Brain surgery couldn't happen without the patient's own active voice to guide the work. The patient is part of the surgical team here, perhaps the most important part, and above all, that's what makes neurosurgery different.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In a vague way, I always knew neurosurgery was different - more delicate, more difficult, more demanding. After all, we say things like, 'I'm no brain surgeon,' for a reason.
Although surgeons know how to deal with bits of the brain, they don't really know how it works.
While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons' work is the crucible of identity. Every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of our selves.
Brain surgery is a fairly aggressive process. There's a lot to get through. There's the beautiful, delicate shaving first, which is really lovely. There's a wonderful ceremony of putting all the covers on, so only the little bit you're operating on is revealed. But once they make the incision and tear the skin back, the drill comes out.
You can teach somebody how to be a brain surgeon, but you cannot teach them how to walk on a stage and make people laugh.
You cannot drive the car if you do not have a driver's license. You cannot do brain surgery if you are not a brain surgeon. You cannot even do a massage if you don't have a license.
I think often there is great rivalry between neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons. I think I maybe have a bit of bias with neurosurgeons' opinion that nothing tops neurosurgery! But that makes for a quite interesting conflict between the two.
Young kids are doing the same thing I did, but they're doing it differently. They don't do brain surgery the way they used to do it either.
Neurologists have a host of clinical tests that let them observe what a brain-damaged patient can and cannot do.
If you act like you know what you're going, you can do anything you want - except neurosurgery.
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