Gelareh Zadeh
Gelareh Zadeh
Career on the brain
Gelareh Zadeh, Britain's youngest female brain surgeon, has made medical history with a revolutionary day-clinic procedure. As she tells Sophie Wilson, a turbulent childhood and piecemeal education spurred her on to make the most of her time.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: I've only just met the neurosurgeon Gelareh Zadeh and already my jaw is on the floor. She is describing operating on a patient's brain while they are wide awake: 'If the patient is quite young, I get them to use their mobile so they can say,
"Mum, I'm OK." The parents are sitting outside, they are devastated, hearing their daughter's voice makes a huge difference.'
Gelareh Zadeh, Britain's youngest female brain surgeon, has made medical history with a revolutionary day-clinic procedure. As she tells Sophie Wilson, a turbulent childhood and piecemeal education spurred her on to make the most of her time
I've only just met the neurosurgeon Gelareh Zadeh and already my jaw is on the floor. She is describing operating on a patient's brain while they are wide awake: 'If the patient is quite young, I get them to use their mobile so they can say, "Mum, I'm OK." The parents are sitting outside, they are devastated, hearing their daughter's voice makes a huge difference.'
Gelareh Zadeh: 'I find that female neurosurgeons tend to do a little bit more so nobody can say, "Well, you're a girl you can't do it"
So you could be fully compos mentis, yacking on your mobile, while Dr Zadeh poked around in your grey matter? Yes, she confirms, but on the plus side you wouldn't feel any pain. 'Once your skin is frozen with local anaesthetic and the surgeon reaches beyond the bone, you actually have no sensation.'
Earlier, while I was waiting for Zadeh, who had been delayed in the operating theatre, a colleague offered to contact her. 'There's really no need,' I said. 'Don't worry, we won't drag her away when she's got a head open,' came the gruesome reply. Eventually Zadeh emerged, straight out of theatre, a petite figure in ultramarine scrubs and natty red clogs. I couldn't help feeling a little star-struck to meet the youngest female brain surgeon in Britain.
Since her groundbreaking day-case operation on Deborah Calder, a 52-year-old businesswoman, made the headlines last month, Zadeh has found herself at the centre of a media feeding-frenzy, the combination of pioneering procedure and 36-year-old female neurosurgeon being hard to beat. There have been photo-shoots and an appearance on This Morning. If she seems a little bemused by all the attention, she also recognises an opportunity to publicise her work.
Calder, a lung-cancer patient, had developed a secondary brain tumour and had been referred to the brain metastatic clinic, set up by Zadeh at University College Hospital shortly after she came to England from Canada last December. More than half of all adult brain tumours are metastatic, meaning they are caused by the spread of cancer from other parts of the body, yet before now there was no specialist programme in Britain. In July Zadeh removed the tumour under local anaesthetic, and later that same day Calder was back home, enjoying a cup of tea with her family.
One might imagine a brain surgeon occupies a rarefied world – not Zadeh. She takes the Tube to work and often operates to a Michael Jackson soundtrack (her anaesthetist's choice). Debates about higher consciousness are left to neuropsychiatrists; she is concerned with day-to-day technical challenges ranging from the heavy duty – drilling through a skull and suctioning out a tumour – to intricate microsurgery.
One of the advantages of a wide-awake craniotomy is that frail patients need not undergo a general anaesthetic; another is that there is a far lower risk of paralysis. As Zadeh stimulated parts of Calder's brain with an electric probe she asked her to wiggle her fingers, talk and so forth, and by monitoring each response – a process known as cortical mapping – was able to pinpoint which areas of the brain to enter and which to avoid.
But the real innovation was sending Calder home on the day of her operation, rather than keeping her in hospital for a week to recuperate. 'At home you feel less ill, you feel less institutionalised. Brain cancer is really a very devastating diagnosis, and having brain surgery on top of it makes you feel you're completely ill. But if you can do it in a day clinic, you feel that this operation, although very serious, is not something to be feared.'
'Gelareh was almost like a friend to me,' Calder has said. 'She is caring, a really exceptional and special person.' That much is clear after just an hour in Zadeh's company. She speaks quickly and precisely and sometimes it's hard to get a word in, but you can't help warming to her. When I ask how she unwinds she mentions that she enjoys – wait for it – academic research. She really seems to live and breathe brain surgery.
But then for a woman to succeed in a field dominated by alpha males, perhaps she has to perform above the odds. 'I find that among my friends who are female neurosurgeons we tend to do a little bit more – you tend to stay longer, you try to put in a little more effort so at the end of it, nobody can say, "Well, you're a girl you can't do it,"' she admits.
According to the Royal College of Surgeons there are just seven female consultant neurosurgeons in Britain, out of a total of about 210. When I ask Zadeh why this might be she says the long hours leave little time for family life. In her first two years of surgical training, in Toronto, she was on call every other night. 'I had maybe one month of holiday for those 24 months. It's enough to put anybody off.'
