Tired, I worked on a brain all day

Derek Shepard is one of the few surgeons in the world that could save Izzie Steven's life. She has stage four melanoma that had spread to her liver and brain. Shepard, a neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace Hospital, saves her.

Okay, so maybe Grey's Anatomy is not the most facutal representation of what being a surgeon is all about. However, maybe there is some merit to the show and gives the viewers a glimpse of what life through the eyes of a brain surgeon is all about.

Neurosurgeons are all different-they all have different ideas about ways to save patients and they all have different thought patterns that lead them to believe a certain course is the best way to go. 

Best Technique

There is no such thing as a best technique. Every surgeon is going to approach things differently, according to an academic journal by Christopher R.P. Lind. Whether it is inserting a shunt into someone's brain or it's a matter of taking out a tumor, all surgeons are going to decide what is the best technique in the moment.

Different Methods 

Just like there is no technique that is preferred, there is also no method that is explicitly right. It is not a matter of being right, however, it is a matter of getting the job done. Lind gives a sheet for neurosurgeons to fill out, asking questions about how they approach certain aspects. Based off of that, he comes up with results that are the supposed best way to go about being a brain surgeon.

Making A Difference

After a thorough survey, Lind comes to the conclusion that the prefered methods are:

• frontal approach: "drilling a burr hole near the coronal suture in the mid-pupillary line and inserting a catheter into the frontal horn."
• parietal approach: "approached from a posterior burr hole in the parieto-occipital region...he avoidance of a second scalp incision for tunnelling."
• occipital approach: "place the catheter in the atrium of the lateral ventricle from a parietal burr hole...the atrium is often the most dilated part of the lateral ventricle and is potentially the last part of the chamber to collapse with subsequent cerebrospinal fluid drainage." 

Saving Lives Makes It Worth It

At the end of the day, does it really matter if one doctor decided to laser out a tumor or cut it out? Or does it matter when that patient opens their eyes and sees their family standing there, waiting for them to be okay? Neurosurgeons have a tough job-they are given unusual circumstances and are asked to basically stop people from dying. There is no right or wrong technique to that. Neurosurgeons just have to approach it the best they know how-they are the ones with the medical degree after all.