#All i need is a beauty and a beat trial#

Some of the women ahead of me have provided me with great mentorship, but I've also had fantastic male mentors. Only about 6 percent of all board-certified neurosurgeons in the country are women, and in academia, it's even fewer. Finding female mentors in neurosurgery can be tough. Neurosurgery is heavily male-dominated, so don't expect to always have mentors who look like you. As a scientist and a clinician, I have to read the data from other people'sР’В research myself and draw my own conclusion to inform my practice.Р”В¦. That conclusion was all over the media, but when you actually read the paper, it turned out that they were asymptomatic from this form of dementia, meaning it's not clear that they had dementia at all. Here's a good example: A recently published study said 30 percent of men who played contact sports would develop a form of dementia in adulthood. A scientific study can be interpreted to say anything you want it to say.

You absolutely cannot be sloppy about your own health, because doing so could affect your patient's health.Р”Тђ. The one time I tried to exercise in the morningР’В before a surgery, I had to leave the operating room because I was dehydrated from not drinking enough water after working out, so now I only exercise in the evenings. I'm vigilant about that stuff, because you never want to be in a situation when you're not at your best. If I'm operating, I make sure to go to bed early the night before, eat a hearty breakfast, and drink tons of water. When someone else's brain health is in your hands, you have to take exceptionally good care of yourself. The good outcomes definitely outweigh the bad ones, by about 10Р’В to one.Р”В¤. So if you can save somebody, they're so grateful. Telling people that their loved one won't be the same is very difficultР’В and very draining.Р’В Most adult neurosurgery involves things like older people falling or car accidents, and with that kind of stuff, people already expect a poor outcome. In a microsecond, things can change for the worse, and it makes you realize that life is so precious and so short. Nearly every patient is a high-stakes case, which can make this work feel incredibly important but also nerve-wracking.Р”Р€.

The first question the family asks when someone's had a traumatic incident is, 'Are they going to live?' And if they are, the second question is, 'Are they going to really live?' Meaning, will they be able to speak and interact and function the way they could before? Will they drive? Will they work? For many families, it's the most harrowing experience they'll ever have for neurosurgeons, this is just the daily routine. Level-one centers are hospitals that are equipped to handle the most severe total body emergencies, so as a trauma neurosurgeon, I treat whatever comes in the door, and generally on very short notice.

I work at the largest level-one trauma center in the Midwest. If you're working with brain trauma, be prepared to handle life-or-death decisions every day. Every surgeon ends up doing what they think is best for the patient, but there isn't always one 'right answer.'Р”Сћ.

#All i need is a beauty and a beat trial#

Because the stakes are higher in neurosurgery than in some other fields, there is less likely to be a clinical trial establishing superiority of some treatments over others, which can lead to variability in practice. For example, you'd never be able to run a clinical trial comparing surgery versus no surgery for removing a brain tumor, because no patient would want to be in the 'no surgery' group (and most doctors and research review boards would be uncomfortable 'experimenting' on patients this way).Р’В So the practice of neurosurgery involves more educated guesswork than most people would expect. But in many cases, you're not able to do clinical trials because it's not ethical.

You have clinical trials, which you randomize, and you draw scientific conclusions. When I was in medical school, I understood everything in medicine as evidence-based.