Still soaring at 80
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Wits Alumni Relations celebrates Professor Stephen Eisenstein's 80th birthday.
To honour Professor Stephen Eisenstein’s 80th birthday on 27 June 2020, his family shared his remarkable story.
The son of two German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany in 1936, Professor Eisenstein was born in 1940 in Randfontein. His father Martin, was an engineer in the South African army during World War II and outside of that conflict he worked as a miner and was later promoted from working underground to managing mines. Professor Eisenstein’s mother, Ursula, worked in a department store and she was also an artist and sculptor.
Professor Eisenstein’s first degree at Wits was a Bachelor’s in commerce in 1961. His dream had always been to become a doctor, but circumstances dictated that the long slog of a six-year medical degree was simply not possible because of the expense, among other things. After his commerce degree, he worked in a department store for a year and hated every day of it.
He was awarded a scholarship which enabled him to return to Wits and study medicine in 1962. This opportunity in itself was tough for him. Already a “mature” student compared to his peers, he also had to repeat a year after failing his third year. However, he completed his medical degree in 1968 and worked in hospitals in and around Johannesburg for years, as well as doing voluntary work in Swaziland. He specialised as an orthopaedic surgeon, with a particular interest in serious spinal disorders.
Professor Stephen Eisenstein with his vintage DeHavilland Tiger Moth biplane in 2012 (above) and in 2020 (below). He took up flying as a hobby while studying medicine at Wits.
As a true Witsie4Life, his appetite for life-long learning was never diminished and he went on to read for a PhD alongside his full-time job as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in 1980. His research focused on spinal stenosis, a condition which causes immense pain and disability. By this time, he had married Helen Rooney, a surgical nurse from Ireland.
He was involved in leading and editing several international peer-reviewed medical journals and he had numerous articles published. He was a founding member and inaugural president of the South African Spine Society in 1983 along with two other Wits alumni James Craig (MBBCh 1970) and Guilaume du Toit (MBBCh 1969).
In 1986 Professor Eisenstein and his wife moved to the UK with their two sons Sean and Neil, their daughter Kathleen arrived shortly after. He continued both his clinical work as a consultant surgeon and his research. He became the director of the Institute for Spinal Studies at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry in the county of Shropshire, on the border between England and Wales. He led the institute from 1986 to 2005 and his family tells of the deep adoration and respect from his colleagues. “Whenever he visits the hospital, he must allow an hour to walk the short length of the corridor because everyone from porters and catering staff to senior consultants and managers want to greet and hug him. He can barely take a step without being reminded of the remarkable impact he has had on the lives of patients and staff alike,” says his daughter Kathleen. In 2005 he was made a professor of the University of Keele. 
Through his work he has become a minor celebrity in the local region. Almost every family in North Wales and Shropshire has someone who has been treated by Professor Eisenstein, often relieving them of debilitating pain and disability. He published Spinal Disorders for Beginners: The Oswestry Spine Primer in 2012, which offers a pocket book guide to primary practitioners on back pain.
He did not properly retire until he was 75 years old.
Professor Eisenstein is equally well known for a hobby he first took up while studying at Wits - flying light aircraft. As a young doctor he become the owner of a vintage DeHavilland Tiger Moth biplane, which he is still able to fly. “Whenever people see the little yellow plane in the sky, always accompanied by a deep roar, they know exactly who is in the cockpit,” says Kathleen.
As testament to his self-effacing modesty and humility, on The Society for Back Pain Research’s website, Professor Eisenstein’s biography as honorary member, reads: “I regret that speakers, especially those of us old enough to have had a good many failures, are too shy to talk of their failures generally. The physician’s DNA, especially in surgeons, makes that very difficult. The pity is that there is so much to learn from failure. If nothing else, we can learn to ‘fail better’ - Samuel Beckett.”
He lives in Oswestry with his wife Helen.