she's bringing brain surgery back

"What could be more interesting than the human brain: the kidneys, the spleen, the skin? No. There is nothing that rivals the human brain in complexity, elegance, or mystery.

"Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon, one of only two hundred or so women among the alpha males who dominate this high-pressure, high-prestige medical specialty."


"Firlik both vividly describes some of her surgeries (including a man with maggots eating his brain) and bluntly appraises the questions on what parts of our mind make us human (when pondering an operation she did on an infant with hydrancephaly, who only had the lower reptilian parts of the brain).

"And when she comes home at night, looking for love, her husband oftentimes pushes her away, complaining she smells like bone dust."

-blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2006/11/the_brain_is_so.html