now, when my specialist is doing brain surgeries and taking brain tumors from patients are awake. this was 1997. i see this human brain pulsate with a beautiful rhythm. in case -- and the patient was awake. and right there immediate right and i was captivated. the idea was born as to whether not one day i may be able to do brain surgery. and here again. >> how many times have you operated on a brain? >> by now, imagine going through presidency, six years, three to 400 cases a year, now as an attendant at johns hopkins i do between 250, 300 brain surgery and plastic surgery to you. you can imagine the thousands of times i've seen the human brain. it doesn't matter how may times i do that it doesn't matter how many times i see that brain. i still go back to the same feeling. every time i peel back the direct and open it, i see the human brain pulsating with special beauty. it makes me wonder, you know, every patient whether you are brown, whether you're black, whether you're hispanic, whether you're muslim, all those brains once you peel back the dura, we are all the same. >> what's the toughest part of being a brain surgeon? >> i think it's the challenges we face, the uncertainties that we face every day in the operating room. sometimes no matter what you do, you can do the most perfect brain surgery, you can remove a whole tumor, and at the end of the day, we still cannot defeat the natural history of brain cancer. and i have some impatience that come not from all over the world hoping that i can cure them from the most devastating disease which affects the human body, which is a brain cancer. no matter how much power, how much knowledge we have come we still can be defeated gets me is most part of what i do. is that isolate to go out and talk to the patient's family's advocate to look at them face-to-face and i have to say, i'm very happy with the surgery that we've done, yet i know this is only the first of many battles you are going to fight with your loved ones. that feeling of knowing how much of an expert i am on disease, i can win the war. i may win a battle when they do surgery, but at the end the war will be fought by mike patients and their families. .. i am in front of this killer, this massive killer because it kills thousands of people every year, this type of cancer alone. i'm not talking about any other cancer in the body, i'm talking specifically the cancer that affects the brain. and i go in, and i know i am the underdog when i'm fighting that fight for my patient. my patients trust me with my lives, so when i am in there, i'm like the special forces of brain surgery. i go in there with all the passion, the knowledge, the energy that i have gathered from the families, and that's what i do and go in there and take as hutch as i can safely. the odds are against me making an incredible difference on that patient's life at the end of the day, because the bottom line is that the disease is devastating. the disease keeps growing, but i never lose hope. every patient i treat, every surgery i do is specifically that kind of cancer. i always hope that this is going to be the patient that is going to defeat this disease, and from that patient we will learn and make history for many other patients. and i have that feeling in my heart every single time i enter that arena in the operating room. i have to. otherwise i wouldn't be able to do what i do every day. hope is the last thing i hope i will ever lose, and i don't want my patients to lose it either. c-span: you write a lot in your book about being an illegal. >> guest: yes. c-span: how did you come to the country illegally, and then how did you become legal? >> guest: so it's quite interesting. so you know that through the country, this country was built upon people who have come and immigrated to this country, some of them legally, some of them illegally. in hi case, i came in with no documentation and no ability to get a job or an education, so when i first came into the united states in the late '80s and i crossed the border between mexico and the united states, ended up coming into the san joaquin valley to work as a migrant farm worker, it was no challenge to find a job. there were not a lot of thousands of people trying to get the jobs of pulling weeds with these very same hands that are now doing brain surgery. i was pulling the weeds. and as you can imagine, pulling the weeds are from the land, the land that is doing all the products, cantaloupe, cauliflower, corn, all those kinds of things, my hands were bloody, i mean, continuously being hurt. so there were not a lot of people lining up. i came in and asked for a job, and i immediately got a job. and then eventually, right around ronald reagan had the immigration reform that gave a working authorization specifically for people who had been in the united states for a certain amount of years, and then there was a special legislation for people who came and worked as migrant farm workers. and that legislationing allowed you -- legislation allowed you to have a working authorization. that was the first thing and to pay taxes. and eventually that working authorization, you couldn't go back anywhere. you couldn't go back to your country, but it allowed you to work legally, pay taxes and eventually apply for a green card which is eventually what i did. so the country was welcoming people like me who work in the fields. it was a different time, you know? and i felt that i was given an opportunity, an opportunity to live the american dream. you know, it's quite interesting because we talked a lot, i mean, times have changed. our borders have gotten more strict. what i did back then wouldn't happen, and i talk about this in the book. nonetheless, the american dream hasn't changed. some people's perception of