work, I can learn, I can get myself out of that. The victim mentality is obviously a great depressor it pretty much abolishes the ability to accomplish. I say to people, it is not where you came from that counts it is where you are going and you are the one that make that determination. People are not like animals. Animals are victims of circumstances, all they can do is react. God gave people these incredible frontal lobes. Why do we have these huge frontal lobes, because we are the only animals He made with the ability to engage in rational thought processes. That means we can make extract information from the past and the present and we can project it into a plan for the future. Animals can't do that. We can look at somebody making bad choices, we can see those choices and we can see where it leads and we can say 'I am not going to do that.' Animals don't have the ability to do that. They just follow blindly because of whatever the circumstances happen to be. So the unfortunate thing is that some people choose to act like animals. And they choose to allow their environment and circumstances to dictate their behaviour. And that when you allow the victim mentality to rule your life. Q: Are there any gender distinctives in the neurological scheme of things. Are there disorders that are peculiar to either gender?A: Neurologically speaking, no one can prove that there is a difference in the brains of men and the brains of women in terms of how they react to different stimulation. A lot of the differences between men and women are socialised differences. Girls are taught 'You do this', and boys are taught 'You do that'. I do think there are some intangible things that cannot be proven on a physiological basis. For example the mother's instinct towards her child are just different, cannot prove it but we know it is there. Another example is principle of love. The scientist obviously cannot explain love, they cannot explain caring on the basis of natural selection or evolution because those things don't make any sense. Natural selection says you do those things that will preserve you, so why does a stranger jump into a lake to save somebody they don't know who is drowning. That does not make any sense scientifically speaking, and yet it happens. Q: How does the practice of Christianity impact on neurological health?A: There is a verse in the Bible, Isaiah 26:3 which says: Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. I think that's the answer right there. When you have a source of strength and comfort then all the other things out there don't bother you. In my situation, as a professor in a highly competitive environment, I don't have to go around trying to please this person or that person, I only have to please God and it makes my life so much simpler and so happier. For if God be for you who can be against you.Q: How has September 11, 2001 affected your professional life?A: It hasn't had a huge effect on me personally. But it does make me think a lot about the future of the world. The world will never be the same again. There is a huge amount of stress and fear out there. One of the things that I think about sometimes, is how can we solve this whole Middle East conflict. I have communicated with the President about it. I told him we need to be putting in place policies that have a long-term effect. Suppose you were to say within this decade we are going to become petroleum independent and we are going to move to another energy source and that energy source will be hydrogen. We have the technology to utilise hydrogen, for example, the fuel cells on the space shuttle are hydrogen-driven. BMW has already produced a hydrogen powered automobile. The by-product of hydrogen is water so in that way we don't pollute the environment. The economy would just go through the rough switching from petroleum to hydrogen and you would cut the legs from beneath Saddam Hussein and change the whole economic structure of the world.So I am waiting to see what he is going to do with that. I said to him your only problem will be the oil companies, and everyone thinks you are in their hip pocket anyway. I said you could even solve that problem because all you would have to do is tell them that they will be the point people for the production of liquid hydrogen and they already have the facilities and place to do that. And they will make plenty of money and they will be helping to clean the environment up.Q: Did you meet face to face with the President to talk about this idea?A: No I wrote him a letter. But I have met face to face with him on a number of occasions. I know him because I am on the board of trustees of Yale University and we gave him an honorary degree a couple years ago that's when I first got to know him. He and I have got to talking and I spoke to him about health care reform and various things. He invited me down to the Oval Office and we talked. Despite his reputation of not being very bright - he is actually quite bright and he listens to people who have good ideas.Q: To what extent has Christianity made you a better neurosurgeon?A: To the extent that I realise that I am not the one who does the operation. Christ does the operation. I am just there as a tool. Once I realised that, which was fairly early in my career, it took the stress out of my life. He gets all the credit for the good things that happen. He also gets the blame for the bad stuff. Also, I always ask Him for wisdom to know what to do. And to know which cases to take, to know what cases to stay away from and to know how far to go. The technical ability to operate, I feel blessed that He gave me that gift and that's why I called my (first) book 'Gifted Hands' because I believe He gave me that gift. The thing that is just as important and in fact more important is the wisdom and the judgement - and that is what I ask Him for on a daily basis. Q: Make a closing comment for the Jamaican people.A: Everybody has obstacles and problems in their lives. Even Bill Gates has problems. But success is determined not by whether you have problems but how you relate to them. And if you decide to use those problems as an excuse, then your life is a failure. If you decide to see those problems as hurdles, and you look for ways to get over them... then your life will be a success.
