While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons work in the crucible of identity: every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of ourselves, and every conversation with a patient undergoing brain surgery cannot help but confront this fact. In addition, to the patient and family, the brain surgery is usually the most dramatic event they have ever faced, and as such, has the impact of any major life event. At those critical junctures, the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living.
Dr. Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (via bourbonandbrains)
i always laugh whenever we have to centrifuge bacteria because imagine you’re just chilling in some broth with your buds and then someone comes along and puts you in a tube and spins you at fucking 14,000 rpm
