Neurosurgeons sometimes describe aneurysm surgery as akin to bomb disposal work, though the bravery required is of a different kind as it is the patient’s life that is at risk and not the surgeon’s. The operation I was watching was more like a blood sport than a calm and dispassionate technical exercise, with the quarry a dangerous aneurysm. There was the chase – the surgeon cautiously stalking his way beneath the patient’s brain towards the aneurysm, trying not to disturb it, to where it lay deep within the brain.
