When Baahubali helped a patient keep awake during surgery

Doctors perform ‘Awake craniotomy’ to remove tumour in a procedure that lasted over 90 minutes

Neurosurgeon Hanuman Srinivas and his team with the patient after the surgery.

A 43-year-old woman kept herself entertained by watching ‘ Baahubali 2’ film even as neurosurgeons at a corporate hospital here performed a brain surgery recently.

Though such a surgery was not rare, it soon began trolling online as ‘Baahubali Surgery’ , as the patient watched the blockbuster movie even as the procedure was being done.

“We played the movie on a laptop placed besides the operation table while performing ‘Awake craniotomy’. The patient needs to be awake in such surgeries as the tumour is located in the brain that controls speech and movements. Further, the surgeons would have to take many roots to remove the tumour and also assess the condition of the patient constantly,” Hanuman Srinivas, assistant professor, Department of Neurology, GGH, told

The Hindu on Thursday.

V. Vinaya Kumari, a staff nurse at the Public Health Centre at Markapuram in Prakasam district, suffered two episodes of seizure and collapsed during night rounds on September 12. She was referred to the GGH here, where a tumour was diagnosed at the left sensory cortex that affected her right hand, tongue, and lip movements. After being counselled by the Head of Department, N.V. Sundarachary, she agreed for the surgery.

Doctors usually prefer to play music to keep the patients awake. But in this case, the patient was given the choice, and she preferred to watch her favourite movie, Baahubali 2 .

During the surgery that lasted over 90 minutes, the woman was asked to hum a few songs so that doctors could see if she was responding. In fact, the patient reportedly asked the doctors to adjust the laptop to watch the movie.

The surgery was performed at Tulasi Super Speciality Hospital on the new machine, Intra Operative Neuro Navigation, which was specially ordered from Bengaluru.