Dr. Keith Black was 17 years old when he won the Westinghouse Award in science. He is now one of the world's most talented brain surgeons known for working with the most difficult brain tumors. He, along with only a handful of other, averages more than 250 such operations a year. That's an average of 5 every week. And his patients come not only from the United States, but from around the world.
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RHS: Robert H. Schuller
KB: Keith Black

RHS:
Dr. Keith Black was 17 years old when he won the Westinghouse Award in science. He was born and raised in a family where he can tell you, his father was a prominent educator in a segregated school in Alabama. And so they had to take him to Tuskegee where there was the only hospital where black women could deliver babies. Interesting, interesting life to say the least, but let me just read something that I have excerpted from the Time Magazine, the fall issue.

It says, "A California brain surgeon, wields formidable new weapons as he battles on the front line of the tumor war." It starts with an anecdote of Belinda Schuller, ten years old. Ten years ago she wouldn't have had a chance. Few doctors would have tried to remove the malignant growth located in her right frontal lobe. It had already taken over one sixth of her cranium, pushing her brain down and to the left. Leave it alone and the cancer would keep compressing useful tissue inextricably, robbing her of speech, movement, consciousness, life itself, all within months. Try to cut it out, there'd be the risk of taking too little, leaving cancerous tissue to grow again, or taking too much causing profound and irreparable brain damage. It would be the kind of a tumor that neurosurgeons for the most part would say inoperable. But fortunately, her doctor was Dr. Keith Black, one the world's most talented brain surgeons known for working with the most difficult brain tumors.

"Of the five thousand or so neurosurgeons working in the United States today, four thousand nine hundred concentrate mostly on the spine and deal on an average of only five or six brain tumors a year. Of the remaining 100 who routinely work inside the skull, perhaps 50 specialize in blood vessel repairs, rather than brain tumors. Only the remaining 50 can be considered brain tumor specialists and they would average 100 surgeries annually."

KB:
Thank you.

RHS:
I met him face to face for the first time this morning. Where were you when I needed you? Well I had a good neurosurgeon in Amsterdam when I had an accident and they did their thing and, but I was so surprised when I met you. I expected a gentleman about 60 years old, at least in his 50's with graying hair and here you are just turned 40. Astonishing. How did you ever get interested in brain surgery?

KB:
Well, Dr. Schuller, I was actually from as early as I can remember, always interested in science. And my interest in the brain really began when I was early in medical school and starting to learn about neuro-anatomy, neuro-physiology. I began to understand the fascination, how incredible the brain was and I knew that it would be something that I would want to focus my life on. It's just an a... it's been an incredible privilege for me and an opportunity to have the pleasure and honor of being able to study the brain and to contribute what I can in helping to treat diseases that affect the brain.

RHS:
Human consciousness. That attracted your attention, didn't it.

KB:
It sure did. I actually, originally wanted to try to focus my understanding on consciousness. What is consciousness? What actually takes place between this concept, that we call the mind and the brain. And I began to study as much as I could, about neuroscience. I could tell you for example, how a photon of light from the sun, would strike the retina and that would be converted by a chemical in the retina or a dobson into an electrical impulse and would be carried back along the optic tracks and optic chasm and into the lateralgeneculate body, the seven layers and into areas 17 of the visual cortex and into area 19 of the puridal lobe and we were using very complex mathematical formulations to describe how these action potentials would travel down the columns of the cortex using laplase transforms and for analysis. But I began to realize I was learning more and more about less and less. And I understood that science was not at a point yet where we could understand consciousness. That there was... there was more that science had to do, more growth science had to undergo before it could actually begin to understand what consciousness actually is.

RHS:
Okay, now I'm in theology. Some people would call it religion. And we're kind of interested in that subject of consciousness in the spirit of the soul. How do you relate to the world that I'm in?

KB:
Well, from my view both as a believer and as a scientist, I do not see any conflict between a religion and science. If you want to understand an artist, you study his art. If you want to understand God, you study nature. When I look inside the brain and I see the extraordinary complexity, the beauty with which God put together the brain, it brings me closer to God, not farther away.

RHS:
Tell me, do you think it's possible for an immortal soul with consciousness and awareness and life to exist after the body were evolved, has died and turned to dust and ashes.

KB:
The answer is yes. I believe in the soul, I believe in the spirit. I believe in life ever after. There is... I believe as a scientist that the ultimate goal of science is to understand God. The ultimate goal of science is to understand nature and nature is God. And there are some things that science cannot understand. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. It doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It just means that we are not able to explain it in scientific terms. But clearly there's more than we know now on a physical level, and that is what I believe religion does for us. It allows us to understand that at this time and to believe it.

RHS:
Tell me, you do five ... an average of about five operations a week, right?

KB:
Correct.

RHS:
Many of these deal with malignancies, true?

KB:
True.

RHS:
I mean we've heard it said that if you have a cancer tumor in the brain that will be terminal. Are some of them actually that are performed by Dr. Keith Black today living, surviving? You're smiling, I love that.

KB:
Well, it was a real pleasure for me, Reverend Schuller, to look out in the audience and see some of my patients. I didn't know they would be here. About half of the tumors that we encounter, we have the technology, we have the ability, we have the skills to cure. We can take care of about half of the tumors. Unfortunately, ....

