Neurosurgeon teaches brain facts, fiction

Pioneer Press, May 21, 2008 -- More than 165 Roosevelt Middle School fifth-graders learned neurological fact from fiction May 7, as they took part in Dr. Gail Rosseau's "Fact or Fiction: The Neurosurgery Reality Show."

Rosseau, a River Forest resident and neurosurgeon with the Neurologic and Orthopedic Hospital of Chicago, and her son, Brendan, a sixth-grader at Roosevelt, presented the animated, interactive Power Point presentation that focused on the brain and spine.

"I heard my mother and my father talking about the brain and everything, and a lot of it, I didn't understand what they were talking about," Brendan Rosseau said, explaining how the idea for the presentation came from his family's dinner conversation. "And so I asked my mom one day when we were talking, and we just decided to form a presentation because there might be a lot of kids with that same situation as me."

Students learned a variety of interesting facts, including that brain surgery has been done through the nose for thousands of years, that the brain has 100 billion neurons in it and that there is a hammer-shaped bone in the ear that allows people to hear.

A handful of students afterward said they really enjoyed the program, saying it was "awesome."

"I liked how they made it into kind of like a game show," Seamus Blaha, 11, said.

Many of the students, who studied the brain in the earlier part of the school year, said they really liked learning about brain tumors.

"I think the most interesting part of it is that you could have an invisible tumor in your brain," said Matt Dudek, 11.

Classmates Abby Donlin, 11, and Gillian Dwyer, 10, agreed.

"I really liked that not all brain tumors can kill you," Donlin said.

"I learned that there were some tumors called 'pearl tumors.' I didn't know that," Dwyer said.

Copies of the presentation were given to doctors who were in town in April for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons convention at McCormick Place. Brendan and his mother will also be presenting the program at 7:30 p.m. July 10 at the River Forest Library. Parents are encouraged to come with their children to learn about the brain and how helmets can help protect it.

Rosseau said the presentation is important because of the injury prevention message it sends, and it may interest kids to choose science as a career.

"We all who are in science, want to be sure that we encourage the natural curiosity of kids in the sciences in this country. That we feed it, that we reward it, we nurture it," Rosseau said. "I (also) want to make sure that when I need some of these things, or all of us when we're patients, that we have plenty of the best and the brightest who want to be neurosurgeons 20 years from now."