When I was in the hospital with a subarachnoid hemorrhage, I came to suspect that brain surgeons are a melancholy lot. Far from being the difficult but glamorous lifesaving skill that we all joke about in everyday life, the reality is that neuro intensive care patients mostly cannot speak, walk, or take a piss by themselves. What kind of person would you be if you had the power to preserve life -- but not the power to preserve QUALITY of life? This book seems to confirm everything I learned by meeting far too many brain surgeons. And by the way... just like the author of this book, my main surgeon never saw me while I was conscious either.

Kudos to the author for his willingness to be open about what he was really thinking. 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/anatomy-of-error

Having spent 20 years neurosurgery departments as a Ph.D. (and survived!), I find Joyce's opinion spot on. A curious discipline where the practitioners are oddly distanced from the meaning of their work...an approach that I am working to change.  

That's cool Ronald! Would love to learn more about your work :)

More people are working to make it so practitioners are not distanced from the meaning of their work.

This week I learned of the existence of http://onemind.org/ ...