RHS:
Malignant tumors?

KB:
... No. All tumors.

RHS:
All tumors.

KB:
Fortunately about half are malignant. And for whatever reason, we're not sure why, the incidence of these tumors is increasing, unlike most other cancers that are decreasing, brain tumors is on the rise. Even when we correct for better ability to diagnose it with CT and MRI, in aging population, we also know now that for children, a brain tumor is just the leading cause of death from cancer.

So it is a true challenge that we face. Fortunately now, our science is allowing us to understand the nature of these tumors. For the first time we understand what allows tumors, cancer to survive in the body. We know that they are able to suppress, for example, the immune response. Every one with a brain tumor becomes immuno-suppressed. And understanding this immune system has allowed us to develop for the first time, strategies, for example, using vaccines that we can eradicate tumors from pre-clinical models now, to be tried in patients. And about three weeks ago, I treated our first two patients with a tumor vaccine that I think will begin to allow us to make an impact into even these more difficult tumors to treat.

RHS:
Wow. Oh. So, as you look ahead, you know you're only barely half way in your professional life.

KB:
Right.

RHS:
Are you very optimistic about the future of the treatment of cancers of the brain?

KB:
Well, I'm optimistic about the future treatment of cancer in general and optimistic also about the future of brain cancer. I am absolutely convinced that within ten to fifteen years we will have the ability to control cancer and control brain tumors. We're on the verge of really a revolution now in medicine. You hear almost every week, new breakthroughs that are developing because for the first time, we're beginning to understand the biology and or developing intelligent strategies to intervene. We will cure cancer. We will find a way to treat this disease.

If I could, for example, have you imagine that instead of being 1998, this is 1952, and I introduce to you Jonas Salk, and he stands up and tells you that within two years, he would have a vaccine to eradicate polio. You would not believe him. And if he told you that five years after that, they would be able to look at fetuses with ultra-sound and make pre-natal diagnosis, and a few years after that do heart transplants and liver transplants, you would find it difficult to believe.

Most of the advances in medicine have come within the last 40 years. This is an extraordinary time. We will cure cancer. We will cure AIDS. We will make an impact into these devastating diseases for our patients and their families.

RHS:
Wow. You're still at Cedars-Sinai, right?

KB:
That's correct, ...

RHS:
And you're position there is...

KB:
Well I moved to Cedars-Sinai a year ago to establish the neurosurgical institute at Cedars-Sinai and we want to make it a world class center for the treatment of diseases that affect the brain. Cedars is committed to it, we're committed to it, and we want to bring our abilities from the laboratory to impact on patient care as rapidly and as fast as we can. We do not have time to waste.

RHS:
Now you've also been appointed Chairman here at UCI?

KB:
That's correct. What we want to do is to use the best of both worlds. The University of California Irvine, here in Irvine, is rated one of the best basic neuroscience research centers in the world. Most people don't realize that but it's really ranked eighth in the world. And our ability to merge the incredible science that we have with UCI and to impact clinical care, I believe would be extraordinary.

RHS:
Racism. What's been your experience in all of that.

KB:
Well, obviously race remains a very important issue, in our society. If I could relate a story, I had a patient who was Caucasian, he had a brain tumor. I took care of him, I took it out. And he came back to clinic and he said, "Doc," he said, "I'd like to say thank you for two things: one for saving my life and the second for allowing me not be a racist any more, because before I got this brain tumor and you took it out, I didn't like black people. And perhaps it was a message from God that I should no longer be a racist." And I think that we just have to change attitudes one at a time.

RHS:
Now of the millions of people that are listening to us. We've got some young people and some young black kids are watching. Do you think it's possible that some of these young black kids are as talented potentially and have enough intelligence in their brains to become doctors and maybe leaders in their field like you did?

KB:
Absolutely. The... you know life is full of adversity. Is full of potholes, full of roadblocks. And the most important thing is to never let anyone stop you. Never let anyone stand in your way. And in the end, if you believe that, you'll get to your goal. What I always say is, one of the most powerful martial arts is the art of Tai Chi. It's unlike karate, where you oppose the force, Tai Chi allows you to take negative energy, to go with it and turn it back into something positive and I think that we need to take all of the negative experiences, every time someone tries to stop us, use that to gain strength to move forward in an even more positive, stronger way. The concept of Tai Chi.

RHS:
Wow. Finally, a word about your personal faith. How does it affect your life, your profession, your marriage which is wonderful. Your family, which is wonderful.

KB:
Right.

RHS:
And you're affection for your dad and mom, which is wonderful.

KB:
Right.

RHS:
How does faith in God make the difference?

KB:
You have to always find balance. You have to, I think, be able to face good times and bad times, but one thing is very clear. And that is that a religion, church, has always been and will always be a very important foundation for our society and for our personal health and well being. And I think that we have to continue to be involved in a church, and to turn to the church and our belief as we move forward in the future and with our families.

RHS:
Well, Dr. Black, we could talk long and long but God loves you, so do I and thank you for what you will do for everybody in the remaining 40, 50 years of your profession. God bless you.