Neurosurgery Quotes

Here is the treasure chest of the world - the public library, or a bookstore. ~ Ben Carson

I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, uncloak it, and see eye-to-eye, unblinking. Neurosurgery attracted me as much for its intertwining of brain and consciousness as for its intertwining of life and death. I had thought that a life spent in the space between the two would grant me not merely a stage for compassionate action but an elevation of my own being: getting as far away from petty materialism, from self- important trivia, getting right there, to the heart of the matter, to truly life and death decisions and struggles... surely a kind of transcendence would be found there? ~ Paul Kalanithi

I was startled to realize that in spite of everything, the last few months had had one area of lightness: not having to bear the tremendous weight of the responsibility neurosurgery demanded - and part of me wanted to be excused from picking up the yoke again. Neurosurgery is really hard work, and no one would have faulted me for not going back. (People often ask if it is a calling, and my answer is always yes. You can't see it as a job, because if it's a job, it's one of the worst jobs there is.) A couple of my professors actively discouraged the idea: "Shouldn't you be spending time with your family?" ("Shouldn't you?" I wondered. I was making the decision to do this work because this work, to me, was a sacred thing.) ~ Paul Kalanithi

In cognitively demanding fields, there are no naturals. Nobody walks into an operating room straight out of a surgical rotation and does world-class neurosurgery. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Ignoring for a moment the power of the American Medical Association, we still wouldn't see a huge amount of books on neurosurgery for dummies in 21 days or whatever. It's just plain inappropriate, and it's intentionally out of people's reach. ~ Erik Naggum

Neurosurgery requires a commitment to one's own excellence and a commitment to another's identity. The ~ Paul Kalanithi

Don't get me wrong. I like Disney World. The rest rooms are clean enough for neurosurgery, and the employees say things like "Howdy, folks!" and actually seem to mean it. You wonder: Where do they get these people? My guess: 1952. I think old Walt realized, way back then, that there would eventually be a shortage of cheerful people, so he put all the residents of south western Nebraska into a giant freezer with a huge picture of Jiminy Cricket on the outside, and the corporation has been thawing them out as needed ever since. ~ Dave Barry

In a medical sense I'm a prophet. But I'm not unique. I mean there are many prophets in many different vocations. I happen to be one of them, without sounding too egotistical I am a pioneer. I am doing pioneering stuff in neurosurgery. There is stuff that I'm doing that no-one else is doing. ~ Charles Teo

So Hosaka's built a regular little neurosurgery and staffed it with three hotshots. Two of them are company men, the third's a Korean who knows black medicine from both ends. ~ William Gibson

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. ~ James Nesbitt

Over the years, I have repeated Eric's advice to countless people, encouraging them to reduce their career spreadsheets to one column: potential for growth. Of course, not everyone has the opportunity or the desire to work in an industry like high tech. But within any field, there are jobs that have more potential for growth than others. Those in more established industries can look for the rocket ships within their companies - divisions or teams that are expanding. And in careers like teaching or medicine, the corollary is to seek out positions where there is high demand for those skills. For example, in my brother's field of pediatric neurosurgery, there are some cities with too many physicians, while others have too few. My brother has always elected to work where his expertise would be in demand so he can have the greatest impact. Just ~ Sheryl Sandberg

It just shows you that if you take a plain, ordinary, moronic intern and make him do the same things over and over again until he loses is mind, you can teach him to do almost anything. I think now that I've mastered IVs, I might take up neurosurgery in my spare time. ~ Robert Marion

An important verity about knowledge is that the brain works most effectively with consciously retained information. We more easily remember what we want to recall later. When we feed our fourteen billion brain cells with information that will enrich us and help others, we are really learning to Think Big. ~ Ben Carson

like the ancient Greek concept arete, I thought, virtue required moral, emotional, mental, and physical excellence. Neurosurgery seemed to present the most challenging and ~ Paul Kalanithi