A Dallas woman is streaming her brain surgery on Facebook while awake

Tuesday morning, 25-year-old Jenna Schardt will undergo brain surgery at Methodist Dallas Medical Center while conscious in order to remove a mass of blood vessels in her brain – and she wants the public there with her.

When surgeons approached Schardt about broadcasting her surgery on Facebook, there was no hesitation, according to Methodist Dallas.

A portion of the brain surgery procedure will be streamed on Methodist Dallas’ Facebook page starting at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and will be narrated by Methodist’s chief of neurosurgery Dr. Nimesh Patel. Patel will also take viewer questions live.

She will be undergoing surgery to remove the mass that neurosurgeon Randall Graham said has affected her ability to speak and could cause seizures. Schardt discovered the mass after being rushed to the hospital from a North Texas rehabilitation center where she suddenly lost the ability to speak while working.

Occupational therapy, the field in which Schardt is pursuing a master’s degree, requires her to be cognitively present and able to assist stroke patients and others with neurological problems.

“Awake brain surgery is nothing new, it’s been around for years,” Graham said.

While it’s become slightly more commonplace than it used to be, he said having the patient awake allows surgeons to test brain function in areas of the brain around a lesion or tumor they’re trying to remove such that they don’t damage key neurological functions.

“This allows us to test those areas so that we can pick a safer corridor,” Graham said.

The surgery will require Graham, along with Dr. Bartley Mitchell and a large operating room team, to open Schardt’s skull. An anesthesiologist will put Schardt to sleep slightly for this part of the operation, and will bring her back to consciousness once her brain is accessible so she can communicate with surgeons.

A technician will show Schardt images and sentences that she will communicate back to the medical team while Graham stimulates portions of her brain tissue with electrical signals.

“If I stimulate a spot that controls part of her speech, then her speech will stop … so then I’ll be able to mark that area on the brain’s surface that basically tells us to stay out of the area,” Graham said.

But Schardt won’t feel any pain on the surface of her brain, according to surgeons.

“The brain surface doesn’t have any pain receptors. The part with all the pain receptors is the scalp, skull and some of the soft tissues surrounding the brain,” Graham said, which is why Schardt will be less conscious for that part of the procedure.

To Graham, inviting the public into the operating room says a lot about Schardt’s character.

“She really has this mission, this goal, this sense of obligation to her community to where she really wants to help as many people as possible,” Graham said. “Opening herself to so many people when she’s so vulnerable like this … when she’s awake and when we’re literally in the seat of her soul with her brain open, it just says so much about her.”