Brain Surgery

Note to reader:  I don't know anything about brain surgery.  I just made all this up.

Okay.  Imagine, for a moment, that you need a particularly complicated surgical procedure on your brain in order to save your life.  Only about a dozen surgeons in the country will even attempt the operation.  These are tremendously skilled men and women  -- guys like McDreamy on Grey's Anatomy -- who have worked their whole lives to rise to the pinnacle of their profession.

Okay.  There are two accepted surgical techniques:  The Sapperstein Method and the Barnes-Hinkley Procedure, and the choice of which one to use only becomes obvious once your surgeon has split open your skull like a massive cashew, poked around in your gray matter for a while, and taken the full measure of the situation.

Okay.  Now imagine that in the final pre-op interview with your surgeon you tell him you feel strongly that he should employ only the Barnes-Hinkley Procedure.  You saw a television ad earlier that day and it was very convincing.

This, friends, is miracle of pharmaceutical advertising to consumers.

I thought you weren't going to beat the direct-to-consumer horse.  That it had left the barn some time ago and you were just going to let it all be.
I tried.  But I had to say something.
Aren't you going to tell us how the operation turned out?
No.
No?
There was no operation.  It was an imaginary scenario.
I understand that.  But I'd still like to know how it turned out.