The Hemifacial Spasm Association has copies of the book about Dr. Peter J. Jannetta and MVD, "Working in a Very Small Place: The Making of a Neurosurgeon", by Mark L. Shelton available for loan to HFSA members.
To request to be added to the lending list, please click on the link below.
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Working in a Very Small Place: The Making of a Neurosurgeon by Mark L. Shelton (May, 1990)
"There is a condition called trigeminal neuralgia which causes facial pain so excruciating that it has driven sufferers to the brink of suicide. There is a neurosurgeon named Peter Jannetta who has found a way of treating it. What Jannetta does is bore a hole in the back of a patient's skull and leaf through the cranial nerves until he finds one that has been pinched by a tiny blood vessel. Then, in a procedure so delicate that it can only be performed beneath a microscope, he "pads" the compressed nerve with a shred of Teflon felt. In most cases the pain goes away. Forever. This intensely dramatic book takes us into the "very small place" - the human brain -- where Jannetta and his colleagues perform minor miracles several times a day. It is also a tour through the furiously competitive world of neurosurgeons, matadors of the medical profession, who may take great risks on the operating table yet fiercely resist innovation. Combining science writing of breathtaking lucidity with shrewd insights into the personalities and politics of medicine, Working in a Very Small Place is an awe-inspiring look at what can go wrong with the human brain - and at the driven men and women who set those wrongs right"
(Source - Working in a Very Small Place: The Making of a Neurosurgeon by Mark L. Shelton - Rear cover of paperback edition.)