As a student at Boston University in the late ’70s, Donald Larsen, M.D., M.B.A., seemed to be driven by a strong interest in photography and the medical sciences toward a career in biomedical photography. But when he found success and satisfaction in his required premed classes, he decided to pursue a medical degree, with a specialization in radiology.

“What I thought biomedical photography was going to be turned out to be radiology—using a different kind of photography to help people,” Larsen, now an interventional neuroradiologist and associate professor in the Keck School of Medicine of USC, explains.

Always pushing himself a step further, he was soon motivated to move beyond traditional radiology into a field that incorporated patient care.

“In the subspecialty of vascular and interventional radiology, you are actually doing procedures on patients with X-ray guidance. You’re able to help them and make them better,” Larsen says.

Larsen’s current work at USC isn’t his first—the Long Island, N.Y., native did a rotation in radiology here while attending Chicago Medical School. That experience—and Southern California’s mild weather—lured him back to Los Angeles two years later for his residency in diagnostic radiology and a fellowship in vascular and interventional radiology at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center. Additional fellowships at the University of California, San Francisco, taught Larsen about interventional neuroradiology, which uses X-ray guided, minimally invasive techniques to treat disease of the brain and spinal cord. A few years later, in 1998, he landed his dream job in the Keck School’s Department of Neurological Surgery.

“I really wanted to work at USC,” says Larsen, who credits the Keck School with being the first to include interventional neuroradiology in neurosurgery rather than radiology. “The [department] chairman at the time, Martin Weiss, and our current chairman, Steven Giannotta, both saw the importance of this specialty being in neurosurgery. They saw the integrated approach as being very important to patient care.”

Larsen now focuses on the treatment of brain aneurysms and on training future neurosurgeons at USC University Hospital and the LAC+USC Medical Center. Brain aneurysms are weak spots in the walls of arteries that balloon out over the course of years. If these ballooned walls thin out enough, they can rupture, causing severe bleeding in or around the brain.

Between practicing medicine, Larsen found the time to get an M.B.A. from the USC Marshall School of Business. “I wanted to learn more about medical management and more about business,” he says. The degree comes in handy for Larsen’s role as medical director of The Doctors of USC, where he acts as advisor to CEO Minor Anderson, consulting on such issues as medical quality and risk management.

“There are a lot of exciting goals set for us,” Larsen says, citing the push to grow the clinical practice and turn the Keck School into a top-10 program. “I enjoy being a part of what’s going on here at USC.”

For more information on medical services available at USC, visit The Doctors of USC at www.doctorsofusc.com, or call (800) USC-CARE.

Next: Patient Spotlight