persistence and triumph: dr. wesley hicks jr.

I met Wesley L. Hicks Jr., MD on a Friday, late in the afternoon, in May 2023. If it weren’t for our interview on his calendar, he might have been heading out of work, planning to stop at one of the classic Buffalo Italian restaurants he frequents for a bite–there’s Lombardo’s. Then there’s Luccia’s, which happens to be both a favorite of Hicks’ and conveniently located along the route he takes daily between his office in downtown Buffalo, New York, and his home some 20 miles south.

That home sits on the same Angola farmland where Hicks grew up, where his mother and father laid the foundation upon which he’s built his life, where they not only told him of but showed him what he describes as “the triumph of integrity, persistence, and belief in self.” 

Today, Hicks chairs the Department of Head and Neck/Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. He arrived at Roswell Park’s Head and Neck Department, where he served first as an attending surgeon before ascending to Chair in 2011, after earning a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a dental degree from Meharry Medical College, and a medical degree from the University at Buffalo, followed by residencies at the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, Cornell Medical Center, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a fellowship in head and neck surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.

m. dellas

At the beginning of all of this is Dr. Hicks’ upbringing, the example of a father whose legacy Hicks and his siblings have carried into their own lives and careers and the devotion of a mother whose commitment to her family was so felt by her eldest son that he returns to it, explicitly and implicitly, again and again over the course of our two hours in conversation.

Wesley Hicks Sr. was a busy dentist, operating in downtown Buffalo, when he was introduced to Portia, a law student in her home state of Michigan. The two connected, married, settled in Buffalo, and started their family. Both felt a strong pull to a more rural setting in which to raise their children–Portia had spent her childhood on a farm in Michigan. Wesley Sr. had grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania, where his family had settled after their Alabama farm’s crops were decimated by the invasive boll weevil.

On a farm, Wesley Sr. and Portia thought, they would instill in their children a strong work ethic, an appreciation for the privileges they were afforded and a drive to make possible for themselves whatever privileges they weren’t.

Many times throughout our conversation, Dr. Hicks opens the Photos app on his iPad to show me pictures; the first is a scan of an old black-and-white image: Wesley Hicks Sr. stands beside an armchair in which his wife, Portia Rolland Hicks, sits with their firstborn, Wesley Jr., in her lap. 

Dr. Hicks shares the story of his parents’ search for their family’s home, a story that illustrates the way his parents navigated, and triumphed over, a system determined to keep them from achieving what they sought. Over and over again, the couple traveled to farms for sale around Buffalo and Western New York; over and over again, their journeys ended in disappointment when the farms’ owners saw that the couple were Black, lost interest in selling, and refused to move forward.

Wesley and Portia persisted, though, continued searching for the perfect home–and they triumphed with their purchase of the Angola farm Dr. Hicks occupies today. Baby Wesley was joined by a brother and a sister, and together they spent their early lives surrounded by animals, wide open spaces, and the guidance and example of their parents.

All three Hicks children excelled in school, Wesley Jr. exhibiting as much skill athletically as he did academically, so that in college at Cornell University, he continued to excel as a defensive tackle on the football team and as a student of history on campus. After graduating, he followed in his father’s footsteps, studying dentistry at Meharry Medical College–the same school where Wesley Sr. had earned his dental degree. 

He knew at the outset, though, that he would not stop with dental school. In the first few days at Meharry he made up his mind that he’d finish what he’d started, but that he belonged in surgery and research. 

“With dentistry, I would have accomplished exactly what my father had,” Hicks says matter-of-factly. This was so much, and yet Hicks’ expectations for himself were high enough to demand that he pursue what he wanted and what he knew he could achieve. To stop without following what he’d realized to be a dream–working in surgical medicine–would be to fall short of his own standards. 

Thus a few months after finishing dental school, he started medical school at the University at Buffalo. With his graduation four years later, Hicks had three degrees under his belt and a path before him that he aimed to pave with more accomplishments.

He completed his residency in otolaryngology, head, and neck surgery at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital; New York Hospital - Cornell Medical Center; and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He went on to complete a fellowship in head and neck surgery at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. 

Finally, Hicks returned home to Buffalo and in 1991 began his career in the Head and Neck Department at Roswell Park. 

As an attending surgeon in the Center’s Head and Neck Department when he first joined Roswell Park, Hicks balanced clinical work–performing complex surgeries on and caring for patients dealing with a wide range of cancers–with teaching and mentorship responsibilities and with collaborative research in tissue engineering and wound repair technologies. 

When Hicks was named Chair of the Department of Head and Neck/Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, he took the reins with confidence. He has continued to treat patients, teach and mentor, and conduct research while leading the department to new successes for over a decade since taking on the role. 

Dr. Hicks has been described as an “overachiever,” but he doesn’t see himself this way. In his uniquely straightforward way, he tells me that he has simply achieved. He has reached precisely the goals he has set for himself, and he’s done so by working hard, holding himself accountable to his own standards, and believing that he could and would meet those standards.

The lessons he took from his parents–a foundational understanding of the value of “integrity, persistence, and belief in self”–and his own dedication to excellence in every endeavor have carried him to great heights over the course of his career. Dr. Wesley L. Hicks Jr. has triumphed.