photo by Mark Wagoner

Dr. Steven Hendrickson understands the meaning of commitment. Not just because of his marriage, but also because of the 10-plus years he spent laying the foundation for his career.

Hendrickson is on the thoracic surgical staff at Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Greensboro (CVTS). Thoracic surgery encompasses the entire chest, but the bulk of the procedures focus on the heart.

Hendrickson says he knew he wanted to work in medicine when he was an undergrad at UNC-Chapel Hill. “I was an athlete, so I thought I’d do sports medicine,” he says. “I went to med school thinking I’d be in orthopedics.”

It was a good fit. Hendrickson was a three-time Academic All-ACC defensive back for the UNC football team from 1982 to 1984. He graduated a year later and enrolled at Duke University School of Medicine, where he had four more years of training to look forward to.

While on rotation at the hospital at Duke he witnessed several cardiac operations for the first time. It was a life-changing experience. “I loved the technical complexity and the importance of precision and speed,” he recalls. “And just operating on the heart — I looked at it as a challenge and an opportunity to make a real difference.”

From there, he served a five-year general surgery residency at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. One of Hendrickson’s peers moved to Greensboro and called him near the end of Hendrickson’s residency. “He told me what a great group this was here and how much he liked the hospital and community,” Hendrickson says. “I grew up in Danville, so I was already familiar with area. My wife is from North Carolina, so we were both interested in staying in the area.”

In 1998, Hendrickson joined CVTS and returned to North Carolina more than 10 years after beginning a lifestyle of long, irregular hours and intense pressure. He says he couldn’t have made a better choice.

A typical day for Hendrickson goes something like this: He gets to the hospital at 7 a.m. and checks on patients in the intensive care unit, then goes into surgery about an hour later. He could be in the operating room anywhere from five to 10 hours depending on his workload. This is a mentally and physically draining part of his day because his focus must remain high for the entire time.

“In the OR in particular, the level of concentration on the actual procedure is such that you don’t have time to stop and think about the emotional side,” he says. “You’re so caught up in what you’re doing that you don’t have time to think about the fact that this person’s life is at stake.”

He gets breaks between procedures, of course, but it’s not idle time. “I’ll go see other patients who are still in the hospital but no longer in the ICU,” he explains.

After surgery, Hendrickson consults with new patients. “The majority of them are seen right here in the hospital,” he says. “They come in with relatively acute symptoms, so we try to get to them within a day or two.”

Almost always, Hendrickson drives home 12 hours after he arrives at work. “You sort of get in the habit of working that long, to be honest,” he explains. “And it’s a lot less than I worked when I was a resident at Penn. It’s the days when I don’t have an operation or lot of patients to see that can seem like forever.”

It’s not surprising, then, that Hendrickson stays busy away from the hospital as well. “I spend a lot of time taking my kids around to their soccer games,” he says. “I have three daughters, and all of them play on travel teams. I also enjoy playing golf when I get the chance.”

Do aspiring heart surgeons have to be busy bodies like Hendrickson to make it? Not necessarily, he says. “The most important thing is just being willing to work hard. You have to pay attention to detail and be willing to put in the time and effort,” Hendrickson explains. “You have to be dedicated to what you’re doing.”

That is the very essence of commitment.