A Career In Neurosurgery

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Starting a Career in Neurosurgery Residency
Entering the medical field is an incredibly rigorous job to to go into. There is so much time and commitment being that goes into being a doctor or a surgeon. Brain Surgery also known as Neurosurgery is one of the hardest jobs that exists in the medical field as it is working with one of the most important parts of the human body: the brain. They have to be on call the majority of the day and night because once someone comes in with a severe brain injury, there is only so much time until that injury becomes untreatable. Upon completion of medical school, most students are unsure of which field of interest they want to go into. Internship is the next step where they learn a little more and get to experience …show more content…

This puts residents in a tough position where they need to stick with the patient no matter how tough the case might get. There will be various research that they need to complete in order to ensure that the patient is getting the treatment that is best for this situation and that all the possible cures have been mapped out accurately. Persevering with the patients includes sticking with them even when it gets tough, after surgery the patients won’t recover for a few weeks, even months. It is the Neurosurgeons job to ensure that the patient is recovering safely, and not having any serious medical issues. This comes up often in most cases as the brain is a very complex, important system to the body and if one little thing gets messed up it effects the entire brain. For example: Chris Temme had surgery to cure his Chiari malformation (which is where the brain stem extends into the base of the skull, this is very painful) this is a very rare condition so many surgeons weren’t willing to take it on. After a surgeon finally did, he completed the surgery successfully but Chris had to stay in the hospital for a few days because he was still not in the best condition. During this time his neurosurgeon was incredibly busy so he had colleagues check on him. When Chris did come back to the hospital with serious complications, the Neurosurgeon who completed his …show more content…

This comes down to whether they know what they’re doing or not in that they had to have completed all the research as required. Rainer talks about how nerveracking it is to make surgical judgments as he is completing one to get rid of the brain aneurysm (a bulging, weak part of the artery that makes it capable to supply blood to brain). “To see the aneurysm better, I slowly removed bone from the base of the skull. I steadied my hands as I ground down the bone with an air drill. The drill was only millimeters away from the optic nerve and carotid artery, and one slip, even a slight tremor of my hands, would tear the brain, nerve or artery, either blinding or killing her. I worried constantly that the aneurysm would rupture again and hemorrhage into the brain before I clipped it” (Rainer, 1987). Rainer, alike to other Neurosurgeon residents has to make tough calls in surgery and determine what exactly needs to be done to save the patient. It’s very stressful to do this and having steady hands during surgery is key. This also is where all those years of medical school and internship finally pay off and as Dr. Konoch mentioned, this is why residency is so tough. It is graded and in surgical cases it is crucial that they do everything as they previously learned in medical school or internship. This varies more depending on

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