how to achieve the american dream may have evolved over time, but the american dream is still the same foundation of hard work. people who are coming to the united states with the idea that they can work as hard as they possibly and still be able to put food on the table of their children and to be able to give the children an education. and that was my dream back then. it was that simple. all i wanted to do was work hard enough so i would have food on the table for myself, my children and my parents. and that was the journey i took all the way back then until where i am today. c-span: you quote your assistant or nurse in the book is saying from a patient, is it true that the doctor is a dirty mexican? [laughter] isn't there another surgeon i can see? how often has that happened? >> guest: it happened very, very often when i first came to johns hopkins in 2005. so you realize that i've only been there for six years, and we've been so blessed that i have rised in the academic rankings all the way to now being nominated for full professor at johns hopkins. but when i first came and people didn't know hi background, they could see -- my background, they could see that my skin color is different, they could detect a certain amount of an accent in some ways, and some of them could have known a little bit of my history of being at harvard and then san francisco training, but they couldn't get over the fact that i was from a different country, and i came from humble backgrounds. and it happened a lot, to be honest are you. and i always told my team that a lot of my patients who came to see me were not only suffering from biological diseases which is brain cancer, but they were also suffering from social diseases which is discrimination. and sometimes seeing people more what they look ask how they -- and how they talk and the actions they may have not because i speak with an accent, that means that my brain works with an accent. it works as well as anybody else, and we know that. so i told my team continuously, don't worry, they will come around. and every single one of those patients always came armed. and after -- came around. and after surgery once they decided to trust me with their lives, i would come in and talk to them, they would turn around and many times they would tell me or my assistants how sorry they felt for some of the comments. i attributed that to the disease once again, their biological disease. they're dealing with the brain cancer that makes you think in ways that you really can't explain. but it did happen often. i didn't pay much attention to it, to be honest with you. i take all that negative energy and turn it into positive energy by making every single one of my patients part of history which to me is something so simple. you'll be surprised how many brain surgeons have either given up fighting against brain cancer or they have decided that they just want to go in and do their surgery every day and not necessarily fight the disease, you know, in the laboratory which is something that i have done. c-span: what's the point of operating on the brain and having the patient awake? >> guest: wonderful question, brian. so as i alluded to already in the discussion, and there's been several people who have come into the operating room to see how i do this surgery. i'm not the only one in the united states or in the world, there are several surgeons around the world who do a beautiful job. but the principle is simple. imagine, in our brain, especially the left side, the majority of us have dominance for speech on the left side. right about right here we have the ability to produce speech. right around back here behind the ear we have the ability to understand language. and between these two areas there are connections, and that's how our brains interact. we understand and we produce language. so imagine if you have a tumor that is in this vicinity, many times these tumors if they are malignant brain cancer, you can tell the border between the tumor and the normal brain. the only way that you can do this is by mapping the brain and knowing where normal function lies. and then you take it all the way to that border and leaving that border intact. so you have the ability to take as much tumor as you can and leave behind the part of the brain that is necessary for language. c-span: how does the patient, though, not feel pain? [laughter] >> guest: well, some of my patients have actually -- i've written about this. and i have a wonderful patient that i talk to in the booking, actually, who is a sports writer. and he talked about, you know, it's difficult, it's challenging, you know, to be there awake and knowing that someone else is up in your brain, you know, keeping you awake as they're touching your brain and stuff. the truth is that the pain sensors are not in the brain surface. you can elicit memories, painful memories, but there's no pain per se in the actual brain. the pain is on the scalp, on the skin, the pain is on the bone, and the pain is on the part that covers the brain, it's called the dura matter. it's a small layer of tissue. it's no different than the way we do to do dental work. as a matter of fact, many of my patients tell me when they undergo this surgery that it was more painful to undergo dental work than to have the surgery. the difference is in the psychological pressure. but i tell you, it's amazing. just about three weeks ago one of my patients, a young man, 15 years old, is going to be featured on the johns hopkins, you know, newsletter, he underwet an awake craniotomy with me. talk about being a true hero. this young man was stronger than any patient that i have ever seen. he remained calm. he answered all the questions. as i keep them awake, i'm interacting with them. they're looking at