When Jeffrey T. Keller, PhD, was pursuing his education in brain anatomy 40 years ago, he didn’t use the word mentor. It wasn’t in vogue back then. But he knew what a mentor was, and he understood the value of someone who sincerely cares about your career. “I knew that I was seeking mentors, and their genuine insight and guidance,” Dr. Keller says. “The people who influence you are vital to anyone’s career.”Today, as Research Professor of Neurosurgery and Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Cincinnati and the Mayfield Clinic, Dr. Keller is himself the quintessential mentor. Cincy magazine recently honored him as a member of its Outstanding Educators Class of 2012, a group of 30 exceptional professors who were selected from scores of nominations from students and colleagues. Dr. Keller has been training surgeons, residents and medical students in applied neuroanatomy since 1975.
Dr. Keller’s mastery of his subject is only the beginning. He honors his students with respect, enriches them with digressions into history and art, and supports them with an indefatigable interest in who they are. He gives them books for Christmas, lest they forget that a meticulously researched book is so much more than the first five entries on a search engine. And he lives the Socratic Method, an exercise in generosity that postulates that the student will surpass the teacher.
“Dr. Keller is a master communicator,” says John DePowell, MD, a senior neurosurgical resident. “He has the ability to talk at the level of any student or colleague. He is able to impart his knowledge or a lesson in way such that you feel like you are having a relaxed, normal conversation rather than listening to a lecture or discussion of a complex neuroanatomical topic. Furthermore, it is his knowledge outside of the fields of neurosurgery and neuroanatomy which allows him to be so candid in conversation and lecture, making the listener genuinely appreciate the topic being discussed.”
Good teaching, Dr. Keller believes, comes from passion for one’s subject, a genuine interest in the people, and a love of learning. “I think one learns a lot just from teaching,” he says. “You learn how much you don’t know. And I’m always intrigued by the students who ask good questions in some circuitous route that you’ve never thought of and in a way that makes you … pause. And you say, I never thought of it that way, and then you have to try to address it from their perspective.”
Dr. Keller’s classrooms include the anatomy/cadaver laboratory, and skull base surgery laboratory. He teaches surgical approaches and corridors in all their anatomical detail, but always with an eye to relevance. “There are so many nooks and crannies on a bone,” he muses. “Do you have to know of every nook and cranny? Not necessarily, and in fact I think a lot of early teaching was rote memory, which doesn’t really serve you. Certainly it leaves you more quickly. But there are times when you do need that information and it’s relevant and germane. So you have to pick and choose what’s important. You need a global view and understanding, and you apply the details later.”
“He often asks that you visualize a structure ‘in your mind’s eye,’” Dr. DePowell says. “He frequently relates the same story multiple times in different conversations, often forgetting whether he had already told it, prefacing the re-telling with something along the lines of ‘I can’t remember if I told you this, and I probably have, so forgive me, but I’m going to tell you again anyway.’”
Of course, teaching extends beyond the classroom as well. Dr. DePowell says he will always fondly remember “the many conversations we had in his office on enumerable topics, often not relating to neurosurgery or neuroanatomy whatsoever.”
On one occasion Dr. Keller invited a medical school graduate out to lunch after the young man experienced a searing disappointment: a failure to match with a residency program. “You’re going to get through this,” he told the young man. “You got knocked down, but the real test is this: Can you get back up and run at them faster and harder than before? We all take lumps and bumps, but can you move forward?’” The young man did.
In a typical year, Dr. Keller teaches 16 neurosurgical residents, 2 to 3 fellows, and numerous medical students. He learns quickly whether a young doctor is diligent and has an eye for detail. Some will need more help and guidance. Some he will push to be more thorough in their study of medical literature.
“I have an interest in history, so I like them to know from whence we came, how we got to where we are today,” he says. “To neglect history is to make a grave error. I think you should understand who and what preceded you. Today, with everything online, you can review the literature in seconds, right? Just plug in a few key words and out come 100 references. But do people really read? Do they go back in the literature? Today a lot of students don’t read books.”
Hence the holiday gifts of favorite books, which have included The Scalpel and the Soul, by Allan Hamilton, MD; the biography of Dr. Harvey Cushing, the father of neurosurgery; and The Knife Man, the story of Dr. John Hunter, the father of surgery.
Dr. Keller has another talent that has served him well in an arena populated by overachievers and alpha personalities: his calm temperament. When he first joined the Mayfield Clinic, he recalls with a smile, he found himself working with three legends in the making: the late Frank H. Mayfield, MD, retired Mayfield neurosurgeon Stewart Dunsker, MD, and Mayfield neurosurgeon John M. Tew, MD. “I recognized that I would be in the eye of the hurricane working with them,” he said. “I learned to negotiate and navigate.”
He recalls the time he was confronted by an irate plastic surgeon while working in a lab at a community hospital. “He was yelling at me,” Dr. Keller recalls. “I looked at him, and then I looked around behind me, causing him to wonder what I was looking at. It disarmed him. And then I looked back and said, clearly, ‘It couldn’t be me to whom you’re speaking in that tone of voice.’
“I think you have to take that wind out of their sails to get them into a better position for you to deal with. If I came back and yelled and screamed, he’s going to win, because he’s better at it.”
It has been a memorable year for Dr. Keller. The Jeffrey T. Keller Lectureship was established by the Mayfield Education and Research Foundation in June 2011, and the inaugural lecture was held this past March.
Looking back at a teaching career that began 44 years ago, Dr. Keller is not thinking about retirement. But he is thinking about “transitioning.” This summer he will take a one-month vacation, heading off to canoe country in the north. He wants to see how he feels about being away that long, about not being at work for that long. For a professor who has served as teacher and mentor for nearly 40 years, a full month may seem very long indeed.
— Cindy Starr