Healthcare Directory

neurosurgery Brain Power Cape Fear Neuroscience Center Helps Local Teacher and Those In Need W by Donnie Byers hen Jason Edwards woke up at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center last September, he didn't have a clue how he got there. All he remembered was jogging the day before. "I must be super late for work," he thought. He tried to get out of bed to take a shower, but his wife wouldn't let him. Nor would the doctor or nurses at his bedside. The 41-year-old English teacher had actually lost eight days of his life recovering in intensive care, in and out of consciousness. And he wasn't late for work. He was lucky to be alive. Really lucky. Investigators believe the avid jogger was the victim of an early morning hit-and-run near his house. Doctors had to remove part of his skull to relieve the massive pressure built up around his brain due to pooled blood. The skull section would have normally been stored in a medical storage facility for later reinsertion, but Edwards' surgeon did something clever. He placed the bone in the patient's stomach for safekeeping instead. Three months later, the surgeon, Inad Atassi M.D., put the skull bone back where it belonged with the help of titanium screws. Edwards has since returned to work and resumed his normal life. Even the hair cut from his scalp before surgery has filled back in nicely. "It took some convincing that I was even hit by a car and had surgery," Edwards chuckled, "but Dr. Atassi saved my life." The Syrian-born neurosurgeon is a bit more modest. He says he did what any surgeon would have done, given the circumstances. "We didn't have a storage facility," he said. If you anticipate the patient recovering, then it's always better to use his own bone instead of a titanium plate." Dr. Atassi has been practicing neurosurgery long enough to learn a few tricks of his particularly skilled trade. He started his medical career in 1980 performing neurosurgery at the former Highsmith-Rainey Memorial Hospital, now Cape Fear Valley Medical Center. His list of professional achievements include being the first in the state to perform laser disc surgery and the first to use lasers for brain surgery, both during the mid 1980s. He eventually left the operating room to become a medical consultant for more than 10 years, but missed practicing medicine. Today, Dr. Atassi is the Medical Director for Cape Fear Valley Neuroscience Center and his job is to spread the gospel about the center's neurology and neurosurgery services. You could say he practices what he preaches. "We've come a long way since 2008." Dr. Atassi continued, "We didn't have any physicians. Today we're a full scale practice performing every type of neurosurgery procedure 2013 Medical & Dental Directory | 21

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