Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa, Child Worker Turned Brain Surgeon

Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa transformed himself from former child migrant worker to renown neurosurgeon. In the San Joaquin Valley, Quiñones-Hinojosa worked the vegetable fields seven days a week, sunup to sundown. He balanced his hours working long days while also taking night classes at a local community college. Excelling in all his science studies, he applied and became a new candidate at Harvard Medical School. “Someone asked how I’d come to Harvard. ‘I hopped the fence,’ I said. Everyone laughed. They thought I was joking.” Quiñones-Hinojosa accredits his success to his hard-work ethic he learned in his childhood and the incredible mentors he met along the way. He now resides at the John Hopkins Medical Center as the neurosurgery clinic head, teacher/mentor, and practicing neurosurgeon. He nearly 250 brain operations a year, with a high success rate.

To read more about Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa, please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/science/13conv.html?_r=1