pictures, they're reading words. they are working with me. we are working as a team in trying to eradicate their disease. and they do a beautiful job. c-span: how long can a patient stay awake and have the brain open like that? >> guest: it all depends. the surgeries range between an hour to sometimes up to three hours depending on the complexity of the tumor, depending on the size of the tumor, depending on how close they are. but they range. so they can be awake, and sometimes i put them to sleep a little bit with a little bit of anesthesia, local anesthesia, have a wonderful anesthesia team. it's crucial, because they keep them nice and relaxed. c-span: when you're doing the most difficult of all brain surgeries, how many people are physically involved? >> guest: oh, my goodness, so imagine that. so yesterday i did a case, yesterday morning i did a case that lasted about 12 hours. and i had -- i was the captain of this team. and i had two ent surgeons, i had two plastic surgeons, and then i was leading a team of neurosurgeons, obviously. surgeons alone we have about eight surgeons involved in this team. this was a patient that came from far away with a very complex tumor that we had to remove at the base of the skull. in addition to that, we have three anesthesiologist. in addition to that, we have about four nurses helping us circulate in the morning, four nurses in the afternoon. so altogether i probably had a team of about 20 people in some of these very, very complex cases that we do. c-span: if somebody had to pay out of pocket for that operation, do you have think idea how to describe the cost of that? >> guest: every thousand and then it does happen because as you can imagine, i am at an incredible institution with an incredible reputation. we have people that come from all over the world. and i would think that host of the time some of my patients come from other parts of the worldbe have to pay cash. it ranges probably anywhere between $60,000 to depending on the complexity of the case, up to several hundred thousand dollars and depending how long they are in the hospital. as you can imagine, you know, very well for people sometimes they come to the united states and choose to have their surgery because they want the best. and not necessarily because i lead a team, but also because i am surrounded by an incredible amount of incredibly smart and dedicated physicians, nurses and everybody else that is involved on the care of the patient. so they to -- so those are the ranges, more or less be, for what i see. c-span: what's the most difficult, and you probably hate this kind of question -- [laughter] but what is a very difficult operation? i read in here about the skull finish i mean, the face being pulled down and all that, but what's the most difficult situation you find yourself in? >> guest: i would say the most difficult situation that i find myself is those situations in which you are in the operating room no matter how, what the case is, it could be a very complex brain tumor, or it could be a simple brain tumor. but the difficulty is when suddenly something unexpected happens you know, about three weeks ago i was doing a young man, early 40s, with a very large brain tumor. soccer player. incredibly fit. and as soon as i opened the tumor and i opened to begin to dissect the tumor, there were small but very significant bleeders. and it was just like you opened the gates, and blood starts pouring out uncontrollably. and the greatest challenge is that you know that there's a fine line between life and death. luckily, i remained calm, i kept my whole team calm, and we were able to to control the situation. and that patient went home in two days. imagine the pleasure that i had to know that. but i went home that night, and i was still shocked, you know? after the adrenaline comes down because you're in the middle of this and, like i said, you are like the special forces. you have to lead a team. you have to keep everybody calm, cool and collected and make sure you're acing anticipation to every -- attention to every single thing that is going on. anesthesia, my residents, the people who are bringing the blood, you are aware of everything. it's almost as if time slows down and everything is moving around you, and you're focused. and be everything is quiet, but you're aware of everything that is going on, and you're trying to save his life. i went home that night, and i sit, and my son, david, is having dinner, and this is around nine p.m., and he said, dad, how'd your day go? i said, it was a tough day, you know? i had this patient, i took this tumor -- and my kids know a hot about tumors already because they've seen me doing a lot of stuff. and i told him about the blood, and he asked me a question at age 10, he said, dad, how much blood do you think you could have afford toed to lose before the patient died? and that's when it hit me, not much. we had lost about six liters of blood, and we were giving the patient blood, so we were this close in potentially losing the patient. those cases are very, very emotionally and physically taxing to me. c-span: did you have to go back the next day and do another operation? >> guest: yes. the same day in the afternoon. i had to go back and do it all over again. and those are the challenges we face be, you know? we never really talk about the emotional weight that these kind of situations carry and the amount of arrogance, and i talk about in this the book. you know, i am the first one to admit every day, i have to get up in the morning and tell myself, i can do this. there's no one better to do this than i am because i have to believe that every time i go into the arena, into the operating room, i have someone's life in my hand, and i am fully capable of getting this