Following in Their Footsteps
“The nice thing is, we control our
destiny,” the elder doctor says. “If we want to
take a week off, we take a week off.”
Both physicians agree the experience has
been more positive than negative.
“I am definitely going to stick
with it and take over the practice eventually,” Greg Todd
says.
George Bartl, MD & Lynn Bartl, MD
Neurosurgeons
Lynn Bartl, MD, didn’t always want
to be a neurosurgeon like her dad.
“I wanted to pursue law when I was
in high school. I used to tease him that I would be a
malpractice lawyer some day,” she says with a laugh.
“But I was always best at natural sciences. My
undergraduate [college] degree was in vertebrate zoology.
Medical school was a logical next step.”
Her dad’s influence really did
start earlier than she realized, she says now.
“Growing up, I knew he loved what
he did, and his patients were always so grateful. People would
approach him when we’d go out as a family and tell him
how he had changed their lives,” Lynn says.
But when she started expressing an
interest in neurosurgery during medical school, Lynn’s
dad did try to talk her out of it “in a sense.”
“He said, ‘Why not try
anesthesiology or emergency medicine? Then you’re either
on or you’re off,’” she says. “He was
worried about the demands of the career.”
Lynn, who was born while her father was
still a resident, was well aware that he was gone a great deal
during her childhood because of
his job.
his job.
“I remember asking my mom,
‘Is Daddy coming home tonight? Is Daddy coming home
tomorrow night?’”
Even with that first-hand knowledge, she
was undaunted.
“I liked all of medical school,
which I know is pretty weird,” she says. “There was
no specialty I didn’t like. I had several fellowships
arranged for me—vascular surgery, hand surgery—but
I didn’t want to do academic neurosurgery.”
The elder Bartl, who has 29 years
experience over his daughter, did dissections with her while
she was in medical school.
“It was neat to practice with Dad
because he was trained before MRIs and CT scans,” Lynn
says. “Our differences in style are technical, but I must
compliment him because he has stayed very current. I use a lot
of technical equipment, and often take a different approach,
such as using computers or laparoscopic equipment that might
make surgery last longer. He takes the practical, ‘get
in-get out’ approach, which is based on the days when
there was greater risk to the patient because of things like
older forms of anesthesia.”
She clearly remembers their first surgery
together, when she was a medical student: a subdural
hematoma.
“It was a situation where I
couldn’t do much damage,” she says wryly. “Of
course I was nervous walking in, but then I knew I just had to
do it. Ultimately, the surgeon is the captain of the ship, and
the assisting surgeon can offer an opinion, but he must follow
the surgeon’s lead. My dad followed my lead that day.
I’m a good assistant in surgery, and so is he.”
George Bartl laughs about his own memory
of their first surgery together.
“I thought, ‘How much room is
there in one OR for the egos of two neurosurgeons, let alone
two who are father and daughter?’ The first time we
scrubbed in together? Tension, tension, tension. But she did
well.”
The elder Bartl says he is well aware
that he is in the “autumn” of his career.
“In neurosurgery, there are many
technical improvements for every year that goes by, and more of
what I’ve learned is obsolete,” he says, in spite
of his daughter’s accolades to the contrary. “At
this point, the student has exceeded the master.
“My personal opinion is that, as a
neurosurgeon, you need seasoning,” he continues.
“You need years of experience to become proficient, and
Lynn has that. As a father, to see this occur in your
offspring, it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing,”
George says.
This is not to say their collaboration
has been without bumps along the way, he admits.
“We’ve had words at times, and we don’t
always agree. But we know how to work things out.”
Today, the two of them share many
patients, and the younger Dr. Bartl often does spinal
instrumentation or surgery for her dad. Their patients’
reaction to their collaboration?
“Some patients don’t want you
because you’re younger, or female or whatever. There can
be any number of reasons,” Lynn says. “But many are
very excited to have us both work on their case.”
“People like being the patient
passed on from father to daughter better than being passed on
to another associate,” George says.
As for the future, the elder physician
says his daughter will have no trouble taking over part of his
caseload when he retires. Lynn voices no trepidation.
“He does have a career’s
worth of patients, but we’ll have to divide them among
the other partners and me when he retires. Our practice is
extremely
equitable, we don’t have to handle the books, and our goals are similar, so it should be fine. And dad and I can still bore our spouses by talking shop when we all get together,” Lynn says with a laugh.
equitable, we don’t have to handle the books, and our goals are similar, so it should be fine. And dad and I can still bore our spouses by talking shop when we all get together,” Lynn says with a laugh.
Barbara Wilson, a New Jersey-based
free-lance writer, is a regular contributor to Unique
Opportunities.
