A DAY IN THE KNIFE: “There hasn't been a single point in my career when I've thought I'd made the wrong decision."

09 July 2026

Alistair Jenkins, 67, married with one daughter, consultant neurosurgeon in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. CBS Executive Board Member and Past President of SBNS.

For more than three decades, Alistair Jenkins has worked as a consultant neurosurgeon based in Newcastle upon Tyne, and through his career he has treated everything from spinal issues and brain tumours to life threatening head injuries. Reflecting on his role, Alistair explains the extent of his work;

“I’ve been a consultant Neurosurgeon here in Newcastle since 1990. Neurosurgeons deal with surgical problems of the brain and spine: everything from head injuries, brain tumours and brain haemorrhages through to slipped discs. One of the other things we do is functional neurosurgery, which is what many people think neurosurgeons mainly do - altering the function of the brain to help people with movement disorders like Parkinson's disease, tremor and epilepsy. We also do surgery for chronic pain. Just generally trying to make people's lives a bit better!”

Like many people, Alistair's interest in medicine began at a young age. However, it was his experience during medical school that confirmed neurosurgery was the route he wanted to take, despite initially expecting it to be one of the most difficult areas of medicine. He says;

"When you're a child, you only really know about the jobs you see. You want to be a train driver, a policeman - or a doctor. I don't really remember when I decided, but I wanted to be a surgeon from the first time I saw a needle or a scalpel and read Richard Gordon’s ‘Doctor in the House’ books. Perhaps it’s odd at such a young age to think 'I want to cut people up for a living’, but there you go... It seemed like the perfect job because it sounded exciting, and interesting, and hopefully did people some good. If it also made you a reasonable living, then that was a bonus.”

A casual conversation with a mentor was the turning point in Alistair's career. However, a letter lost in the mail nearly prevented him from getting the job. Luckily Alistair secured the opportunity which shaped the rest of his profession. He continues;

"At the end of my neurosurgery placement, I went to thank my main mentor for looking after me. He was in his office fiddling with one of the enormous computers people had in the early 1980s, and clearly his mind was elsewhere, because when I said I'd really enjoyed my few months he simply looked up and said, 'When could you start?' I did the fastest two seconds of thinking in my life, came up with a date and blurted it out. Later, while I was working in Manchester, a letter arrived saying, 'I take it you're not interested in the job then.' It turned out that my formal job offer - from the Professor, no less - had been lost in the post. I sent a grovelling reply which fortunately rescued the situation, and I started neurosurgery a few months later.”

No day is the same in neurosurgery. Alongside operating, Alistair balances outpatient clinics, ward rounds, teaching and international training. Among the many procedures he performs, one operation in particular stands out because of the immediate impact it can have on patients' lives. He explains;

"There isn't really such a thing as a typical day because my days are either operating days, outpatient days or ward round and admin days. I also spend a lot of time teaching and travelling abroad, running courses and lectures, so every week is a bit different. One of my favourite operations is for trigeminal neuralgia. It's an agonising condition where people get sudden electric shock like pains on one side of the face. They can be talking, chewing or simply walking outside when it suddenly strikes, and it is so severe that normal function is impossible. Suicide is not uncommon. It is caused by compression of the nerve to the face by an artery. The operation is done under a microscope. We make a small opening behind the ear, find the nerve and artery, and place a tiny piece of Teflon between them. When patients wake up, the pain is completely gone. Some people have lived with that pain for years, and you can change all of that in half an hour. That's incredibly satisfying.”

Outside the operating theatre, Alistair has developed routines that help him separate work from home life while also giving him space to think through challenging cases. Cycling has become an important part of both his wellbeing and his decision-making process.

“When I leave work, I get on my bike and cycle home. I'm lucky because my route crosses a huge public space, the Town Moor, right in the middle of the city. As I ride across it, two things happen. The first is that I shed all the stress of the day, so by the time I get home I've left work behind. But I think too that a number of patients probably owe their lives to that bike ride: my brain isn't concentrating on anything except staying upright, so it starts working through difficult operations, whether I should operate at all, or how I should approach a case. Suddenly I'll have one of those 'bingo' moments where the answer appears, and very often it turns out to be the right one. Cycling is my main hobby. I usually head into the hills at weekends - I’m just back from the Highlands where I was climbing and cycling. Great weather for once!”

Looking back on a career spanning many years, Alistair remains passionate about medicine and encourages those considering the profession to embrace the challenge, despite the changes it has undergone. He concludes;

“You think you want to do Neurosurgery? My advice is simple: go for it. It's harder to get into medicine than it used to be, and the job has changed in many ways, but I still think it's one of the best careers you could possibly choose. It's challenging, endlessly interesting and incredibly rewarding. Apart from perhaps being a rock star, I genuinely can't think of another job I'd rather have done., and I don’t have the voice or the legs for that. There hasn't been a single point in my career when I've thought I'd made the wrong decision."

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