Dr. Citow Featured in Lake County Magazine

Lake County Magazine

Our very own, Dr. Jonathan Citow is featured in the special June 2012 Men's Edition of Lake County Magazine! 

Dr. Jonathan Citow, founder of the American Center for Spine and Neurosurgery in Libertyville and the Chief of Neurosurgery at Libertyville’s Advocate Condell Medical Center, is a talented neurosurgeon, but he’s also a bit of a magician.

Case in point, his fitness regimen.

“I had to create time where it didn’t exist,” explains Citow, describing how his workout changed to meet the demands of his busy career and family life.

When recreational hockey leagues and late afternoon/early evening workouts fell by the wayside, he looked to early mornings, even though he’s quick to admit that he’s not a morning person. He started getting up at 5:30 a.m. to squeeze in weight training, running or a few games of tennis before his day starts.

“Now, I’m all finished with my workout before 7:30,” he says.

The drive to excel has helped Citow build a successful career, not only as a physician and surgeon, but also as a respected author and inventor.

“He’s always a treat, and he doesn’t stop for a second. He’s always looking for a better way to do something,” says Betsy Matthews, practice administrator for the American Center for Spine and Neurosurgery, a three — soon to be four — physician practice, specializing in minimally invasive procedures.

After waiting months to see a Chicago neurosurgeon, Simone “Simmy” Weiss of Highland Park found the doctor through referrals.

“Friends and even my internist said you can’t do any better than Dr. Citow,” Weiss says.

Party-dude to nerd
A Wilmette native and the youngest of three siblings, Citow knew from a young age that he wanted to be a doctor. He enjoyed science, and academics came easily.

Though his father was a successful businessman, Citow knew he wanted to take a different path.

“I didn’t want to be behind a desk,” he says. “I wanted something active where I could use both my mind and my hands.”

He found inspiration in a fictional character, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce from TV’s “M.A.S.H.”

“As a kid, I watched the show, and there was Hawkeye, joking around, drinking, chasing women and saving lives,” he says. “I thought, ‘Now, that’s not a bad career choice.”

He did Pierce proud during his undergraduate years at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, joining a fraternity, playing hockey and studying when he had to.

“Like lots of kids in college, I crammed to get good grades on tests and partied the rest of the time,” he says.

But in medical school at the University of Chicago, his happy-go-lucky approach changed. Though he jokes that he specialized in neurosurgery “because it sounded cool in bars,” the reality was a grueling seven-year residency and a demanding specialty that encompasses every system in the human body.

“It’s incredibly diverse because the brain controls everything in the body,” he says. “I liked that I would be treating both children and adults, and it was also a field where you could make a huge difference [for patients] very quickly.”

Through hospital shifts that began at 5 a.m. one day and ended at 8 p.m. the next and studying neurosurgery texts he describes as “30,000 pages of misery,” he focused on learning as much as possible.

“I went from being this fun party-dude to a nerd obsessed with knowing it all,” he says.

That obsession motivated him to condense the miserable 30,000 pages into a manageable 800-page book entitled “Comprehensive Neurosurgical Board Review,” which is used by neurosurgeons throughout the world.

“It’s kind of the CliffsNotes of neurosurgery,” he says.

He also earned the second-highest score in the nation on the Neurological Surgery Board Examination in 1999. The same year, he married his wife, Karen, a social worker he’d met on a blind date.

“We were married on the one-year anniversary of that blind date,” he says.

Calling Lake County home
Following his residency, Citow practiced on the north side of Chicago, then came to Lake County.

“There was such a need up here, I decided to stay,” he says.

In 2004, he founded the American Center for Spine and Neurosurgery; has since authored more books and numerous articles; and invented the Citow Cervical Visualizer, a surgical device that pushes the patient’s shoulders down, allowing the doctor a clearer view of the spine.

“That way, you can know you’re operating on the right place,” he says. “I didn’t invent it to make money, it was just to make my life easier, and now it’s used everywhere, including the Mayo Clinic.”

His skill as a surgeon and non-invasive method earns high praise from Weiss, who was successfully treated for sciatica earlier this year.

“I came out with an incision the size of my fingernail, covered with a band-aid,” she says. “It’s just unbelievable to think about what he did."

Citow not only is committed to being a successful doctor, but also to living a healthy, balanced life. He watches his diet by brown-bagging a healthy breakfast, lunch and snacks, such as high-protein Greek yogurt, nuts, fruit and raw veggies.

“I do okay for two meals, and then my wife, who’s very health-conscious, takes care of dinner,” he says. “So, I only eat poorly when I’m not at home or the hospital.”

His wife now owns Breathe, a nonprofit yoga studio in Glencoe, which donates its proceeds to a different charity each year. The couple has three children, Benjamin 12, Emma, 11 and Harrison, 7, all of whom are involved in sports and the arts.

Citow and his family enjoy bike rides, soccer, snow football, tennis and are avid Chicago sports fans, especially of the Bears and Cubs.

“I love the proximity we have to the city, and I love living in the Midwest,” he says. “My wife and I have lived in different cities and without question, the people here are friendly and approachable.”

Copies are available on local newsstands and online here.