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Based on the surgeon’s life
The chapter “A Surgeons Life” from the book; An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks depicts a story of a surgeon by the name Bennett. Despite Bennett having the Tourette disease, he still followed his career to become a surgeon. The condition can be described as one that makes a person do things involuntarily, for example, cursing, barking, twitching, and other things. Given that, it would make it almost impossible for a person with the disease to be employed, let alone be a surgeon. Oliver Sacks is amazed by the fact that despite Bennett having full-blown Tourette syndrome, he was still an amazing surgeon (Sacks 79). Sacks show that as Benett assumes the role of a surgeon, the manifestation of the disease vanishes. Through that, he tries to show the readers that what one feeds the mind is very important as it has an impact on one’s decisions in life. The paper explains the quality of sacks as a person who can penetrate the mind of the readers and the patients, as portrayed in the chapter.
Sacks was invited to stay with Mr. Bennetts’s family so that he could have a better understanding of him (Sacks 89). Like any other person, Bennette could raise a family, drive, cook, and be a professional. The only factor that made him special was the fact that he had Tourette disease. Many people, given his situation, may fail to understand how a person with characteristics such as involuntary mimicking and cursing, jumping around and jerking would become a surgeon. Bennette was able to assume his role as a surgeon due to his full composure in the operating room where he was calm and thus being able to do his job correctly.
During his visit and stay with Bennette sacks wanted to penetrate his mind and get to know more about the condition and how it affects his life. He learned that Bennette had difficulties in reading, which made his life in medical school hugely challenging. He had to repeat reading each line many times to understand. Bennette also had a habit of repeating strange words that seemed to be odd to him, which he called ‘candy for the mind’ (Sacks 74). This way, sacks was able to understand him from the inside and concluded that the actualities of patients and the way the brains of patients work cannot be fully comprehended just from the observation of behavior from the outside.
Penetrating the mind, a quality that Sacks portrays in the chapter helps him uncover the hidden thoughts of Bennette that he uses to have a better understanding of his life. A person with a penetrating mind can understand things quickly and recognize things thoroughly. Sacks was not only able to penetrate the consciousness of Bennette but also of the readers and helped them understand that people are no more than their brains. Therefore mindset is fundamental as it can help one do things that may be thought of as impossible. Sacks choose to look at the positive side of the disease and how it may have impacted Bennette positively.he helps us see the value of approaching things with positivity rather than having a narrow belief of what is normal and what is not.
In conclusion, people should avoid looking only at the negative side of things and focus on the positives. Bennette, who had tourets disease, did not give up on his career of being a surgeon despite all the challenges he faced even during the time he was in medical school. Just like Sacks, people should try to understand other people better to know what they are going through.
Works cited
Sacks, Oliver. “A surgeon’s life.” An anthropologist on Mars (1995): 73-101.