On his first night at Union, Jeffrey Wisoff '74 sat in his room in Davidson Hall and talked with his roommate about what each of them would do upon graduation.
“I'm going to be a brain surgeon,” he stated confidently. “Four years of college, four years of medical school, then a five or six-year residency, and when you speak to me in fourteen years, I'll be a neurosurgeon.”
Wisoff recalls the moment as he sits in his office at the New York University Medical Center. “My father (Hugh '49) is a brain surgeon, and it seemed like he had a very nice, gratifying, intellectually-stimulating life.”
But Wisoff is not just another brain surgeon (if such a thing exists). A quick glance around the rooms surrounding his office reveals a tricycle here, a puff basketball net there, an adjustable hoop for dunking in one room, and lots of soft cushioned mats and nerf and rubber balls.
The toys are a vital part of Wisoff's pediatric neurosurgery practice. When a six-year-old comes to Wisoff to have a tumor removed from his brain-an operation that may result in months of rehabilitation-chances are the child is going to need some fun and some nurturing whenever possible.
As he sets off on his evening rounds, Wisoff says, “When I decide to go ahead with surgery on patient, it's really a commitment for life. Some of these kids are going to need several operations and various other treatments, like radiation and chemotherapy, and you're with them through the whole process. You really become a part of their lives.”
We meet Christopher, a two-year-old who lies on a baby-sized gurney in the intensive care unit, gauze bandages wrapped three inches thick around the top and front of his head. Just
twenty-four hours ago, Wisoff removed a tumor three centimeters in diameter from just underneath the pituitary gland at the front of Christopher's brain.
Wisoff leans down and in a light voice says hello to Christopher as he takes his tiny hand between his thumb and forefinger. “How we doing tonight?” he asks softly.
A nervous father, already relieved to see his son's surgeon, answers for Christopher. He tells Wisoff his son is shaking somewhat, but Wisoff assures him this is just a nervous reaction. Normal, nothing to worry about.
“I got to tell you, doctor, you're a godsend,” the father says.
Then there is Boris, a thirteen-year old Russian immigrant who had a golfball sized tumor at the base of his brain stem. Only five days after surgery, Wisoff tells Boris to hold his arms out straight with his palms up. Boris's eyes close slightly, becoming serious with concentration that increases when Wisoff asks him to touch his forefingers to his nose. With a forced steadiness, Boris succeeds. And the joy on his face when Wisoff tells him simply and with a smile, “Very good,” is a sight to behold.
The joy is eclipsed by the way Boris rubs his hands together and flares his eyebrows at his mother when he overhears Wisoff tell a relative over the phone that Boris will begin school again, through tutors in the NYU rehabilitation center, in just a few weeks. If all goes well, Boris will be a full-time student once again in the fall.
Wisoff can't save every child he sees-no surgeon could possibly do
that. On his rounds he visits Sammy, not even two. Born with spina-bifida-a condition in which the upper part of the spinal column is exposed at
birth Sammy has now developed hydrocephalus-the gathering of water in the cerebral cavity.
Though Wisoff has done all he can for the spinal column and has surgically inserted a shunt-a tube to drain the fluid-Sammy has now developed an infection. As Wisoff moves away from where Sammy lies with tubes emerging from his mouth and the back of his neck in every direction, he says soberly, “Sammy's in some trouble.”
“I use diabetes and Mary Tyler Moore as a model for the kids and their parents,” Wisoff says. “Here's a woman who has had diabetes for twenty-five years and has been under the constant care of a physician, yet she's had an incredibly successful life. And that's what these kids can have.
“Seventy percent of kids with brain tumors survive, and we have a seventy to eighty percent success rate with our hydrocephalus patients. Even if the brain tumor happens to be a malignancy, radiation and chemotherapy work on fifty percent of children whereas only twenty-five percent of adults are cured.
“I think you have to have a different philosophy when you're dealing with neurological disorders in kids,” Wisoff continues. “For an adult with a malignant brain tumor, if you buy three months, six months, a year, that's tremendous. Each of us clings to every moment. But in the case of a three- or four-year old child, I don't know what you've done if you've bought a few months. When you treat a child you have to be planning for the next sixty or seventy years.
“With adults you're concerned with winning little battles. In a child's case, you have to win the war.”