Dr. Alfredo Quiñones Hinojosa

When the tumor begins to invade the brain,

And we know there are cancer cells right there and very likely important brain at those edges.

But you can't tell the difference.

What does it feel like when the surgery is over?

Well, first of all, I tell you that for me, the most stressful moment, if everything went well with the surgery, as I expect that it will go, I finish the surgery.

I wait around until that patient is awake and moving.

And the patient is getting extubated at the end of the surgery, and then the anesthesiology is going, show me two fingers.

No function.

Squeeze my hand.

No functions.

And then I'm looking at this, and I'm getting worried, all right, because I know what that potentially means.

So I come in, and I say, Michael, squeeze my hand.

Squeeze.

And you're literally yelling, because remember, they're coming out of anesthesia.

At that point, my heart was about to burst out of my chest.

I was thinking, did I do something to that patient that that patient is not going to be able to wake up?

I tell people we are not better doctors than many other doctors.

We are not better surgeons than many other surgeons.

I think that what makes us special and different, why society has put us where we are, is because we have this amazing ability to emotionally deal with so much uncertainty.

and where the outcomes and the stakes are so high every single day between life and death in the operating room.