He immigrated to the United States from his native Turkey after graduating from an English high school in Istanbul. At the University of Chicago he earned both his undergraduate and medical school degrees, and began a residency in neurosurgery under Sean Mullan, M.D. He spent part of his six-year training at the University of California, San Francisco, completing a six-month rotation under Charles Wilson, M.D., then the chairman of neurosurgery. Dr. Senegor has performed more than eight thousand neurosurgical procedures involving brain, spine, and peripheral nerve surgery.