Kenan Arnautović is a world-renowned neurosurgeon whose enviable professional career began in Sarajevo and continued in the USA. For Klix.ba, he spoke, among other things, about his professional path, the health system, and the vaccine against the coronavirus. Kenan Arnautović graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo and specialized in neurosurgery, part of which he spent in Hanover. Towards the end of the war, he went to the USA, where he continued his specialization at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and in Memphis, he became the head of the Baptist Institute for Neurological Sciences. He is a full professor of neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee School of Medicine. He is also the director of the International Program of the American Association of Neurosurgeons, as well as the vice president of the World Association of Neurosurgeons. He is the author of three books and 130 papers. He is a co-author of several leading neurosurgical journals, including World Neurosurgery and Operative Neurosurgery. At the very beginning of the conversation, Arnautović looked back on his beginnings and explained that success always requires several factors. "My success in the neurosurgical profession is most due to a very serious neurosurgical education and practice in the USA, where I learned the best neurosurgical techniques, but also the medical system there, given that the European and American healthcare systems are quite different. Of course, the experiences I gained during my first neurosurgical specialization in Bosnia also helped," he said. A good residency program is the key to success. World-renowned experts can become doctors by working in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The key, as Arnautović says, is the existence of a good specialization program in the parent organization and then additional education for at least 6-12, even 24 months in a reference world center. "I believe that it is not a good system in which the professor is the greatest authority and inviolable, and at the same time, younger colleagues work little and have to wait decades to prove themselves. In other words, you have to 'throw young, well-educated experts into the fire' early. They must have the opportunity, but also the responsibility to achieve good results in the treatment of patients," he explains. Comparing the healthcare system in the USA and BiH, the neurosurgeon cites financial resources and organization as the main differences. "About 18 percent of the gross income in the USA goes to health care, and that's a huge financial budget. Also, the organization is very precise, so it doesn't depend on the individual," emphasizes Arnautović. The neurosurgeon believes that quite good results are achieved in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the funds invested. However, as he says, doctors must be valued much more. A large number of doctors have left Bosnia and Herzegovina in recent years, and citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina worry about the future of the healthcare system daily. 
"I don't think citizens should worry about the future of health care in Bosnia and Herzegovina. New, more talented generations of doctors are always coming, but they must be maintained with the right attitude. Also, it is very important to value their work and adequately financially evaluate their efforts. If they are dissatisfied, good experts will easily find a job in another health organization in the city, another canton, another entity, another neighboring or distant country," he stressed, pointing out that the market principle works very well in medicine as well. Doctors from the diaspora help with health care in BiH. Arnautović explains that doctors from the diaspora often help health care in BiH and emphasizes that he is proud that five neurosurgeons from Sarajevo, one from Zenica, and one from Mostar spent two months each on education in his clinic in the past few years. "In BiH, I performed about fifteen neurosurgical and spinal operations completely free of charge and in addition provided free implants for those operations worth several hundred thousand dollars," he said. Arnautović recalled the idea and then the establishment of BHAAAS with colleagues from the profession, but also others less than fifteen years ago. "Today, as an ordinary member and former president, I proudly look at the organization that, over the past fifteen years, has become one of the most respected scientific organizations in the diaspora. In addition, the neurosurgical section is one of the most active within BHAAAS, primarily due to the efforts of assistant professor Dr. Ibrahim Omerhodžić. My colleagues from BHAAAS certainly did a lot more than me in helping BiH healthcare," he said. He concluded that he is proud of participating in the education of younger colleagues in neurosurgery and spinal surgery. He also hopes that many of them will become better surgeons than him because that is the only goal of any education. All people should be vaccinated against the coronavirus. At the end of the conversation, we referred to the vaccination against the coronavirus that he recently performed. "For 24 hours I felt a slight fever, but I didn't have an actual fever. That feeling went away after 24 hours. The vaccine seems to be very well tolerated, and I haven't seen any serious complications so far. Also, I think everyone, or at least most people, should be vaccinated. If about 70 percent of humanity is vaccinated, we will have collective immunity, and the virus will disappear; that is, it will be eliminated," he pointed out. Arnautović says that he hopes that the vaccine will soon be available in BiH as well, stressing that the process of vaccinating the entire society is relatively long and lasts at least six months. (https://www.klix.ba/)
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