patient in and out of the operating room because that's the that these patients have on me. and i walk that fine line between confidence and arrogance. c-span: let's back up to i want to eventually get you to talk about what seems to be a metaphor in the book, you falling into the tanker. let's back up. you've been how long at johns hopkins? >> guest: six yearsing. c-span: before that? >> guest: i was six years at the university of california san francisco, and before that i was at harvard for medical school. c-span: how long was your medical school? >> guest: i did four years and then i spent one year with howard hughes doing investigation. c-span: and you're only 43. >> guest: 43. [laughter] c-span: beyond harvard, where were you before that? >> guest: at uc berkeley. and before that, you know, from '88-'91 i was in a small community college in stocktop, california, northern california -- stockton, california. and right before that i was work anything the fields. c-span: how long did you work in the fields? >> guest: for about a year and a half. and then simultaneously as i was working, as i was studying english in community college, i was working on the railroad. c-span: all right. let's go back before you jumped the fence. >> guest: yes. c-span: when did you fall into the tanker and why? >> guest: so this is around this time. this is when i was in community college learning english, and i fell. i guess we have to set up the story because it's a metaphor in many ways as to what it's like to fight for your own life and what it's like sometimes to give up control. so right after i work in the fields, i am working in a railroad company, and i was doing the most menial job that you can imagine. i started, first, cleaning tanks that carry fish oil, and at the bottom there would be this fish lard that would accumulate, and i had to clean that. and then i advanced to cleaning tanks that carry liquefied petroleum gas can, all right? and that's exactly the story we element as i am in a beautiful sunny be northern california day in the summer. i am working with money one of my co-workers that i mention in the book, pablo, and i am in charge of fixing the security -- [inaudible] so these tanks wouldn't explode or release all the gases that they carry, lpg. so i am at the top of this 35,000 gallon tanker, and i have a hole about this big, and a big bolt falls into the tank. i tell my coworker, i'm going to go down and get it. talking about arrogance, all right? that's exactly what happened. my friend goes to me, my co-worker, no, no, no, we'll get somebody else. it'll take me a minute. this is when i thought i was at the top physical shape of my life. and i went down, and as you can imagine, i didn't make it back out. but i did try. as i landed at the bottom of this liquified petroleum tank, you know, and i realized that there's no oxygen and i am with my whole equipment, you know, steel-toed boots, big overalls, a lot of tools, i started dropping everything, and i started grabbing this rope. and i am about 18 feet, right about the height of this ceiling, at the bottom. and i start going up. and as i start doing this, and i relate that in the book, my whole life starts flashing. just like when people talk about a near death experience. and i think to myself, my gosh, i came to this country to fight for not only my life, but also to provide for my siblings and my participants, and this is -- parents, and this is where i'm going to go up. but i'm not going to go without a fight. and and i started going up, going up, climbing that rope with absolutely no oxygen in my lungs. and i made it all the way up to the top, and i grabbed pablo's hand. and pablo hoe relates -- pablo relates in the story when he saw the ago think but also the strength, and he was asking for help. right around that time my father comes because he was working in the railroad the same place where i was working. comes up, and he lands right on top of pablo at the moment that pablo couldn't hold me name because i completely lost coppsness. and pablo relates the story that right before i did this, i smiled, and then i went down to the bottom of the tank. c-span: you fell all the way down. >> guest: completely unconscious. and then the whole incredible journey and work of a team just like -- and led by a person that i mention in the book that subsequently died, unfortunately when i was a resident from brain injury, and my own brother-in-law went in not once, but twice to save my life. and it was an incredible story as to how they were able to get me out. the way that they got me out and no resources, because we had nothing in this place. and they got me out of there. next thing i wake up, next time i wake up, i'm in a small hospital, all right? in stockton, california. and i am vomiting, and i am completely strapped against, you know, in one of those yellow stretchers. and everybody, my neck is protected. now i know because i know what traumatic brain injury and spinal injury, the way you have to protect it. and the doctors trying to examine me and said to relax, and i said how do you want me to relax? i was completely sick to my stomach. and my father relates the story hours went by, they did all kinds of tests, ct scan, brain mri, because i'd been down there for minutes with no oxygen. i couldn't feel some of my hands, i was having a lot of side effects from the liquefied petroleum tank -- the gas, not fluid, but the gas. and they, i woke up a few hours later, hi fair came in, and i see my father and brother-in-law crying, and i talk about this story. and a few hours went by, and then i asked my father, you know, i noticed there were some young nurses taking care of me. and my father knew that i was going to be okay when i asked my dad, dad, how does my hair