--- title: Doctors Livestream Brain Surgery on Awake Woman description: Doctors at Methodist Dallas Medical Center livestreamed brain surgery on Texas woman Jenna Schardt on Facebook, while she was awake canonical: https://time.com/5713793/brain-surgery-livestream/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-30T14:29:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T07:40:08.243Z article:section: Health og:title: Doctors Livestream Brain Surgery on Conscious, Talking Woman og:description: Keeping the patient talking helped doctors map her brain og:url: https://time.com/5713793/brain-surgery-livestream/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteba67f2090631e97/698a051486f68e25a16edcf0/brain-surgery-livestream.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2392 og:image:height: 1346 og:image:alt: brain-surgery-livestream og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Doctors Livestream Brain Surgery on Conscious, Talking Woman twitter:description: Keeping the patient talking helped doctors map her brain twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteba67f2090631e97/698a051486f68e25a16edcf0/brain-surgery-livestream.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Doctors Livestream Brain Surgery on Conscious, Talking Woman > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=2eb9e4d7-89d4-4c97-b936-5158cda85b7f&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Oct 30, 2019 2:29 PM UTC  Methodist Dallas Medical Center by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Oct 30, 2019 2:29 PM UTC 25-year-old Jenna Schardt underwent brain surgery — while awake — in Texas on Tuesday, and the procedure was [livestreamed on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/MethodistDallas/videos/492835578008676/?%5F%5Fxts%5F%5F[0]=68.ARAO5AqFwVB%5FbzXJQd4gzFdt-qBGvUzFLdgLqKb57vdqkHi9uI6dOG3uiKiw9JCnc-MHxngqhi4xJP3u1ZouDA7y4h287o%5F9WC%5FrP0IbBTr2Ev2Mh2IqaIe1J7X1zBABvfknWPGFrPZe3Rc5ThKe5uEtGATUwSqm8PvUdZ11933A8VvPvRs8PO7%5Fg2vhLfWOVcYJEZjH1tI9ihRjuAeIi865eBeLN1pPP1lRj-FtKsYdOVSTtvZ%5Fj9jYS%5FOQB7Rol%5Fz-JEQlxIriKjuLzXoJzIm5OtCQB-XUrsdYVzUhl-8oT0bIm46QNBg9Avduwd85bkf0Z8CPL6Hxzh5tcxeQPNKUvtNpFjVG&%5F%5Ftn%5F%5F=-R). Doctors with the Methodist Dallas Medical Center performed the surgery to remove a mass of tangled blood vessels in Schardt’s brain that had impaired her speech and caused seizures. At the beginning of the operation, Schardt was put under anesthesia so doctors could cut into her skull. Once they reached her brain, Schardt was woken up so she could speak and answer questions, helping doctors map her brain. During the surgery, Schardt was shown an iPad on which she identified a series of numbers, colors, animals and other objects. Patel explained that if Schardt was able to identify what was on the iPad, surgeons would know which areas of her brain were OK to touch; if she made a mistake, they knew which areas to avoid. “Basically we have a GPS tracking system for the brain already, and we need to find out where are the places that we want to avoid and where are the places that are safe to go,” Dr. Nimesh Patel, who helped to narrate the procedure, explained in the video. “Any small movements, a millimeter to the left, a millimeter to the right, can affect her speech.” “Twenty. Bananas. Two. Orange,” Schardt could be heard saying. Doctors repeated some sequences, and had Schardt say the same words over to make sure they had all the information they needed, Patel said. Tens of thousands of people tuned in to the live broadcast. As of Wednesday morning, the video has about 93,000 views. Schardt, who is studying to be an occupational therapist, said she wanted to have the surgery livestreamed to help others who might have to have a similar procedure. A few hours after the surgery was performed, the hospital said on Facebook that Schardt was doing well and with her parents. “I’m so impressed by her,” Patel said in the video. [Awake brain surgery](https://time.com/awake-brain-surgery/) has become a more commonplace procedure for doctors in recent years; a patient undergoing brain surgery at the University of Rochester [played the saxophone](https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/5127/patient-plays-saxophone-while-surgeons-remove-brain-tumor.aspx) while doctors performed the procedure. And live videos from the operating room are not unheard of either. A Texan woman had her [breast cancer surgery livestreamed](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/breast-cancer-surgery-on-facebook-live-today-2018-10-25/) on Facebook in 2018 to raise awareness of the disease. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5713793/brain-surgery-livestream/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5713793/brain-surgery-livestream/"},"headline":"Doctors Livestream Brain Surgery on Conscious, Talking Woman","datePublished":"2019-10-30T14:29:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T07:40:08.243Z","description":"Keeping the patient talking helped doctors map her brain","url":"https://time.com/5713793/brain-surgery-livestream/","keywords":["health","Texas","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteba67f2090631e97/698a051486f68e25a16edcf0/brain-surgery-livestream.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteba67f2090631e97/698a051486f68e25a16edcf0/brain-surgery-livestream.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"brain-surgery-livestream","caption":"","creditText":"Methodist Dallas Medical Center","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health/","name":"health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5713793/brain-surgery-livestream/","name":"Doctors Livestream Brain Surgery on Conscious, Talking Woman"}}]}] ```