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Dr. Ezriel Ed Kornel may be a natural at neurosurgery, but it wasnt necessarily his first love.
I always wanted to be a conductor, said Kornel, a Bedford resident who was recently named the one of the nations top doctors by U.S. News & World Report.
I had musical skills, Kornel said. But at the end of the day, I thought my greatest gifts are as a doctor.
Kornel is currently the medical director of the Institute for Neurosciences at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, NY and is affiliated with eight other hospitals in the metropolitan New York region.
He is a board member and former president of the New York State Neurosurgical Society, a New York delegate to the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies and is a member of the board of directors for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
He can also be heard on his radio show Talk Back Live, which can be heard from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday nights on WOR-AM 710.
Kornel said he had always had in interest in practicing medicine, since his father and grandfather were both doctors. But the music bug had also bit him hard.
Kornel, who graduated Cornell University in 1974, recounted his college days creating music with his fellow classmate and former actor, the late Christopher Reeve. He said that all changed after he took a music course.
There were people in the class for whom music was second nature, Kornel said. For me, it was always a struggle. But I have some strengths that allow me to be operate on the brain. That is an unusual gift.
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