Conquering Death
The only certainty in life is death. It matters not what advantages you’re afforded, nor your hopes and ambitions, nor your desire to uphold a certain duty or moral. Men have claimed their birthright as immortality. They’ve unsuccessfully journeyed high and low
Song and Dance
Every day I wake up, roll out of bed, and go to work. Review my cases for the day, check in with a few of my patients in recovery, and huddle with my team. Then I head to preop where
Caged Animal
Close your eyes… Go to sleep. Imagine a lush, rolling savanna at sunrise. Wild animals roam the terrain at will, birds glide in the air, and the red sun slowly rises high above them. In the heat, a lone figure presides over his
The Scoop
Have you ever performed a craniotomy? It’s a highly specialized neurosurgery where a portion of the brain that is affected by something, perhaps a tumor, or a clot, or a bleed, is removed. How do you remove it, you ask? If you’re being
White Blood Cells
Imagine you’re a little red blood cell floating along the bloodstream of an immunocompromised person. There once was more of your kind, but as time has lapsed your peers have disappeared one by one, leaving your host short of breath
Loose Strings
There are so many types of scissors to choose from when performing surgery. Different sizes, shapes, and colors indicate specific purposes, so it’s absolutely imperative to make an informed decision when choosing a pair for the job. Metzenbaums are your bread
Brain Dead
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. A heart monitor at the head of a comatose patient’s bed beeps with every QRS complex that appears on the screen. Nurse Frightengale eclectically documents at her desk as the curtain slides open next to her. Frightengale briskly tidies up her
Rung By Rung
My whole life has been a constant climb. I was born and raised in the lowest level of the bleak, starting my ascension from the bottom rung of society. As daunting as it was looking all the way up to that top
Ischemia
An empty operating room lit only by a light box on the far wall. Footsteps grow louder until we see Dr. Death enter the room. He places a CT scan over the box, revealing an image of a brain. Luchadoc takes
Filling a Hole
A man once was strolling through a garden. The path he walked was bordered by the the lushest greens he’d ever seen, unlike the rest of his world that surrounded this oasis. For he built this garden, and this was his