小儿神经外科

David J. Daniels, M.D., Ph.D.: It's hard as a parent to hear the news that your child has a brain tumor. What I tell my families is that we're going to take good care of your child. That is our number one goal.

Jonathan D. Schwartz, D.O., M.P.H.: One of my favorite parts of taking care of children is coming into a room of worry, and here's what we're going to do to get your child better.

Dr. Daniels: Parents should take their children to Mayo Clinic for the simple reason that we have some of the best outcomes in the world. We have experts at every part of the brain. There's no tumor really that we can't tackle. We routinely get patients referred to us for tumors that are being told are inoperable. We can assemble some of the world experts in a very expedited fashion to be able to offer surgery that other places can't offer.

Dr. Schwartz: A lot of our second opinions, over a quarter, have a different pathologic diagnosis when they come to Mayo. So getting the diagnosis right in the first place allows us to make sure we're doing the right thing. We've learned at Mayo Clinic that it's not always the right decision to rush children into surgery. There are a subset of tumors that we are able to treat with therapies that don't even require an incision.

Proton beam radiation is one of the most significant advances that we have because we're allowed to minimize the side effects and injury to healthy tissue. You're able to spare hitting the heart, the lungs, essential organs that don't need radiation because there's no disease there. There's a lot of new transformative changes to improve the quality of life, to minimize the side effects, medicines that are now allowing children to be treated successfully without losing their hair, without feeling sick. And that could include fertility preservation so that children can have a family of their own when they're older. A lot of us are all parents, and I think we all take this very personal and say, if this was our child, this is what we would do and why we would do it.

Dr. Daniels: The best part about my job is seeing patients do well. Having a parent give me a hug five years from now and say, you cured my child. That's it.

我们询问了妙佑医疗国际的一位专家：当孩子需要脑部手术时，父母如何找到希望？

Edward Ahn，医学博士，小儿神经外科：当孩子接受神经外科手术时，父母必须知道的是，他们必须做好意料之外的准备。这是我们在治疗此年龄段患者时会沟通的内容之一：他们的大脑在不断发育，所以我们经常会看到，当大脑的某个部分丧失功能时，它的另一部分会进行弥补。

试试学习孩子的想法。

Ahn 医生：孩子有时是全家最心怀希望的人，因为他们对待一些事物还有着天真无邪的想法。他们不会想，“为什么是我？为什么这件事发生在我身上？我太倒霉了。”相反，他们会直接想着去解决。

请记住，成长之路还很长。

Ahn 医生：和孩子们打交道，我最喜欢的是看着他们长大。在有危机的时候，我们会进行干预，这是我们经过训练和随时准备要做的工作。但之后，当看到患儿回到正常生活、看到他们成长时，我们见证着他们茁壮成长为本应有的样子。这对我来说非常振奋。

Ahn 医生帮助了数千个确诊患有脑肿瘤和其他畸形的儿童的家庭。