From time to time on Neurosurgery Blog, you will see us cross-posting or linking to items from other places that we believe will interest our readers. Today’s post originally appeared in NPR’s Fresh Air on July 28. Dave Davies interviews pediatric neurosurgeon John “Jay” Wellons, III, MD, FAANS, about his memoir “All That Moves Us,” which reflects on his experiences operating on children facing critical illnesses and injuries.
Dr. Wellons relays the story of a 9-year-old pediatric patient in an auto accident in Alabama who had a blood clot pushing her brain. Due to the weather, medevac helicopters weren’t running. Dr. Wellons recounts he arranged for a military Blackhawk to bring her to Birmingham, Ala., for surgery. The surgery was successful, according to Dr. Wellons, “The flicker of the eyes open – that’s a miraculous feeling, Dave, you know, to see somebody wake up after something like that.”
Dr. Wellons also describes an operation on a fetus in the womb, the spine he describes as the size of three grains of rice stacked together. This was surgery to correct a condition that leads to spina bifida.
When asked what he thinks will happen in the post-Roe landscape, Dr. Wellons states, “I can’t tell you how much I think that this ruling is going to affect what it’s like for families to have these substantial — neurologic, cardiac, urologic — encephaloceles where the gut’s outside the body that is hard to be fixed sometimes. Like, we’re going to see a lot more of these now, and we’re going to have to, as a society, understand that we’re going to have to take care of these children. That’s our job. So, yes, I think it’s going to have an impact.”
Click here to access the full interview.
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Dr. Wellons recounts how a colleague stood in an emergency department close to Sandy Hook Elementary years ago as the calls began to come in, he and his surgical team in medical gowns ready for the waves of injured children — waiting until they realized that no one survived to make it there. He concludes the article by saying, “Let me be clear, the death of children from any injury or any reason is heartbreaking, and the fact that gun-related death is the number one killer of our children, more than motor vehicle collisions and childhood cancer — what our medical journals have been telling us over the last few months — is a failure of our society and needs to be changed.”
Brain tumors are the leading cause of death from cancer in children. Tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) account for 20% of childhood cancers and are second only to leukemia in frequency. Recent diagnostic and therapeutic advances have improved survival and quality of life for many children with CNS cancers. Sadly, however, the prognosis for many children with brain tumors remains poor.
Catherine A. Mazzola, MD, FAANS
The passing of James T. Goodrich, MD, PhD on March 30, 2020, was a devastating blow — not only to the neurosurgical community, but to his many friends throughout the world. Jim was a kind and compassionate man who was revered by many. He was always willing to help others and traveled extensively to help those who needed his expertise. He was a great teacher, surgeon and student of medical history. His accomplishments were many and varied.
From time to time on Neurosurgery Blog, you will see us cross-posting or linking to items from other places when we believe they hit the mark on an issue. We wanted to bring attention to a Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) evidence-based guideline on pediatric myelomeningocele that recently appeared in 
