Pumpkin Carving Helps Teach Brain Surgery
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CLEVELAND — Brain surgeons from around the world are back home after a week of learning new surgical techniques by picking seeds out of pumpkins.
Two dozen brain surgeons from Italy, Germany and Japan trained in Cleveland using the pumpkins and some cadavers, a hospital official said.
“The pumpkins simulate the skull and the brain as physicians bore a tiny hole in the outside pumpkin shell and insert a thin scope into simulated brain tissue,” said Dr. Alan Cohen.
After getting a feel for the delicate instruments by removing pumpkin seeds through the hole, the trainees graduate to cadaver heads and then, if all goes well, the live thing.
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