Career on the brain
Gelareh Zadeh, Britain's youngest female brain surgeon, has made medical history with a revolutionary day-clinic procedure. As she tells Sophie Wilson, a turbulent childhood and piecemeal education spurred her on to make the most of her time.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: I've only just met the neurosurgeon Gelareh Zadeh and already my jaw is on the floor. She is describing operating on a patient's brain while they are wide awake: 'If the patient is quite young, I get them to use their mobile so they can say,
"Mum, I'm OK." The parents are sitting outside, they are devastated, hearing their daughter's voice makes a huge difference.'
Gelareh Zadeh, Britain's youngest female brain surgeon, has made medical history with a revolutionary day-clinic procedure. As she tells Sophie Wilson, a turbulent childhood and piecemeal education spurred her on to make the most of her time
I've only just met the neurosurgeon Gelareh Zadeh and already my jaw is on the floor. She is describing operating on a patient's brain while they are wide awake: 'If the patient is quite young, I get them to use their mobile so they can say, "Mum, I'm OK." The parents are sitting outside, they are devastated, hearing their daughter's voice makes a huge difference.'
Gelareh Zadeh: 'I find that female neurosurgeons tend to do a little bit more so nobody can say, "Well, you're a girl you can't do it"
So you could be fully compos mentis, yacking on your mobile, while Dr Zadeh poked around in your grey matter? Yes, she confirms, but on the plus side you wouldn't feel any pain. 'Once your skin is frozen with local anaesthetic and the surgeon reaches beyond the bone, you actually have no sensation.'
Earlier, while I was waiting for Zadeh, who had been delayed in the operating theatre, a colleague offered to contact her. 'There's really no need,' I said. 'Don't worry, we won't drag her away when she's got a head open,' came the gruesome reply. Eventually Zadeh emerged, straight out of theatre, a petite figure in ultramarine scrubs and natty red clogs. I couldn't help feeling a little star-struck to meet the youngest female brain surgeon in Britain.
Since her groundbreaking day-case operation on Deborah Calder, a 52-year-old businesswoman, made the headlines last month, Zadeh has found herself at the centre of a media feeding-frenzy, the combination of pioneering procedure and 36-year-old female neurosurgeon being hard to beat. There have been photo-shoots and an appearance on This Morning. If she seems a little bemused by all the attention, she also recognises an opportunity to publicise her work.
Calder, a lung-cancer patient, had developed a secondary brain tumour and had been referred to the brain metastatic clinic, set up by Zadeh at University College Hospital shortly after she came to England from Canada last December. More than half of all adult brain tumours are metastatic, meaning they are caused by the spread of cancer from other parts of the body, yet before now there was no specialist programme in Britain. In July Zadeh removed the tumour under local anaesthetic, and later that same day Calder was back home, enjoying a cup of tea with her family.
One might imagine a brain surgeon occupies a rarefied world – not Zadeh. She takes the Tube to work and often operates to a Michael Jackson soundtrack (her anaesthetist's choice). Debates about higher consciousness are left to neuropsychiatrists; she is concerned with day-to-day technical challenges ranging from the heavy duty – drilling through a skull and suctioning out a tumour – to intricate microsurgery.
One of the advantages of a wide-awake craniotomy is that frail patients need not undergo a general anaesthetic; another is that there is a far lower risk of paralysis. As Zadeh stimulated parts of Calder's brain with an electric probe she asked her to wiggle her fingers, talk and so forth, and by monitoring each response – a process known as cortical mapping – was able to pinpoint which areas of the brain to enter and which to avoid.
But the real innovation was sending Calder home on the day of her operation, rather than keeping her in hospital for a week to recuperate. 'At home you feel less ill, you feel less institutionalised. Brain cancer is really a very devastating diagnosis, and having brain surgery on top of it makes you feel you're completely ill. But if you can do it in a day clinic, you feel that this operation, although very serious, is not something to be feared.'
'Gelareh was almost like a friend to me,' Calder has said. 'She is caring, a really exceptional and special person.' That much is clear after just an hour in Zadeh's company. She speaks quickly and precisely and sometimes it's hard to get a word in, but you can't help warming to her. When I ask how she unwinds she mentions that she enjoys – wait for it – academic research. She really seems to live and breathe brain surgery.
But then for a woman to succeed in a field dominated by alpha males, perhaps she has to perform above the odds. 'I find that among my friends who are female neurosurgeons we tend to do a little bit more – you tend to stay longer, you try to put in a little more effort so at the end of it, nobody can say, "Well, you're a girl you can't do it,"' she admits.
According to the Royal College of Surgeons there are just seven female consultant neurosurgeons in Britain, out of a total of about 210. When I ask Zadeh why this might be she says the long hours leave little time for family life. In her first two years of surgical training, in Toronto, she was on call every other night. 'I had maybe one month of holiday for those 24 months. It's enough to put anybody off.'
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