On Barbara Kornfeld
At four he was undecided whether to undertake the profession of neurosurgeon, emulating his godfather, or be a pirate - like the protagonists of the stories of which he told him keeping him sitting on his knees - I think, observing its history, that he found the perfect synthesis to do both, At the service of the good of the fifteen thousand patients of the Polyclinic Santa Maria alle Scotte di Siena, Just to mention the place where he operated for more time. But his career is long and intersects the Besta of Milan, his hometown, Wedge, Novara, Torino. In each of these places it takes place part of its personal and professional growth, especially when his passage those places were not the same: In fact, the birth of the related neurosurgery departments, The birth and consolidation of the Team mentality - in the field of which from the Oss to the primary - each member of the team felt participation and responsible for the patient's well -being, in which each has respected the roles and skills of others, without discriminating those until then considered of a lower cultural degree, so much so that Dr.. Oliveri claims to have always pointed out to his trainees that the time that nurses and OSS spend in the department with patients - and the relative monitoring - are very precious for doctors. Dr. Giuseppe is - with the right reason - the luminaries of world neurosurgery: His merit of having brought Lorenzo Parents to Siena (Now in Florence). Last year, for age -old limits, it is in retirement but did not stop working: has become deputy mayor of Cinigliano, He deals with associations and continues to cure neurosurgical patients in Grosseto.
The book that wrote "The hands and the mind - the doing and feeling of a surgeon" on the pretext of autobiography - because it tells part of the author's experiences - in reality among the lines tells the story of Italian neurosurgery since its birth in 1948, today.
One year after his retirement from the role of primary neurosurgery, A book presentation of the book at the Policlinico le scotte was held; Her co -author - the Sienese journalist Giulia Maestrini - illustrated her work of filing the protagonist's thoughts to avoid running into complaints and legal problems. Dr. Oliveri's book deserves to be read because it is totally different from any text in circulation: I cannot go into detail of the contents of each chapter, I would harm autoral rights, But what is certain that first of all it is written in an understandable way also to non -"professionals"; Then reveal the backstage of a neurosurgery intervention (How to do it in practice, So anyone with brain cancer or had had it could be interested); traces a serious description of what happened - and perhaps it happens - in many hospitals in northern Italy, When they refuse patients in risky clinical conditions, pretending not to have beds (people who in transport times from one hospital to another loses the physical resources useful to support a surgery that can save his life, The minutes in these cases count).
National media rarely speak of these events: I write it a few days after the Far West episode of 20 June 2025, on Rai 3, When a television service reported disservices to the Ruggi hospital in Salerno. The statements of the former doctors are valid because they were made by people with a discovered face who declared their name and surname: what leaves the time it finds, but manipulates the masses, It is the violent denunciation made by two pseudo-testimoni with covered face and a counterfeit voice, who also showed alleged data and graphic designers made with artificial intelligence. I wondered if those two testimonies were truthful and with what criterion the state television has included this kind of contributions that - a few months from the regional elections - lend themselves to a violent attack on government political credibility.
Oliver, vice versa ago self -criticism on hospitals of which he was part, citing events to which he did not lend himself. His book should be read to the students of the subject. I would also recommend it to patients, to their families and friends, To anyone who wants to better understand the national health system. Without forgetting neurologists, because before reading it I asked myself what exactly their role was: The regret of Giuseppe Oliveri clarified it when they writing that they gave up to become for the brain, what cardiologists are for the heart.
I personally know Dr. Oliveri: I entrusted to him my skull in 2021, When I realized that I have been taking fourteen three years for a fourteen brain tumors, one of which is as big as an orange, who would "end" me in four months. The main feature of self-registrs is the initial enthusiasm (let's do everything immediately, fast), then self -regulation in favor of observation and weighting.
Here I will not tell much about my story, If not by comparison with the contents of his book. The Dott. Oliveri is a doctor who treats the patient with extreme empathy, has total control of the whole department at any time of 24 hours - there is no detail that he escapes him - so much so that knowing he has a problem in the centers of memory, I took notes while I was his patient patient. He arrived in the health management long before seven in the morning to receive the calls of potential patients, then he passed to the ward to visit the degents: He underwent "crossed fire" of the questions of the old men who wanted to know everything about his private life (possible wife, fiancée). In the meantime, I took notes, Considered that for education and ethics I did not dare me, But Oliveri turned around punctually and laughing said "And he writes". Afterwards he went to the operating room, Sometimes for eleven, fifteen hours. A surgeon in the operating room must cancel every physical need: fame, seven, feelings and emotions: It is for the success of surgery, otherwise he would tremble his hand. However, there is a price to pay and I suppose it is high. Years ago a psychotherapist from the Neapolitan hinterland asked me to write his therapeutic diary to "overcome the trauma of surgery", Then he wanted to make a book "Written with four hands", Then he wanted to keep him only for himself "being his story". Futile to say that he did not correspond to me a compensation commensurate with the work done. I let it go because of the inconsistencies: among the many, The alleged cynicism of surgeons; He never completely convinced me the thesis of the "butcher doctor"; save lives, whether it's open a skull, than to open any other part of the body, It certainly implies having to work to be insensitive to certain scenarios and visions, But this does not mean that these human beings who treat other human beings are not people sensitive to the pain of those suffering or, worse that they must necessarily develop perversions.
I agree with the Dott. Oliveri when he writes that one of the activities he succeeds is the best is the management of patients' relatives: I saw it at work and it was perfect. In my case, The commitment was more to manage me: I came to him with laptops, camera, Notes block. He understood there was a lot to discover behind my optimism: Her staff understood it a month and a half later, When I told my story. Because I chose him? Actually because he was able to keep up on the phone: as ignorant as I was on the "VIP" doctors (I then learned that Zanardi took care), back from a couple of visits that I had considered "disappointing", I told him “Doctor if he dictates his IBAN and the e-mail address, I send her a scan of magnetic resonance imaging so it gives me an opinion on the hypothesis of opening my skull ". Lorenzo Parents had given me his number, A few days earlier in Florence, When - in spite of what the secretary had announced - instead of ten minutes, He had dedicated me forty, chatting and joking - in addition to telling me that I had almost completely lost the visual field to the right of the head, for a year already. Well Oliveri, to my proposal, he replied: “But how? I have to open the skull and don't want to know me? No, I have to look at her in the eye. I don't want money. By any means, come here ". I was able to. I deleted all the other visits: A doctor who is not attached to money is increasingly rare, especially on the basis of my experience as a documentary and patient (My first tumor was a breast fiberadenoma at seventeen, When I was the Case-Stredy of the Milan-Lambrate National Cancer Institute, for the record age).
But the trend of the departments chaired by Giuseppe Oliveri was structured according to the needs of individual patients, in compliance with diversity: of anecdotes I could tell about it and in his book there are as many.
However, what must be said is that the pirate nature of the doctor has always expressed himself in favor of life: I said before the makeup of some hospitals in Northern Italy to avoid "cats to peel" pretending not to have beds so as not to accept patients at high risk of death: This is how he found himself operating with a drill taken from the carpentry sector of a hospital whose neurosurgery was under construction, A young man who would have lost his life shortly thereafter with a cerebral aneurysm.
I don't write anything about the doctor's private life of the doctor, it is reserved but mentions it in the book: whoever wants to deepen must buy it, I can assure you that after starting to read it will not stop until the last page.
Try to believe!
