SHARON H. FITZGERALD

Whether he's performing delicate brain surgery or designing the gentle curves of a bass guitar, Robert J. Singer, MD, approaches the job as a calling, and who's to say that a man can't have more than one?

A gifted neurosurgeon with a passion for music, Singer joined Vanderbilt Medical Center as an assistant professor in February after nearly seven years in private practice in Nashville. In 2007 and again in 2008, Singer was chosen by his peers as one of the city's top doctors. Working primarily in stroke, brain aneurysms and blood-vessel malformations, Singer has garnered a national reputation in the field of minimally invasive aneurysm technologies, and he sees his recent move to the academic setting as a natural career progression.

"It became very apparent over time that the dedication and support that's necessary for a stroke program is clearly at Vanderbilt and was waning in the private world, so I thought it was a good place to come," Singer said. What's more, his family and particularly his wife, Beth, were encouraging him to try out his teaching chops, and he's looking forward to roundsmanship and surgical teaching, as well as an occasional didactic session. "What I do on a daily basis in terms of patient management and medical care is the same, but the theater in which I get to do it now is changed, which is great. It's definitely the right move for me," he said.

Certainly, academic medical environments are nothing new to Singer. A native of Omaha, Neb., he earned his bachelor's degree in general science at the University of Iowa. After a year of graduate study in anatomy at Creighton University Medical School in Omaha, he graduated from the University of Nebraska with his medical degree in 1992. From Omaha, he matched in neurosurgery at Vanderbilt, then completed a year-long interventional neuroradiology fellowship at Stanford University Medical Center in 1996. He returned to Vanderbilt as chief neurosurgery resident, followed by a neurovascular surgery fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He came back to Nashville in 1999 to launch his practice. "We felt at home, and Nashville felt like a good place to be," Singer said. It was in Nashville where he met his wife, an East Tennessee native.

The Singers are close friends with WSIX radio personality Gerry House and his wife, Allyson. So it was Singer to whom Allyson turned when House suffered a subdural arterial brain hemorrhage in August 2003. "Allyson called and said that something was very wrong with Gerry. I went in and operated on him, which was unusual. I think it was about the only time I've ever operated on a friend," Singer recalled. Two surgeries later, House was stable – and last month he was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame.

Singer said that, since 1996, there's been "an explosion" of technology in the endovascular, catheter-based realm, and the products and techniques used now percutaneously do much to minimize patient trauma. "I also have some other outside interests that are just starting to be cultivated that have to do with cerebral vasospasm, which is a common complication in the setting of an aneurysmal hemorrhage," Singer said. He's working with an Israeli company, which has developed a device that may decrease morbidity associated with the complication. He noted that most neurosurgical advances now are in imaging, and he will soon launch a second round of clinical trials for a company developing a unique portable CT scanner.

Singer was drawn to neurosurgery because of the prevalence of stroke in his family and at the urging of his brother, Bill, an orthopedic surgeon in Omaha.

It's also family influence that's resulted in his love of music. "I grew up in a musical family, playing a few guitars," he said. "That morphed into a guitar collection, which then morphed into a big guitar collection."

What was missing from that collection, however, were guitars of Singer's own design. "I have a minor in art, so I went ahead and got French curves and straight edges and butcher paper and graphite and started to draft my own instruments based on some facets of my collection that I thought made certain instruments unique," he said. "So I tried to individualize the instruments that I had – or parts of the instruments in my collection – into a line."

The result was Waterstone Musical Instruments, a Nashville company Singer founded with Matt Eichen, a Philadelphia oral surgeon who also designs guitars. After a favorable response to some prototypes, the pair turned to manufacturers in Korea and China to craft the instruments. Most are sold based on inquiries via the company Web site, www.waterstoneguitars.com, and through selected dealers, such as Nashville's Gruhn Guitars. The Waterstone warehouse is in Marathon Village, a hip four-block complex with predominantly artistic tenants – and the Yazoo Brewery. "I love the arts, and this allows me to meet some very wonderful people, live a different type of life than I normally do and opens things up. It's been a lot of fun," Singer said. Playing a Waterstone guitar is a lot of fun for several noted artists, including Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson, whose name graces a signature series of Waterstone bass guitars. Vince Gill and Alan Jackson are among the Nashville stars with a Waterstone in their musical arsenal.

While Singer's artistic bent also includes painting, that's something he's set aside for now. Among the reasons why are Laura Lee, 14, Will, 13, and Jackson, 7, who keep him busy practicing the art of being dad.