When Dr. Safraz Mohammed was a young boy, he could picture himself as a doctor, but he didn’t necessarily picture himself as a neurosurgeon in Canada.
But today, as Staff Neurosurgeon at The Ottawa Hospital, Dr. Mohammed is pushing the boundaries of neurosurgery through his work on awake brain surgery and commitment to educating the next generation of doctors.
Read on to learn how Dr. Mohammed knew he’d be a doctor from a very early age and why he’s excited about the new campus.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your early years?
A: I was born in Trinidad and Tobago. My dad was a mechanic, my mother was a housewife. My mother’s family were all tradespeople and dad’s side were all farmers; no one had a high level of education until my siblings and I came along. I was the nerdy type, and while I played the occasional cricket on the street — when a car came, you had to yell out “CAR!” — mostly, I loved reading The Hardy Boys or anything by Enid Blyton or Stephen King. I think if you’re going into a career like medicine, it’s important to love reading.
Q: How did you decide to become a doctor?
A: In kindergarten, the teacher would bring all the new kids up to the front and say, “This is so-and-so, and they’re going to be an astronaut or ballerina or whatever.” It was just to show the potential for every kid. She brought me up and said, “This is Safraz, and he’s going to be a doctor.” I was like, “OK, I’m going to be a doctor then.”
This taught me an important lesson: Do not underestimate the power of words to young kids. It guided my elementary and high school years and my decision to pursue medicine — all from that one moment.
I focused on biological sciences in high school, and when I graduated, I was the top student on the island, so I got the President’s Gold Medal scholarship in Mathematics, which entitled me to seven years of free education anywhere in the world. I chose to study medicine in Trinidad because the scholarship covered a lot, but not everything, and I knew if I fell short on money, there was nothing to fall back on.
When I graduated from medical school, I went looking for that kindergarten teacher and found her and told her this story. She said, “I always knew you had it in you.”
Q: How did you choose to focus on neurosurgery specifically?
A: When I was a medical student, I wanted to be a vascular surgeon after unexpectedly being asked to scrub in for an operation where the second surgeon was delayed with an emergency. When the main surgeon eventually took the kidney out, he told me to hold my hands in a cup and gave the kidney to me. Then, he said, “Turn around, walk three steps, and give this kidney to Nicole — do not drop it.”
I took my three steps, gave it to Nicole, and once the kidney was out of my hands, I felt the biggest sigh ever and thought, “Thank God I didn’t drop that kidney.”
That first scrub was so exhilarating that when I graduated, I applied to work in general surgery with the idea of going into vascular surgery. They had no positions, but the chief of staff said a neurosurgeon wanted to have me. He said I could transfer to general surgery if I agreed, so I signed on. After my six months in neurosurgery, I got to go into general surgery … but it just lacked lustre having just completed neurosurgery. There was little joy for me. So, when a position opened up in neurosurgery again, I went for it.
I didn’t choose neurosurgery, neurosurgery chose me. I love it because, like mathematics, there is so much pattern recognition, and if you can recognize the patterns and ordered arrangements you can solve problems.
Q: How did you wind up in Canada?
A: I was working in neurosurgery in Trinidad, sometime in 2005, when at 2 a.m., I was called in by pediatrics to see a 6-month-old kid who they thought had meningitis, but it turned out be what looked like a medulloblastoma — a type of brain tumour. We couldn’t do much for him, and it made me realize I wanted to pursue first-world neurosurgery training.
I saw that a lot of research came out of Canada, and that a Dr. James T Rutka had done quite a bit, so I emailed him. I wrote: “Hi, my name is Safraz Mohammed. I’m a medical doctor from Trinidad and Tobago. In case you don’t know, Trinidad and Tobago is the most southern island of the Caribbean.” I wrote that because I had never left Trinidad, and I didn’t know if it was known beyond the Caribbean!
He replied at 8:00 a.m. the next morning: “Send me your CV.”
We chatted back and forth for a bit, then I asked if I could come up to Canada to see first-world neurosurgery. He said he’d make all the arrangements.
I landed in Canada, wrote my board exams, and then went to SickKids to observe his surgery. We met in his office after and had a lovely conversation about goals and careers, and when I left, I closed the door behind me and saw a sign on it: Dr. James T. Rutka, Chairman of Neurosurgery, University of Toronto.
I thought, “Holy crap … this is the chairman, and I didn’t even know! I should have said something different, not made jokes and stuff!”
But I think it was fine, because we both enjoyed it. I was there three weeks then went home to Trinidad. Shortly after, I got a letter stating they’d like to offer me a spot up here in a neurosurgical training program. So, we packed up our three kids and moved to Canada.
Q: What made you choose to come to The Ottawa Hospital?
A: I started a Masters and was fortunate to be able to do six years in neurosurgical training in Toronto — I worked with every single academic spine surgeon (neuro and ortho) in the city — and when I graduated my residency, I did a fellowship in spine surgery at the University of Toronto. When that had ended, I was packing up to go back to Trinidad when The Ottawa Hospital called to say they wanted to interview me. I didn’t think I’d actually get it, so instead of feeling nervous and saying, “Your program is so excellent!” I said, “This is what I can do from an educational standpoint to improve your program.”
I guess they liked this approach, because I got the job. That was in 2016, and now, The Ottawa Hospital is my home away from home.
Q: What makes The Ottawa Hospital stand out for you?
“Treating people like family, giving them that dignity and respect, is crucial. And that’s embodied by The Ottawa Hospital.”
— Dr. Mohammed
A: The motto for The Ottawa Hospital, developed by past CEO Dr. Jack Kitts, is to treat people like they’re your family and give them world-class care. I think that’s so important. I’ve operated on millionaires and one billionaire, on homeless people, on highly educated people, on people from all walks of life — once you cut the skin, we’re all the same inside, people are people. Treating people like family, giving them that dignity and respect, is crucial. And that’s embodied by The Ottawa Hospital. I love the personalized care people get.
Q: What role does education play in your work?
A: As the director of undergraduate education in neurosurgery for the University of Ottawa, and assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, I teach medical students, residents, and fellows. What I love about education is that it inspires other people. When you teach another person, your influence becomes limitless, because they teach others. The number of patients you can reach with education is far more than you could ever do by yourself.
Q: What will the new campus mean for your work?
A: With the new campus comes new technology. With better, newer tech, the hospital will allow us to do more minimally invasive spine surgery. Before, patients would go home five or six days, now patients can go home the next day, with less pain and better outcomes.
The future of neurosurgery is individualized care; technology to make it faster, safer, and more efficient; and early detection — if half of the population will get cancer, the earlier we detect it, the better the outcome. We can do more of this at the new campus.
Read about Erin Brown, who was treated by Dr. Mohammed for a never-seen-before brain tumour and is now his colleague.
Q: Where would we find you when you’re not at work?
A: When not at work, I’m with family. All three kids are in software engineering, 21, 23, and 25. We go for hikes, we love travelling to new cities and new nature. We also love Ottawa. We can get any food, the people are friendly, everyone embraces winter, there’s yearlong activities … back in Trinidad, you can go to your neighbours and family unannounced, and you can do that in Ottawa, too.
