RESIDENTS' CORNER
A SOFTWARE ENGINEER IN NEUROSURGERY

Allan Martin
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After graduating from the
University of Toronto, Allan
Martin worked for 10 years
as a software engineer in
the Toronto IBM laboratory.
He earned nine patents during
his IBM time. When he
became interested in neuroscience,
he had no biology
or chemistry courses, so
he completed these in night
school. He then entered
medical school the oldest member of his class, just as he
and wife Kirsten were expecting their first child. With
her background in nursing, Kirsten earned an MBA
in Hospital Administration at the Schulich School of
Business. Together they have three children - 4 year old
Zia, 2 year old Scarlett and 5 week old Leo. They are
fortunate to have grandparents nearby as they pursue
their busy two career family life. With his father -in -law
Tony, Allan re-renovated a 93 year old house in which
the Martins now live. Tony is a former mechanic, pilot
and engineer. Allan’s father is a software engineer, author,
and theologian.
Allan is interested in innovations in medical technology,
including the development of implants for treatment
of neurological disabilities. He likes thinking about
the brain/ machine interfaces that will come to fruition
over the next decade.
A former competitive sailor and rock musician, he
now spends 99% of his free time with his family. He
bikes everywhere and is evidently making progress as
a neurosurgeon since he was serving as acting senior
resident (with his senior away on vacation) at the time
of this interview, though he was still in the first year of
the program.
M.M.
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GEORGE IBRAHIM - NEUROSURGERY, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND ETHICS

George Ibrahim in Boston
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PGY4 Neurosurgery resident
George Ibrahim is currently
in Calgary, recruiting
patients for the clinical component
of his PhD thesis
project on connectivity in
epilepsy. His supervisors are
Jim Rutka and Carter Snead.
He is also enrolled in the
Global Health Certificate
program at the Dalla Lana
School of Public Health. The course is coordinated and
organized by Barry Pakes, an emergency room physician,
public health scholar, and doctoral student at the
Joint Centre for Bioethics. The emphasis of the course
is learning how to teach in low resource communities.
Andrew Howard, Jerome Singh, Greg Silverman, Denis
Daneman and others are teachers in this program.
George credits Mark Bernstein’s teaching and practice as
the source of his interest in Bioethics. "Surgery is ethics
intensive and there are multiple issues in every aspect of
surgery. In neurosurgery and paediatric epilepsy, there
are issues of accessibility, inequities related to disparities
in the availability of diagnostic tools and the whole area
of surgical innovation." George is working on high frequency
oscillations with intracranial electrode recordings
as an example of surgical innovation.
George is an avid learner - he speaks five languages and is
learning two more. He is also learning to play the violin,
having been a musician since highschool in a rock band
which got all the way to Carnegie Hall. He sang, played
the saxophone and the piano in those earlier years. His
family is dominated by engineering - his mother was
a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Cairo, his
father is an electrical engineer and two of his sisters are
engineers. His goal is to complete his PhD, emphasizing
functional connectivity to define the cause of seizures
and improve surgical treatment. He is interested in how
seizures impair cognition, using functional MRI as a
diagnostic probe. The mechanism of cognitive impairment
in seizure patients is unknown.
George has taught undergraduate students the Ethics
of Consent and has participated with Mark Bernstein on
several papers examining ethical issues in neurosurgery.
M.M.
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