By Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dr. Tim Broderick (right), surgeon at University Hospital, here with Janice Taylor and Donn Spight, returned to Cincinnati from Virginia. (Glenn Hartong photo)

Dr. Tim Broderick leans close to the computer as snapshots of his busy life flash across the screen.

He clicks the mouse, and a photo of his wife and two daughters appears on the monitor. He clicks again, and this time it's a photo of him performing surgery at a clinic in Kenya.

Another click, and there's Dr. Broderick doing zero-gravity experiments for NASA on a training aircraft.

"I think travel and broad experience is the greatest education," says Dr. Broderick, a 39-year-old surgeon at University Hospital in Clifton.

For years, he wasn't sure he could get that experience and education in Cincinnati. Born in Wyoming, just north of Cincinnati, he developed wanderlust at an early age.

Despite strong family ties - he's one of seven kids, all still living in Cincinnati - Broderick dreamed of traveling the world, studying medicine and becoming an astronaut.

He liked Cincinnati just fine; he just wasn't sure it was big enough for his ambitions. So he left his hometown.

He married and had children in Richmond, Va. He became an expert in robotic surgery, volunteered as a surgeon in Kenya and signed on as a NASA consultant. He even applied for astronaut training.

But when he heard from his brother, Joseph, about a surgical research job at University Hospital last year, he was interested. Cincinnati could offer the same world-class facilities and research opportunities that he had in Virginia.

And the more time he spent away from Cincinnati, the more he missed his hometown and family.

He found himself thinking about his childhood, about summer days at Paramount's Kings Island and about going along with his father, a family doctor, on house calls all over the city.

He still travels and volunteers overseas. But now, he says, there's only one reason he'd leave town for good: an invitation to astronaut training.

"I'm getting to the age where they won't take me," he says. "But you never know."