Paul Kalanithi

The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing... You may decide you want to spend your time working as a neurosurgeon, but two months later, you may want to learn to play the saxophone or devote yourself to the church. Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process.

American Writer

Ben Carson

I was asked by an NPR reporter once why don't I talk about race that often. I said, 'It's because I'm a neurosurgeon.' And she thought that was a strange response... I said, 'You see, when I take someone to the operating room, I'm actually operating on the thing that makes them who they are. The skin doesn't make them who they are.

American Scientist

Koren Zailckas

I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. As a memoirist, you have to crack your head open and examine every uncomfortable thing in there.

Lil B

I came in the gate as an African-American poor kid wanting to be a neurosurgeon but - with American life and the places I was put due to American history and laws and the oppression of black people - I had to make it work in other ways.

American Musician

Trip Adler

I was talking to my dad, who's a neurosurgeon. He had this academic paper he wanted to publish. Journals take about 18 months to publish a paper, and he just wanted to get things up there.

American Businessman

I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia.

Michael Gambon

There are more important ways of earning a living, aren't there? Like being a neurosurgeon. But some plays are very important, aren't they?

British Actor

Eben Alexander

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

American Educator

I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon.

Neurosurgeons undergo extensive training to operate on complex nervous system issues.

Specialist Surgeon

Neurosurgeons also treat spinal problems, not only brain disorders.

Not Just the Brain

Surgery by neurosurgeons often involves significant risks due to the complexity of the nervous system.

High Stakes

 neurosurgeon don't feel like it's a problem or it's a bad thing if you don't feel it or you do feel it or whatever yeah yeah today is the very first time he's performing experimental brain surgery on a psychiatric patient and he's allowing cameras into the operating room were you nervous a lot of excitement offs a lot of just anxiety as

These Are the Mental...

 there must be a way that I could do it. So, I met with a top neurosurgeon. And I asked him, how long is it possible to go without breathing, like how long could I go without air? And he said to me that anything over six minutes you have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage.

How I held my breath for...

 So I am indeed a neurosurgeon, and I follow a long tradition of neurosurgery, and what I'm going to tell you about today is adjusting the dials in the circuits in the brain, being able to go anywhere in the brain and turning areas of the brain up or down to help our patients.

Andres Lozano:...

 We have a lot of complex, multidimensional problems in the world right now, and we need creative, out-of-the-box thinkers to tackle them. Now, let's say that you are, in your heart, a specialist. You came out of the womb knowing you wanted to be a pediatric neurosurgeon.

Why some of us don't...

 neurosurgeon and I follow a long tradition of neurosurgery and I'm going to tell you about today is adjusting the dials in the circuits in the brain being able to go anywhere in the brain and turning areas of the brain up or down to help our patients so as I said

Parkinson's, depression...

 and if you can then surgically remove that, then in many cases depending on the type of epileptic seizure the seizures will go away. Now in some patients you can't locate it from the outside, so then what the neurosurgeon does, implants up to

National Geographic...

 What is a functional neurosurgeon? It's a doctor who is trying to improve a neurological function through different surgical strategies. You've certainly heard of one of the famous ones called deep brain stimulation,

The brain may be able to...

 Paul's oncologist tailored his chemo so he could continue working as a neurosurgeon, which initially we thought was totally impossible. When the cancer advanced

What makes life worth...

 I am a neurosurgeon, and I'm here to tell you today that people like me need your help.

4 questions you should...

 One morning, in the year 1957, the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield saw himself like this,