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UK Teenager Listens to iPod During Brain Operation

by Lee Bains on December 19, 2008 at 08:00 AM


British surgeons, according to the Telegraph, recently operated on a young man's brain with the aid of an unusual surgical tool: an iPod.

Due to the risk of severe brain damage inherent in removing 18-year-old Gavin Brooke's brain tumor, doctors found it necessary to keep the teenager awake -- though anesthetized -- throughout the procedure in order to speak with him and insure that no damage was being done. Playing Brooke's iPod over a loudspeaker, it turned out, proved to be an excellent means to keeping him awake and conversational.

"The music from the iPod kept him alert but also made him relax and gave him something else to think about," head neurosurgeon Andrew McEvoy explained.

The patient saw benefits, himself. "The music made the operation much easier to cope with," he said, "and Mr. McEvoy talked to me all the way through."

Although the Telegraph, in this most recent report on consumer-electronics-meet-medicine, did not say what, exactly, Brooke was rocking during the operation, we'd recommend Young Jeezy's pertinent 'Get Ya Mind Right.' [From: Telegraph]

Tags: health, science, surgery

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