Frank Vertosick

Frank Vertosick Jr. is an American neurosurgeon best known as the author of When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery, a book that chronicles his own neurosurgical residency training. He also wrote Why We Hurt: The Natural History of Pain, published in 2000, and The Genius Within: Discovering the Intelligence of Every Living Thing, published in 2002. Born in 1955 in Harwick, Pennsylvania, he studied physics at the University of Pittsburgh before entering its School of Medicine, and he stayed there for his neurosurgery residency. Afterward he served as associate chief of neurosurgery and associate director for neuro-oncology at Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh. He retired from surgery in 2002 because of Parkinson disease but continued to see patients in an office in Washington, Pennsylvania. He is also a black belt in tang soo do and advised the head writer of the television drama Chicago Hope.