Going the Distance: A Spotlight on DCMS Member Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa

Story by Lana Sumner-Borema, DCMS Intern

Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa smiles as he says the names of his two dogs “Rocky” and “Apollo.” The chair of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic’s connection to the film is much deeper than his personal love for boxing.

“Rocky just wanted to go the distance, all he wanted to do was fifteen rounds. He didn’t want to be a champion. All I wanted to do when I first came to the United States was somehow get some sort of respect from the world, which is something I didn’t see people giving my father.”

Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa left his home town of Mexicali, Mexico in 1987 looking for a better life in America. Once in the country, he began his life as a migrant farm worker and eventually began working for a railroad company as a welder. Around this time, he managed to begin taking night classes at a community college to learn English. It was the beginning of a life way bigger than he’d ever dreamed. A mentor he gained through his night classes helped him get accepted into the University of California, Berkeley where he would finish his undergraduate work and later get accepted into Harvard Medical School.

“There’s probably no other brain surgeon in the world of my caliber who can tell you with pride that my parents are very humble. They had no formal education. They never came to Harvard, they couldn’t understand what Harvard was,” he shares. “My Father couldn’t even pronounce the word Harvard because the r and the v are a little bit weird in English and these sounds don’t exist in Spanish. He knew I was in a school in Boston somewhere. He knew it was something big because he knew that presidents and very famous people went to this school, and they never visited until I graduated.”

Before coming to the U.S., Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa, or Dr. Q as he’s now known by most, was a school teacher in Mexico. At 19, when he crossed the border into America, his original plan was simply to make enough money to continue his education in Mexico. American medical school was not on his radar, and definitely not an esteemed career in neurosurgery or the awards and recognition he would eventually receive in the United States. According to Dr. Q, the initial effort it took to cross the border was not the climax of his difficulties, but rather the beginning of a long journey it would take to succeed in America.

“The challenges that you will encounter in this country early on are going to be much greater than the challenges you had in your own country. In physics, we call it initial energy, to overcome, to gain momentum. That energy, just like a vehicle, the first acceleration that you do is when you spend the most amount of gasoline to get the car going.“

Dr. Q explains that he has been putting in that initial energy for much longer than people probably would suspect.

“I began to see the light and understand the fruits of my hard work probably about three years ago when I was fifty years old. Think about that. Before then, it was all of that energy that I was telling you about. That is what people have a difficult time understanding. I had already done Peabody work, been on PBS and all that. People saw this guy who was energetic and happy, but the truth was, behind the scenes, there was a lot of hard work and sacrifice.”

Hard work and sacrifice are what Dr. Q is focusing on in his newest book The Deepest Cut. His first book, an autobiography entitled Becoming Dr. Q, focused on the positives of his experience making a life in America. It’s even in the works of being turned into a motion picture by Plan B productions. This new book, however, will focus on the experiences he feels immigrants are not told when they come to America.

“On purpose I didn’t deal with the demons I carry [in my first book], the darkness you see, the times I put myself to sleep crying, the times my hands were bleeding when I was working on the field, and when I was at Harvard and working in the lab when everyone else was on vacation and I didn’t see my family for years. Those times I don’t talk about. Now I’m beginning to deal with that precise question: how do you keep people motivated?”

He was also lucky to have the support of mentors along the way and his amazing wife, Anna, whom he met before he could even speak English when he was still working on railroads and going to community college. Dr. Q was fortunate to have a support system but as he describes for many newly-arrived immigrants their new country appears to be treating them like an opponent in a boxing match.

“I didn’t understand that this land of opportunities can be so harsh. It can get you down on your knees not once, not twice, but many, many times. The greatest challenge you’re gonna have is believing you can get up, take another beating, go down again, get up, take another beating, and keep going forward. Every time you get up, you know you do it a little faster, and every time you go down, you know you stay down a little bit less.“

While recognizing how far he has gotten, he explains that he should not be considered an outlier, that many more immigrants can and will have great success in this country. One difficulty is that new immigrants sometimes feel the need to bypass school in order to help their families financially as they try to navigate the tricky new American system. According to Quiñones-Hinojosa, it is quite contrary to the perceived idea of many immigrants.

“The greatest service you can do to your family, humanity, and yourself is to get an education, but I’m not saying that it is going to be easy.” He adds, “I think somewhere along the line if we continue to be a country that is brought up by a lot of hard work from immigrants, we need to acknowledge that.”

One aspect of his journey that he does not downplay are the mentors that helped him along the way.

“I always tell people ‘We stand on the shoulders of giants.’ There is a lot of work that has come before us, and we continue to pave the road for those behind us.”

Despite the fact that Dr. Q was culturally different from many of his peers throughout his education at Berkeley and Harvard, he was able to maintain confidence in his culture when remembering the recognition his parents deserved.

“I was in medical school and I was about to become a U.S. citizen in 1997 and I was talking to my friends, and they said ‘perfect, this is your opportunity, if you want to be successful in this country we recommend you change your name.’”

His friends made up a number of alternate “American” names for him and, ultimately, he responded by respecting his parents.

“I said ‘forget it, I’m gonna honor my mother and my father with hyphenating the last name.’” It was then he changed his last name from Quiñones to Quiñones-Hinojosa.

These days Dr. Q is the Chair of Neurosurgery for Mayo Clinic and a world-renowned neurosurgeon. With all his accolades, it may surprise you to learn Dr. Q still sometimes doubts his ability when he faces a complication in surgery.

“It’s not an issue as to the demons or becoming afraid of failure or doubting yourself. It’s how you react to it. The way that I have learned and I tell people is that you have to go back and you have to keep improving yourself. Being humble before you are confident is actually a tool that you can use to learn more and become better prepared. In my own career, it has made me better and better and more able to do the things I do in science and in the clinic and I think those are challenges that we face on a daily basis.”

Outside of his research and work at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Q also runs his nonprofit, Mission: BRAIN, with the help of family and friends. They travel abroad to underserved countries and supply resources and guidance for neurosurgery in areas where there is oftentimes no neurosurgery work at all.

“The real help comes when you go out there and put your hands on someone, and you teach a neurosurgeon, a resident, and they get to see a person like me that they know who has written eight books on neurosurgery, operating with them and telling them ‘Yeah! You’re doing a great job!’ Or I get to operate with some of the most famous neurosurgeons in the world together and residents and faculty can see us and learn. That is the real value that you cannot put a price on.”

The nonprofit has also become a family affair with his wife and kids helping fundraise and traveling abroad to provide help. He and his wife have three children ages 22 to 16. Though his children may never have to go through the same extreme struggles he did, he always reminds them that “they will have their own battles, their own demons they will have to fight.” He also reminds them to never compare themselves to others. “That is something I have done very, very well. I never compare myself to others. Up until today, that’s a principle I have kept. I see myself and I compare myself to myself. Where am I today, and where I am going to be tomorrow?”