Your nurse advocate
Frances Rodriguez was born and raised in the Philippines.
Early in life, she decided to devote her life to medicine, inspired by her faith and by her calling to improve the life of others.
Throughout her career, Ms Frances has helped and inspired people afflicted by, and often incapacitated by, serious medical conditions, including brain and spine problems.
After completion of her medical training, she gained substantial clinical experience in direct patient care.
Ms Frances has worked closely with chiropractors, medical doctors, and surgeons. She has made a difference in the lives of countless patients, including those afflicted by diseases of the brain and spine.
Ms Frances has been the go-to person for our patients. In her current role as office manager, she oversees patient communications, clinic scheduling, and surgery scheduling at our affiliated hospitals.
Your neurosurgeon
Sören Andreas Singel was born and raised in Essen-Werden in the Ruhr Valley, West Germany.
Earlier in life, a boat collision during crew training caused spinal injury and paralysis.
Sören fully recovered, won gold at the German national rowing championships, and decided to become a neurosurgeon, to improve recovery for people with serious nervous system injuries.
He studied medicine at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and Freie Universität Berlin where he was awarded national scholarships from Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and DAAD.
He graduated magna cum laude with a doctoral thesis on immune responses in the central nervous system.
To complement his Western European medical studies, Dr. Singel moved to the People’s Republic of China to study Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture.
He completed clinical internships at the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (广州中医药大学) and the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (上海中医药大学).
After returning to Berlin, Dr. Singel started neurosurgery residency at the Humboldt University Medical Center.
Realizing the limitations of brain and nerve repair, and inspired by his neuroscience mentor, Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles, Dr. Singel decided to devote additional time to study molecular neuroscience.
He chose the field of neuro-regeneration, given his earlier personal experience with spinal cord trauma.
Dr. Singel was accepted into a post-doctoral research position at the McGill University Centre for Research in Neuroscience with Albert Aguayo, a pioneer in the biology of nerve repair. Dr. Singel spent the next three years working on axonal repair mechanisms in the visual system.
Dr. Singel remained in North America for his neurosurgery residency at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He trained with trauma neurosurgeon Dr. Lawrence Marshall, cerebrovascular neurosurgeon Dr. Ben U, and interventional neuroradiologist Dr. Charles Kerber.
In addition to neurological surgery residency training, Dr. Singel completed a fellowship in neurointerventional radiology and cerebrovascular neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee in Memphis with interventional neuroradiologist Dr. John Barr and cerebrovascular neurosurgeon Dr. Clarence Watridge.
During his residency and after graduating as a neurosurgeon, Dr. Singel returned to China several times, to expand his exposure to a larger number of patients with neurological disease.
He spent months at a time in clinical fellowships, working closely with the neurosurgeons at the country’s busiest medical centers including Sun Yatsen Medical University in Guangzhou (广州中山医科大学) and HuaShan Hospital of FuDan University in Shanghai (复旦大学华山医院).
He was also visiting fellow in neurosurgery at the Singapore Neuroscience Institute and Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore.
Dr Singel has held academic appointments at the University of Washington in Seattle, at Texas A&M University, at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and at Stanford University.
Dr Singel is a Fellow of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (FAANS), Fellow of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (FCNS), and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS).