JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa always tells his students, young doctors and colleagues to “stay focused on the things that matter,” when balancing a demanding career with important family milestones.
It’s just one of the life lessons, Quinones-Hinojosa, known as “Dr. Q,” says he’s learned during his nearly 40-year journey from a migrant worker to a world-renowned brain surgeon soon to be featured in a movie.
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Today, Dr. Q operates on patients' brains — while they’re awake — extracting tumors that are often cancerous.
“Being driven, having a dream, having faith, seeing light when the rest of the world would only see darkness,” Dr. Q told News4JAX Anchor Joy Purdy when asked how he ultimately chose his career path. “If you think about the disease I care for, brain cancer, it’s devastating. My patients have a tough journey ahead of them. I always tell them I don’t know if I’m going to find a cure for you, all I know is that I will be with you on this journey, and I will fight with all my might so that way I can continue to find cures.”
Dr. Q came to Jacksonville eight years ago to head the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neurologic Surgery, and Mayo’s Brain Tumor Stem Cell Research Laboratory which is dedicated to finding a cure for brain cancer.
His career as a neurosurgeon started at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. When he moved to Jacksonville, funding from the National Institute of Health followed him, along with researchers and patients.
“They followed a dream that we had together,” Dr. Q said, refusing to accept full credit for the following.
His dream of working in healthcare may have come quite early, in his hometown in Mexico where his grandmother was a midwife and the town healer, using traditional native medicine.
“I saw how people reacted to her,” Dr. Q said, smiling. “I saw how many people she helped, and I said to myself, ‘Maybe one day I’ll be able to help people.’ But never in a million years did I ever think that I was going to go to Harvard Medical School.”
Dr. Q’s medical reach extends into 27 countries with more than 100 chapters of the Mission Brain Foundation, a nonprofit he created to provide medical care to underserved patients around the globe, including his home country of Mexico.
“I can only do five or six surgeries every time I go somewhere,” Dr. Q said. “But the people that we have planted, the seeds that we have planted around the world, they’re touching patients almost every day.”
Last year alone, 10,000 patients worldwide received medical care through the foundation.
Dr. Q says he provides hope for patients, a hope recognized by Netflix and the BBC through the docuseries “The Surgeon’s Cut,” which was released in 2020.
Dr. Q shared the sacrifices he regrets while climbing the ladder of success, how he became an American citizen, and the movie that is in the works about his life and career.
Listen to Joy’s full 30-minute discussion with Dr. Q on Discover the Joy, The Purdy Podcast which highlights inspirational stories.