waste and more e ciency, as well as provide more cost-e ective bundled payment programs, a form of value-based payment.

“When I think about leadership, I think that it’s important not to forget that our primary concern is always going to be our patients and their well-being,” Wright says. “We also have to think about the people who are paying for health care.”

One tough part about being a brain surgeon is that not every patient is curable. Wright’s own practice focuses on tumors and cancer patients. Cancerous brain tumors are something the eld has tried to master for more than 40 years, Wright says, though there hasn’t been a lot of progress. Some of the most common primary brain tumors (tumors that arise from the brain itself) are malignant and cancerous, and those tend to pop up when a person is 30 to 50 years old.

“I think the best part about this job is the faith that patients place in us to do something that is going to make them or their family member better,” Wright says. “It is a heartbreaking job when you want to help somebody, and we just don’t have the technology or the tools to cure people who are wonderful people who deserved to go home with their families and have a nice life. It’s very, very hard.”

Another of Wright’s priorities as a leader is to get his sta talking — about their feelings. at hasn’t traditionally been a priority among surgeons, Wright says.

“For many decades, surgeons and neurosurgeons were taught to think as a matter of course that you just kind of sucked it up and you moved on,” Wright says. “We’re making progress toward having a more open dialogue and recognizing the mental toll of doing such a high-stress job that involves life and death. I think that’s a really good thing.”

Wright doesn’t try to close himself o from connections to patients, even if there’s a good chance he’ll lose them. As a father himself, he looks at everyone as someone’s child.

“ e trust that people place in you, even if they’re octogenarians and their parents are not alive anymore — the reality is, they’re loved,” Wright says. “It’s not just them that are placing this incredible amount of faith in us to do this di cult thing and make them better. It’s all their loved ones; it’s their kids; it’s their siblings; it’s their friends who love them.”