Dr. Mathew Alexander knew from an early age he was born to save lives.

As a child growing up in Louisville, Ky., he watched intently as his father made an impact on people’s lives as a general surgeon. His father’s medical influence had an impact on his siblings, too. His sister is a Houston-based neurologist and his brother is a cardiologist in Corpus Christi.

Today, Alexander heads the leading practice throughout the Coastal Bend area specializing in comprehensive adult neurosurgery care with an emphasis on minimally invasive and complex spine and brain tumors.

“I chose the field of neurology for several reasons,” Alexander explains. “In high school I began doing medical research on this field and learned it was a very rewarding profession. It’s extremely demanding and is actually one of the hardest surgery specializations out there. I enjoy challenging myself.”

His interests include brain lab computer assisted brain surgery, minimal invasive and complex deformity spinal surgery.

Graduating from a six-year accelerated biomedical program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Michigan, Alexander proceeded to medical school at Albany Medical College. By 1996, he finished his surgical internship at Medical College of Georgia and headed to Wisconsin for his neurosurgery residency.

Alexander moved to Corpus Christi in 2004, just after finishing his residency. By 2007, he was ready to open his own practice: South Texas Brain and Spine Center. He added another neurosurgeon, Dr. Stefan Konasiewicz, in 2007 and a yet a third, Dr. Melissa Macias, in 2009.

When Michelle Berger, a nurse who has worked alongside Alexander at CHRISTUS Spohn Shoreline for three years, injured her back last April, he was the first surgeon who came to mind for treatment options about her medical condition.

“You can just tell Dr. Alexander cares about his patients. He’s always checking up on them no matter what time of day it is,” says Berger, 31, who underwent a three-and a-half-hour, lumbar fusion surgery. “It wasn’t as painful as I had expected, either.”

His work is meticulous and thorough because as he explains, “One move a millimeter in the wrong direction could cost a person’s life, alter their ability to walk or a host of other debilitating complications. Precision counts in this field.”

Advances in technology make the work he and his fellow physicians undertake at the South Texas Brain and Spine Center even more miraculous. CHRISTUS Spohn Shoreline recently invested $4 million in a device called a cyber knife, which allows for less complicated surgeries and radiation treatments to get rid of metastatic lesions on the brain, thereby avoiding invasive surgery.

At just 38, Alexander, who is the chairman of surgery and chief of neurosurgery for the CHRISTUS Spohn Health System, knows firsthand the life of a neurosurgeon is filled with tremendous sacrifices. The endless work weeks (sometimes anywhere from 110 to 120 hours a week) and medical school debt well over six figures are just two examples.

But they are sacrifices he finds worthwhile, especially when he recalls patients who are living radically different lives thanks to his keen surgical skills.

“There was a 72-year-old patient I had who was in a coma before her brain surgery. She eventually recovered well enough to live on her own,” he recalls. “Changing people’s lives for the better brings me great satisfaction. Each time I go into surgery, I think about how I can make myself a better surgeon.”

For Canadian-born Konasiewicz, family also had an influence on his career choice to become a neurosurgeon: his godmother suffered a devastating spinal cord injury.

“Helping my patients get through their illnesses and being on their journey to improved health and recovery is an honor,” says Konasiewicz.

Fluent in four languages, he was born to an Italian mother and Ukrainian father. An accomplished educator teaching paramedical personnel and physicians locally, nationally and internationally, Konasiewicz is one of the few board certified neurosurgeons in South Texas.

He was a neurosurgeon in private practice in Duluth, Minn. for more than 10 years before moving to Corpus Christi to join the South Texas Brain and Spine Center in 2008.

Konasiewicz, or Dr. K as he is affectionately called, is passionate about the difference he makes in the lives of his patients.

“People come into my office, some of them barely walking and in tremendous pain,” he describes with conviction. “I always try to put myself in my patient’s shoes. I spend a lot of time with my patients to make sure they understand what kind of treatment is being recommended for them. We also want people to realize all the expectations from a surgical procedure or treatment plan.”

His medical expertise has even been featured on national television, including the show “Mystery Diagnosis,” which airs on The Learning Channel. The case featured a 19-year-old college student with what was thought to be a simple sore throat.

