Charles Hodge Neurosurgeon: A Simulated Encounter

Charles Hodge Neurosurgeon

Charles Hodge, Neurosurgeon, received his certification from the American Board of Neurological Surgeons in 1977. By then he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Health Science Center at the State University of New York in Syracuse.

The following years saw a steady progression within the Department, culminating in 1988 with his being named the Department Chair. Charles Hodge, Neurosurgeon held that position for nineteen years, finally retiring in 2007.

But retirement for Charles Hodge, Neurosurgeon did not mean playing golf and wondering what to do with all his spare time. After practicing with a neurological group in Binghamton, New York for a year, he was recruited to help the neurosurgical training program at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, where he stayed until 2011. During this time, Charles Hodge, Neurosurgeon and his wife Catherine fulfilled a lifelong dream by sailing their forty-four foot sloop from New England to the Chesapeake Bay and then, with the Caribbean 1500, the longest-running ocean crossing rally in North America. They sailed from the Chesapeake to Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, where they spent the winter before sailing 1200 miles back to New England.

Today, Charles Hodge, Neurosurgeon is the Chief Medical Officer with vCases, a startup company that he founded with several other physicians. vCases is an innovative approach to what he calls "the huge problem" of diagnostic errors in medicine. "We are developing an online patient care experience for students, residents and practicing physicians" that simulates a real-world doctor-patient encounter. Participants in this experience, says Charles Hodge, Neurosurgeon, will interview, examine and test patients who are complaining of a wide variety of symptoms and have a variety of diseases.