[Source: Sadie Jo Smokey, Arizona Republic] — “Oh snap!” a student breathes, startled as the image on the monitor switches from a PowerPoint presentation of multicolored grids to a brain surgery in progress. “Welcome to the OR,” said Dr. Adrienne Scheck, a senior staff scientist at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. Two dozen members of Students Supporting Brain Tumor Research gaze at the large screen at the front of the Barrow Telepresence Conference Room.
They see an operating room and its occupants: an anesthesiologist, scrub technicians, the neurosurgeon looking into an operating microscope. A camera in the medical equipment provides a detailed view of the brain. Illuminated by a bright light, the students see the living organ, the fluids and a jaw tool pulling out bits of soft tumor. While the neurosurgical operating room is far on the other side of the St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center campus, the students watch and ask questions as if standing over the surgeon’s shoulder. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]