The first time Dr. Remi Nader saw a brain cradled in an open skull, it pulsated and bled.
"It's very dramatic. But you notice the people working are very casual like any other person at work," Nader said.
Greenwood's new neurosurgeon has come a long way from his second year of medical school.
Nader has set up shop with Dr. Jimmy Miller at the North Central Mississippi Neurological Surgery Center on River Road near Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
The community has not had a neurosurgeon in three years.
Both men spoke to the Greenwood Rotary Club Monday.
Miller, 51, a 1979 graduate of the University Medical Center in Jackson, practiced in Tupelo and Southaven before making the move to Greenwood.
The city is familiar to him. His wife, Mary Carol Miller - an author and physician - grew up in Greenwood. For many years, they lived in Tupelo.
Nader and his wife, Candis, have moved from Galveston, Texas, where Nader completed a six-year residency.
He trained at McGill University in his native Canada.
Nader originally chose engineering as a career but later opted for medical school.
Nader has never regretted the decision to study medicine.
"The more I got into my medical training, I appreciated the fact that I could make a difference in people's lives," he said.
When Nader visited Greenwood for an interview, he was surprised. The size of the hospital and its array of technology impressed him.
While the landscape of the Delta seems similar to Texas, "at least you have vegetation here," Nader quipped.
The neurosurgeon's speciality is in its infancy. While it has come a long way in 50 years, scientists still don't know all about the brain's functions.
Nader compares learning about the brain to the situation when a computer novice opens a computer. "You're looking at a black box with all this circuitry. You don't know how things are connected and you don't see the connections," he said.
The burgeoning field provides ample research opportunities, but Nader plans to save that for later in his career.
"Right now my goal is to be a good surgeon and clinician. I want to provide a service the community needs," Nader said.
Next month the Greenwood Leflore Hospital next month will be getting a "brain lab" that allows doctors to be much more precise during surgery, the surgeon said.
The equipment allows the surgeon to see on a screen exactly where an instrument is in the head and spine during surgery.
He said distinguishing healthy brain matter is not always apparent to the naked eye. "It all looks the same. It looks like custard."
Miller talked with wry humor about his profession.
Although neurosurgery has been only recognized as a specialty since the mid-20th century, surgery on the brain is not new. Skulls unearthed in Peru, dating to 500 B.C., have shown the earliest known evidence of medical procedures on the brain.
"Some of these survived. Others still had bandages on their heads. Obviously, they didn't make it," he said. "We've been drilling holes in people's heads for thousands of years," Miller said.
"But things have progressed. We're able to see things we've never seen before."
