Neurosurgeon Visits with Senior Science Class

Seniors in Bridget Lesinski’s Mind and Body elective welcomed Dr. Aruna Ganju to class this week for an intimate discussion. In addition to being a Parker parent to 7th grader Anaïs Morris and freshman Uma Morris, Dr. Ganju is a neurosurgeon with more than 29 years of experience and is currently a faculty member in the Department of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

The purpose of her visit was to discuss her work as a neurosurgeon who specializes in spinal surgery and to discuss “consciousness” as a larger topic. In preparation for Dr. Ganju’s visit, class members studied up on the spinal cord, the Glasgow Coma Scale and reticulating activating systems and read excerpts from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. In this memoir by French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, he describes his life before and after a massive stroke left him with locked-in syndrome, a type of pseudocoma that prevented him from moving or communicating except through blinking.

Dr. Ganju began by speaking about her history and motivation to become a neurosurgeon. Next, she discussed her work as a spinal surgeon, explaining things like “why” people would come see them, tools they use to form a diagnosis and how a typical surgery would proceed. Dr. Ganju described a case involving a patient whose spinal fluid was leaking into their brain and walked students through the patient’s MRI and a short clip of the surgery itself. In addition to learning about the specific breakdown of a spinal cord and related topics, Dr. Ganju related details about the everyday life of a neurosurgeon, hardships they experience and her belief in keeping herself in her prime condition.