Medical Resident’s Career Derailed by Epidermoid Brain Tumor Before Getting Back on Track

Dr. Chris recently finished his medical residency in Family Practice in late 2015 after placing it on hold at the beginning of his third year. His life was suddenly interrupted by the epidermoid brain tumor symptoms. In March, 2013, Dr. Chris was diagnosed with a 4.5 cm brain mass in the posterior fossa, that formed before his birth. The next week, the mass was removed in a 16 hours surgery. The mass was identified as an epidermoid brain tumor. Since surgery, Dr. Chris went from fully functional to disabled overnight from post-surgical deficits. These past years, Dr. Chris has been challenged with deficits from the epidermoid surgery yet he never gave up. With determination and courage, he reentered his medical residency and graduated in May, 2016

Writing became his outlet, writing his own personal blog, and also giving hope to others with the epidermoid brain tumor by writing articles for the EBTS organization website. His re-entrance back to his life has been rocky and continues to be an ongoing journey, but one that was necessary. It took 20 months before Dr. Chris was back in his residency.

In an article written especially for our EBTS membership, Dr. Chris in expressing thoughts of what or who is to blame for the epidermoid brain tumor relates to members that his condition is NO ONE’S fault. “I just happened to win the lottery for getting a congenital brain mass—because the mass and its location are so rare, I have had difficulty coming up with studies or articles that cite the chance of having this type of mass (with the ensuing symptoms), but according to my calculations, less than one in a million people will have this mass in their posterior fossa with subsequent Posterior Fossa Syndrome. I can either search for someone or something to blame this on, or just cough it up to luck (good or bad). After much thought, I’ve realized it really doesn’t matter whose fault it is. After a tragedy, our thoughts should not be, Who’s to blame? It ought to be, How can this be prevented in the future? How can others avoid the same mishap? Instead of looking for someone or something to blame, would it not be more productive to find the source of the problem?” And that is the Goal of EBTS as well.