Growing up on Akron’s East side, Dr. Aaron Palmer watched his father, Hollis Palmer, step into the role of community leader time and time again.
“There weren’t a lot of fathers in that community, and my dad was kind of like the neighborhood dad,” Palmer says. “He would fix washers and dryers, cars for people in the neighborhood who couldn’t afford to get them fixed. He also ran Akron East Pee Wee Football. … I idolized him.”
Palmer went to Walsh University to play football. It wasn’t until he had the chance to observe a Summa Health surgeon at work as a biology undergraduate that his career aspirations came into focus.
“When I saw the surgeon here, it reminded me of my dad,” he says.
The experience — along with his father’s 2009 diagnosis of throat cancer — motivated Palmer to go to medical school at Wright State University. He eventually found that general surgery was not for him.
“But … as part of medical school, I was helping out in a trauma,” he recalls. “A patient had come in who was involved in a car accident, and they came in not being able to talk or move one side of their body.”
A young Black neurosurgeon asked Palmer to assist in the operation. The next day, to his surprise, the patient was already on the path to recovery.
“I thought the patient would probably be comatose, and I stopped in the room. They were wide awake,” Palmer recalls. “I felt like I potentially helped save a patient’s life.”
While he didn’t initially obtain a residency in neurosurgery, he worked in general surgery for a year in Grand Rapids, then tried applying again. That time, he was accepted to Northwestern University in Chicago.
“I absolutely loved it,” he says. “Wonderful training — some of the best brain tumor research and facilities in all of the world.”
After school, he returned home to Akron — as he promised his father he would before his 2010 death. Palmer became a Summa Health neurosurgeon in 2024 — one of few Black neurosurgeons.
“Everybody wants to feel like they are respected, and people feel the most respected and heard when either you look like them, you talk like them, you come from the same area as them,” he says.
That includes patients such as one young woman who came to Palmer with headaches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting and personality changes. An MRI showed a large right frontal intracranial tumor.
“We use all the most advanced technologies for surgery, including navigation. We use surgical microscopes,” he says. The patient underwent a craniotomy for tumor resection. “We did surgery and removed all of that tumor. And she did very well.”
Part of the patient’s therapy included work on her fine motor skills. She did lots of sewing and crocheting — even creating a fiber art neuron for her doctors.
Palmer likes to share his story often, visiting places such as Akron Public Schools’ I Promise School. He discusses the disappointments and setbacks that he endured — and how he came out on the other side. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, only 5.7 percent of U.S. doctors are Black. He hopes students will recognize that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to.
“I try to do as much as I possibly can, because I think that being visible helps,” he says. “You can’t be something that you can’t see.”
Erin Gulling
Erin Gulling
