Podbit · The School of Greatness
Minutes before a complex brain surgery, McLaughlin got a call that his father had cancer with a poor prognosis. He almost cancelled. What changed his mind was a Kipling poem, his patient's three daughters, and the question: what would my father want me to do?
Where this was said
At 13:13 · chapter starts 10:20
Lewis asks which is harder — brain or spine surgery. McLaughlin's answer is nuanced: expertise is not universal, and neurosurgeons develop niches over decades, referring out anything outside that niche. His own specialty is trigeminal neuralgia — severe stabbing facial pain caused by a blood vessel pressing against a nerve as it exits the brain. The fix is elegant but terrifying in description: drill a hole in the back of the skull about the size of a 50-cent piece, ease between the skull and brain surface, locate the nerve, free the offending vessel, and place padding between them. McLaughlin holds up a physical example of the drill template to illustrate the scale of the opening.
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