Konasiewicz found an abscess in the young patient’s brain and eventually had to perform a risky craniotomy, where part of the skull is removed to gain access to the brain. He was able to remove the abscess from a very delicate part of the brain (dominant hemisphere/speech cortex) and later learned she suffered from a rare disease which results from an infected sore throat called Lemierre’s Syndrome.

One of Konasiewicz’s passions is cerebrovascular microneurosurgery, such as the treatment of brain aneurysms or arteriovenous malformations.

“There’s nothing more intense than being deep in the brain when someone has had a ruptured aneurysm,” he says. “Every second counts. You have to think clearly, objectively and be steady because even being off by less than a millimeter can result in devastation. I can’t think of any other specialty where you can make this type of impact.”

Performing technically challenging operations involving delicate areas of the anatomy such as the brain stem, handling vessels just a few millimeters in size and enduring six-hour marathon surgeries on traumatic spinal cord injuries are all in a day’s work for the gifted surgeons at the South Texas Brain and Spine Center.

“We can handle all brain, spine and nerve conditions right here in Corpus Christi,” Konasiewicz says proudly. “From cancerous tumors in the brain to devastating spine injuries, we make a commitment to see everyone. There is no longer any need to travel to other cities for major brain and spine surgeries.”

Alexander adds they are the only group of neurosurgeons in the Coastal Bend area responding to CHRISTUS Spohn Memorial trauma coverage.

El Paso native Dr. Melissa Macias, M.D., PhD., lived in Milwaukee for almost 20 years before moving to Corpus Christi last July to join the South Texas Brain and Spine Center. After graduating from the University of Texas at El Paso, she pursued her medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Macias says she found her true calling while pursuing a doctorate degree in the neurosciences in Wisconsin.

“I focused on the cellular mechanisms of injured neural pathways,” she says. “The human nervous system is fascinating and challenging. Not only did I study the injured peripheral and central nervous system, but I recognized I needed to be in the frontline of treating neurological diseases and pathology, which is in the operating room.”

She completed her Ph.D. at the college in 1996 and began work on her medical degree two years later after dedicating those two years studying the injured spinal cord. During this time she published many peer review articles and by 2002 she started her medical residency, where she trained alongside her chief resident, Alexander, for several years.

“I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was 5 years old,” Macias recalls fondly. “The challenge is what appeals to me. The first time I saw a brain surgery … seeing the intricate and eloquent complexity of the brain exposed … it absolutely took my breath away. I never looked back after that.”

Her surgical specialties include correction and treatment of degenerative spine disease, including complex reconstruction, intracranial pathology and dealing with stroke and traumatic brain and spinal cord injured victims.

“Our goal as a medical group is to raise awareness locally that Corpus Christi does have specialists who are highly trained in all aspects of neurosurgery,” Macias explains.

Another aspect of the center Macias says is integral to consider: their minimally invasive techniques protect vital muscles and make recovery times shorter.

“As a surgeon in this specialty, you’ve always got to be thinking how you can improve, advance the area of practice. It’s important to never become complacent. Each surgery is challenging in its own way,” she says.

“Further, I anticipate a career that incorporates clinical research to advance the frontiers of neurosurgery. I consciously choose to pursue a private practice career in an area that has a myriad of clinical research opportunities, right here in South Texas.”

Amazing things happen in this dynamic field of neurosurgery, some may call them miracles, Macias says. One case that stands out in particular for her is a local mechanic who was working under a car when it fell on top of him unexpectedly.

“His head was crushed and as you can imagine, the prognosis was initially not good, in fact, it was grim,” she recalls.

After his life-saving surgery, he was off the respirator in two days and was released from the hospital within a week. It was another example where seconds count.

“It can be extremely heartbreaking, too. But you must take it all together. Every day you strive to understand, educate and treat neurological disease,” Macias says. “This vital combination allows us to push beyond the limitations of technology and modern medicine to advance our treatment of those inflicted with surgical neurological conditions.

“This is why we do what we have chosen to do. I don’t believe we are a practice based in miracles, but one focused on hope.”