Brain Surgery

• Wash your hands. Nobody wants your dirty fingers touching their brain. We don't know where they've been, okay? And I don't even want to know. Just wash your hands.
  
  
• Scratch that first one. Wear gloves. Those little latex surgical gloves, not your work gloves.
  
  
• Get a good night's sleep beforehand. If you're drinking and partying the night before, you might not be at your best for the brain surgery. If you're a painter, you can party all you want. If you mess up, you just say, "Well, it's just art," and everything's fine. As a neurosurgeon, though, you can't be saying, "Well, it's just the hippocampus." Doesn't work.
  
  
• Anesthesia is important. I suppose this kind of goes without saying, but you're going to be cutting someone, taking out parts of his skull, and ultimately doing things to his brain. Your patient will not want to be awake for this process.
  
  
• Bring a Dremel and some super glue. I promise that you'll find uses for both of them. A multitool is probably a good idea, too.
  
  
• I recommend cutting into the skull so that it comes off kind of like a cookie jar lid. That's what I've always seen in cartoons and Frankenstein movies, so I can't see how you could go wrong that way.
  
  
• Don't remove anything that looks important.
  
  
• Poke the brain, at least once, then report back to me on whether or not it made the patient move. I've always wanted to know. I suppose this isn't advice, but I'll slip it in here anyway.
  
  
• Clean up after yourself. Be sure to reattach the skull (you remembered your super glue, right?) before sending the patient on his way. Otherwise, a stiff wind or an errant baseball's going to hit the exposed brain and undo all of your hard work. If you happened to lose the top of the skull, don't panic; a fishbowl should suffice as a replacement, and is also a fun conversation piece!