Why I became a neurosurgeon? by Dr. Biodun Ogungbo Medicine and Surgery The thing with medicine is that you can actually get a good income for helping make people happy! Also, you can use medicine as a springboard to do almost anything else (basic science, technology, organisational or humanitarian work, even politics). Medicine is also one of the last bastions of independent, craftsman-like profession. You can take it to as high a level as you wish. Surgical treatment as against medical treatment requires slightly different sets of skills and mental conditioning. Surgery and surgeons are more active and decisive with far more personal responsibility for outcome of care, which sometimes can be life saving (e.g. trauma). On a good day, there is no greater feeling than to have directly helped someone with almost immediate outcome evaluation. However, on a bad day, it can be stressful and you can only blame yourself. Neurosurgery and neurosurgeons : Neurology is the specialty dealing with diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the brain and nervous system. A doctor who practices neurology is a neurologist. Neurologists treat stroke, epilepsy, Parkinsons disease patients, and hundreds of other neurological issues, some of which are acute, ongoing, or chronic. A surgeon who operates on the brain and the nerves is a neurosurgeon (brain surgeon). Neurosurgeons are trained to operate on the brain and the spinal cord for conditions, such as brain injury following road traffic accidents, brain tumours, other diseases of the brain and of course, the spine. They operate on the spine for conditions, such as arthritis, infection, spinal cord injuries and tumours. A brain is the most complex thing that we have identified so far in our universe. Being a neurosurgeon is taking hands-on responsibility for the repair of this piece of insanely complex machinery, with no downtime, with everything on the line. The complexity and high-risk nature of brain surgery contributes to the level of surgical skills and knowledge necessary to become a successful neurosurgeon. The training is therefore long and brutal and the fact is that neurosurgery probably chooses you and not the other way round. The average length is seven years, with a few programmes at six years and many requiring eight years of training. Due to the length of the training programme, most programmes only accept one to three residents each year. As you can see, if you are interested in becoming a neurosurgeon, you have a long road ahead. Neurosurgery often attracts some of the best and the brightest of the medical field, due to the extremely challenging and dynamic nature of the field. Neurosurgeons must have excellent critical thinking and analytical abilities, plus top surgical skills, optimal dexterity and be able to perform delicate surgeries. There are robotic devices, imaging equipment, and cameras that can assist with the precision of the procedures, so neurosurgeons must be comfortable with the most advanced, complex technology as well. Again, the exceptionally high pressure and stress level of neurosurgery careers probably cannot be over-emphasised, so one must be extremely level-headed, calm, and collected under extreme pressure. However, the financial rewards are great, if you can deal with the high-risk and stress of the field, as are the intrinsic rewards of performing such advanced surgeries that are often life-saving. There are, of course, many down sides (the incredibly long and brutal training, the long hours even in mid-career, the accumulation of stresses), but it was a good fit for me. It certainly is not for everyone, because you have to throw your whole life into it. Neurosurgeons must be available at all hours for opinions and emergency surgeries. There is never a dull moment in neurosurgery. In making the decision to become a neurosurgeon, many factors influenced me. I suppose the first was an interest in medicine anyway. There was also pressure from my father who was quite keen to have a doctor in the family. However, he would have preferred me to go into obstetrics and gynaecology (womens problems) or even paediatrics (the care of children). As he says, women and children would always have problems that require doctors! They would always be making babies, bringing more work to do and therefore increase in the profit margin. Fortunately, I am not interested in profit margins and instead on actually helping people. Moreover, I found women issues tiresome. I am excessively emotional and cannot function effectively with sick, unhappy children and their distraught mothers. In medicine, you need some level of emotional detachment to be effective and render quality service not beclouded by feelings. Then, of course, believe it or not, I decided not to do what my father wanted. I rationalised that it was my life to do as I please. I was in this regard, a little rebel. You have to do what you would be happy doing for the rest of your life! Therefore, the farthest I could get away from womens issues and gynaecology was the brain! Why I became a neurosurgeon? I guess it was because it seemed so impossibly difficult and I love a challenge
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 23:20:57 +0000
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