Curiosity Leads the Way: Neha Kumar’s Journey to Neurology

Dr. Neha Kumar ’11 knew she was destined for the white coat. When she was just five years old, she followed her father around the hospital while he did his patient rounds. 

Today, she’s a neurologist at Semmes Murphy, helping patients struggling with neurological conditions including movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, seizures, strokes, inexplicable numbness and weakness, and memory loss. 

Neha is fascinated by the brain. 

“Compared to other fields in medicine, we know very little about neurology,” she said. “The brain is a huge question mark to us. There are so many conditions that we don’t have a fix for. It’s a huge frontier for research.”

Neha had a lot of questions as a student at St. Mary’s.

Her career in research began in just ninth grade when she reached out to professors and researchers in the University of Memphis Psychology Department, seeking out research opportunities. She ended up working with Dr. Yeh Hsueh, a developmental researcher, on teachers’ perceptions of respect in the classroom. 

“I met with all these researchers who were willing to bring on a ninth grader and eventually was able to pick the project I was most interested in. I went on to present my research at multiple conferences,” Neha said. 

Neha earned the prestigious Ervin Scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis, where she graduated with honors in both Biology and Anthropology. From there, she attended one of the top medical schools in the nation, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Cleveland Clinic. 

“I initially thought I would go into the ENT surgical field, but I quickly learned I did not like surgery or being in the OR. I realized what really interested me was the anatomy and physiology of the brain,” Neha said. 

The subspecialty she landed on was neurology. 

“Once I spent time with the neurology people, I realized that I really fit in there and felt like it was right. I’m a huge nerd, and with a lot of people, I hide it. But with the neurologists, we can all geek out together,” Neha said. 

Her fascination for the brain continued during her neurology residency at Beth Israel Deaconess/Harvard Medical School, where she served as chief resident in her final year. In her fellowship at Boston Medical Center, she studied Vascular Neurology, focusing on treating patients with strokes. 

“I’ve had to have some very hard conversations with patients and families,” Neha said. “There was this one patient who I thought would not survive her stroke. Not much later, she ended up walking out of the hospital.” 

That experience pushed Neha to persevere.

“It had a huge impact on me and taught me to never give up on my patients,” she said.