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CNN Sunday Morning

High-Schoolers Watch Brain Surgery

Aired February 10, 2002 - 08:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Some high schoolers in New Jersey are rethinking the brain by actually watching brain surgery. CNN's Brian Palmer has more on a class that takes science to new levels. And we must warn you, this report shows some graphic images of brain surgery in progress.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, there's a green portion (ph), good.

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a relaxed Long Branch, New Jersey classroom, a group of eager science students gets ready for brain surgery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then number nine and ten, we were talking about for, is the glosoperingeral (ph) nerve and the vegas (ph) nerve.

PALMER: No, not rocket science, brain surgery. Students at New Jersey's Liberty Science Center watch on video screens in real time, as surgeons miles away at Overlook Hospital (ph) remove a tumor from a 60-year-old woman's brain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there any concern with drilling the bone out in this area that there's future complications?

PALMER: Blood and tissue and sounds that would make the average adult squirm...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a retractor right here which is elevating the cerebellum.

PALMER: ... barely phase these kids, who pitch questions to the surgeons like hard-nosed medical students.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are more women affected by this than men?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What causes the shwong (ph) cells to overgrow?

PALMER: The program, called Brain Works (ph), takes science out of the classroom for children all over New Jersey. These aren't just one-day field trips. Liberty's educators partner with teachers at New Jersey schools -- particularly under-served ones -- to improve their science programs. STEVEN BAUMANN, LIBERTY SCIENCE CENTER: What we're trying to do is identify the place where Liberty Science Center, as an informal science institution, as a cultural organization, cannot just be a supplement to what schools offer, but can be an integral partner with the school district to help them achieve their science education goals.

PALMER: Evelyn Maurice is in her 11th year as a science teacher at Long Branch High School.

MAURICE: I could stand there and talk to them how wonderful it is to be a doctor or a nurse or a technician or an anesthesiologist a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) or whatever. But it's not the same when they're hearing it from a person who is experiencing it everyday.

PALMER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) wants to be an anesthesiologist.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love the way the brain works. It's almost unexplainable. There are so many different perspectives of it.

PALMER: Caitlin Williams (ph) though she'd be grossed out.

CAITLIN WILLIAMS: It's not as gory as I thought it was going to be. And like once you got into it -- like what they were doing and (UNINTELLIGIBLE), you just completely forgot all about the gore.

PALMER: The goal of Brain Works (ph) isn't exactly to teach kids how to conduct surgery, but to show them how textbook science is about the real world and real people.

Brian Palmer, CNN, Jersey City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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