Neurosurgeon
By Elizabeth Bailey
In my Interview...
I interviewed Dr. Saied Aryan who is a neurosurgeon and learned some very interesting facts about his career. He had only been a neurosurgeon for 7 years because he worked in Pakistan before coming to work in the US and actually had to go through residency twice. He recommended going to college for 4 years to get a bachelor's degree, but grades cannot be dropped because getting into medical school is highly competitive for doctors. After you attend college you go to medical school for 4 years followed by a residency at a hospital for 4-7 years. It took him 14 years to complete his residency. This career takes a very extensive amount of education and cannot be done straight out of college or highschool, it requires at least 12 years of education before you can persue it. He said that he first got involved in this career because his relatives practiced in medicine and he really wanted to find a way to help people the way they did. He said that people go into being a surgeon because they think of the glamorous life and it really isn't about that, it's about wanting to help someone no matter what. Advancement with this career isn't really common, you could move up to head surgeon but that requires another set of training. Tuition reimbursement in this field is available based on grades and performance. He described to me one of his more recent procedures, he did a 3 level corpectomy which is where he remain cancer from 3 different plates in the spine. When he explained a day in his career it wasn't quite what I expected. He said while yes it is a bit demanding, there aren't a ton of surgeries scheduled in one day so most of it is office work. Vacation time really differs in the field because you can get from 2-3 months of vacation time if you wanted to take it, but typically most would only take about 3 weeks, it's all about how they want to organize their schedule. The job outlook for surgeons is really good because while yes it takes a very intelligent person in this career, there aren't that many so neurosurgeons are in high demand world wide. He said he could definitely see himself continuing this career in the next ten years because he absolutely loves his job and is proud f the work he has done to get where he is.