look? [laughter] so we knew. but as you can imagine, the whole idea at the moment that i grabbed my co-worker, pablo, i had to. you know, i knew that i had given it all i had and that at this point it was symbolic of me trusting that things were going to work out for me. c-span: when did you decided to tell this story? >> guest: you know, i decided to tell the story right around 2008, you know? the show hopkins air, abc did a beautiful show at hopkins, and i didn't know that i was in the first episode and the last episode. i opened and closed the show, i had multiple interviews. and a lot of people were asking me already since i was actually a medical student. i finished harvard, and i had an article that made the cover of "the boston globe," a lot of writers said we'd love to write your story, and i wasn't ready. i came to hopkins, and i budget ready yet. i -- i wasn't ready yet. i needed to climb the ladder of academic medicine. i needed to go all the way up to full professor before i released my story which is what has happened now. luckily, i've been nominated as i was saying earlier. but right around that time i realized that there was an incredible story to be told. not just my story, but my interaction with so many people that have mentored me and now most recently my patients, as you know. and i realized that this was the american dream and that we were losing focus of what the american dream is all about, you know? i think the american dream comes back to the same principle of hard work, and i wanted to tell the story about this underdog, this kid who came to the united states with nothing, and now based on hard work, mentorship and doors being opened and opportunities being given and me taking those opportunities, i was able to show the world that you can still fulfill the american dream. and that america still is the most beautiful country in the world. and that's why i decided to tell that story around that time. c-span: at all worried that some of your colleagues will think you're showboating? >> guest: of course. [laughter] i always worry about this. you always do, you know? and it's happened many times, and that's why exactly i wanted to move up the ladder. believe me, they wouldn't give me promotions at hopkins based on this book alope. it has to be doing peer-review publications, scientific papers. just last week we had a big article featuring our laboratory, "nature" magazine. it has to be based on grants that we get from the government, peer-review grantings. i'm only one of a handful of brain surgeons in the united states that has funding from the national institutes of health to study brain cancer. so that's how you get promoted, and that's how i said this is what i'm going to do first before i release that story. c-span: i'm not absolutely sure of this, but i think that johns hopkins has a $1.6 billion grant that they get grants from the government and everywhere. they are number one hospital by u.s. news "u.s. news & world report" for how many years? >> guest: 20 years. c-span: what do they do with all that hundred? [laughter] >> guest: you've got to come this and see. it's all going back to research. i think that's what makes this place such an incredibly special place, that we're constantly striving to make history with our patients. not alone and not letting them -- but as a team. we use all those resources to find new cures. we're using all those resources specifically for me, the lab money that i am getting and the money that many of my patients donate, you know, throughty land throe by be, we're using it back so that we can find a cure to fight their disease. so 5, 10, 15, 20 years, go decades from thousand -- two decades from now we can say we are going the defeat your disease that is affecting not only you, but maybe your future generation. and that's what we do. you'll see laboratories, my laboratory alone is about 20 people. so you can imagine i have to pay their salaries, i have to pay their experiments that they do every day, and all that money's constantly being put back into the economy so we can find cures for a disease. c-span: go back to the basics of brain surgery. what is the average -- i don't know whether average or regular story that you hear of a patient that leads to brain surgery? what's caused? >> guest: beautiful, beautiful question, i tell you. this is what i hear from my patients, all right? my patients and one of the reasons why my practice has been so successful is, first of all, when my patients come to see me, they get access to everything in my team, including my own personal cell number in the event that they have an emergency. but what i commonly hear from them is the moment that they got their diagnosis, and i write about this in the book, the moment they hear the diagnosis it's like the whole world collapse. and one patient beautifully described it to me as if imagine that you're driving in california, highway 5 between press though and bakersfield which is a beautiful drive. it's a straight drive, and it's nice and quiet. and you have the beautiful classical music, you have your ac on, and you're driving comfort write, and something suddenly comes from the side and just hits your car, and your whole world collapses and turns over and over and be over, and you just have no idea where that came from. that is how my patients describe their new diagnosis of brain tumors. and when they are first given the diagnosis of brain tumor, they don't know whether the tumor is cancerous or noncancerous. the truth is that there are many, many brain tumors that are not cancerous. but at the moment they're given the diagnosis, all they know is we are giving a diagnosis of brain tumor, and that by itself is a life-changing experience. c-span: you say in your book there's 600,000 