Dr. Rahul Jandial

After the ball dropped, a man walked into the hospital with a hole in his head. My main concern as a neurosurgeon was that he would be a "talk and die."

When an artery in someone's head bursts, there's very little that can prepare you.

Early one Tuesday morning years ago, I began my effort to save a woman who had been in a car accident. Four weeks later, I had failed.

It felt medieval when I put her in pins. It was my first time peeling down scalp and opening the skull of living human, a thrill unlike any other. Ten years and thousands of surgeries later, the experience is still branded into my own head.