americans living with primary brain or nervous system tumors, that there are 130 different types of brain cancer, that there are 124,000 who have malignant brain cancers. >> guest: that's right. and these are the ones that are not only the primary brain tumors, but nowadays as you can imagine, because we're getting much better at treating other cancers in our body -- renal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer -- some of these tumors when they're growing or they release their little cells, they end up making it up into the brain. and the brain is, i like to think is like a sanctuary. the it's a very privileged orr began that we have. not only what makes us different than other species, but also drugs don't get so well up into the brain. so we can cure cancers here, but many times they end up making it to the brain, and that, obviously, is a devastating problem. so that's why we have so many patients that end up having tumors in their brain, cancerous tumors. not only the tumors that are born in the brain like senator kennedy's -- that was a tumor that was born in the brain. but then we have many others that make it up north. c-span: what's the usual way you know you've got a problem? >> guest: this is the way. so once again how their life has changed, but many times patients present with a convulsion. they suddenly have a seizure. they've never been sick in their lives, and they, suddenly their life, you know, one day they're doing something, and they start having a convulsion, or they start having really bad headaches. i'm not talking about small little headaches resolved with tylenol. i'm talking about headaches that keep getting worse and worse. many patients know they have migraines. these are headaches that are getting worse and worse, and the patients are taking a lot of medication and suddenly, boom, they have a seizure. a convulsion. they drop on the floor and just like a fish out of water. that's the way to describe it. they end up in the hospital with a scanner, boom, big lesion in their brain. and that's how they end up, you know, many of my patients presenting. c-span: all right. let's say today that somebody watching this has a convulsion, and they want to get to you. >> guest: very good. c-span: what are the chances that they can get to you? >> guest: they're very high. anybody in the world. you know, my -- i have a web page that is dedicated to me that people find, they find my e-mail, they find my contact information, my office information, there is information in my book coming out. and anybody can send me an e-mail from anywhere in the world, you know? and i will headache sure that either myself or one of my colleagues at hopkins will take care of them. and that is something i've committed my life to, brian. i can give up what i do today and go into a different job and make a lot more money. i'm not -- i'm not poor, but i can assure you that this academic medicine, you don't make the amount of money. but i decided to be part of history. i want to help people, that's it. i want to continue to live the american dream. i am thankful for the things that this cup has dope for me. c-span: where are your parents? >> guest: san diego. c-span: how are they living today compared to the way it was in the early days? >> guest: well, they are living much better. my brother and i helped them buy a house years back, actually my sin hinges and i. it's quite interesting because my parents, they're beginning to realize what i do. as you can imagine now with the book coming out, even before the book my parents got a lot of requests for interviews, especially spanish television that are fascinated with the story, american television, and they want to talk to my parents. they come from humble backgrounds. my mom and dad had one or two years of elementary school, and that was it. so they are beginning to realize what my life is all about and what i do, although for many years they couldn't understand why is it i was working 120, 140 hours a week, i was never home. they didn't know that i was training to be who i am today. but they have a wonderful, wonderful life. i think they're very proud of not just me, but also the rest of my siblings that are working very, very hard to fulfill the american dream. c-span: you dedicate the book to your deceased sister, but -- what was her -- how many other siblings are there now? >> guest: there was six of us total. there's only five left. c-span: and where are they? >> guest: they are all in the united states, in the san diego/vegas area. they're all in the southern california and vegas area. c-span: where did you meet your wife? >> guest: you know, and i talk about that. a wonderful story. as you can imagine, my wife, her first name is anna, last name is peterson. she comes from a, you know, swedish family, and she's absolutely brilliant, smart, witty, she is beautiful. and, you know, when i was in community college learning english right about the time that i fell into the liquefied petroleum tank, i was reevaluating my life, and i was also -- i had so much energy, brian. i cannot even relate to you. i mean, i would go for days, you know, without sleeping, working all the time. and then i still had to do track and field. and one day had an injury, you know? and i go into the swimming pool, the coach sends me to run in the swimming pool, i had a join surgery, and -- groin injury, and when i come out, there was a young woman saying hi to me. i thought it was somebody else, i like side to side, but it was me. i had seep this woman before. it turns out two weeks prior i was sitting having lunch in the middle of this community college, you know, watching fish, the a koi pond, and these two beautiful women talked to me, and my english with us so terrible that i bolted out. i run out of the place because i was so shy. we didn't start dating until i was at uc berkeley, the year before i went to harvard, and she had seen the growth, when i was working in school going to community college with my steel-toed boots, my jeans smelling like sulfur because many of these days i was actually shoveling sulfur. so she's been my life partner. c-span: and michigangy, olivia and david, how old are they? >> guest: gabby is 12, david is 10, and olivia is 6 years old. this is right around the time the show hopkins came on, and i'm very proud of our children. and i think i give full credit to anna who's done a beautiful job raising them with the principles and values of the american dream. c-span: how did you come close to getting aids? >> guest: you know, it was interesting. so this was around the time in the second period of my life at uc san francisco when i was training to become a brain surgeon which i am today. it was an incredible experience, brian, very humbling, you know? trying to help a patient. we're milking the knee of a patient that had a big collection of fluid, and this patient was moribund, dying of aids. and another physician and i in our attempts to help this patient, we have a big needle, and we're trying to get all the fluid out because this patient was in a lot of pain from this knee. it was an orthopedic surgeon and myself, and i was doing my general rotations. back then you had to do a lot of rotations before you went into becoming a brain surgeon. so we're doing this, and she's got a big needle, and suddenly she loses control of this needle, and we both get stuck with blood, fluids, everything. and you can imagine the same way i relate that story of my patients getting diagnosis of patients, because right around that time we knew there was a case reported at the university of san francisco, the san francisco general hospital which is mentioned here which had the first ward for aids patients in the whole united states. at that place there was a patient that had converted from negative to positive hiv, and it was a health care provider who also got stuck with a needle. so i had to go into the triple therapy, i dropped over 17 pounds over the course of a month, i was vomiting every day, and in some ways some of our patients relate similar stories when they take chemotherapy the fight cancer, specifically brain cancer. so that's how i had this incredible amount of respect for what they do, because at a certain point i was only -- i only did it for a month, you know? but imagine our patients who do it for years at a time. it's devastating. so that's how i came. luckily, everything went well. and can that's where there's a gap also in between david and olivia, you know? because we also had to protect ourselves. we didn't know what was going to happen, and every time i would go in and get a result from my test, it was absolutely nerve-wracking, and you can sense the amount of intense moments that my wife and i went through. c-span: didn't you have another time when you were operating on somebody and blood squirted -- [laughter] >> guest: that was on the show hopkins. that was on television. i am taking care of a beautiful young woman, lovely family featured on the show. traumatic brain injury, and i'm trying to reconstruct the whole brain and bone, and i have complete eye protection. i have my special goggles that i use with magnifying glasses and everything, and they're completely protected. and somehow i was able to hit a small little artery that send blood perfectly located right above my eye, bypassed my protection and went right into my eye. and this was a young who -- young woman who had received a lot of blood transfusions. when i went to tell the mom, she had heard the event, and it's all in this show, and the first thing she wanted to make sure that i was fine. that, to me, was so touching to know that i had her daughter's life in my hands, and i was taking care of her, and she was still concerned for the two of us. everything was find, luckily. she had a are risk because -- a risk because she had a lot of blood transfusions, but we were in good shape. c-span: what's the worst thing that a family or a patient does to a doctor? >> guest: you know, i think it's a difficult question, obviously. i have had experiences where i think it's a relationship that you build with your patients, expectations. sometimes patients come in with expectations that you are going to save their loved ones, you know, from brain cancer, for instance, from the gbm. and i have had a few patients like this. and i think that the worst thing that a family do to a physician sometimes that i have personally -- i don't know, i cannot speak for all the physicians, but to me, one of the most devastating things i have experienced is i am always the last one to give hope. but we reach a point in which we do things to patients that instead of helping them, i think they're working against them. once we reach that end of life where we know that nothing is working and the disease continues to progress, the worst thing that i have experienced moist from the family -- myself from the family members of a patient is their inability to realize that no matter what we do, things are not going to change. and they are willing to see their loved ones continue to suffer rather than deal with their own inabilities to cope with the fact that their loved ones are going to the die, and that breaks my heart. and i struggle, and i meet with them, and i say, please, you know, this is not going to change. we need to help this patient make that transition, put them on hospice care. c-span: when in your professional training or your life at johns hopkins have you said to yourself i don't want to ever do what i see that doctor doing? >> guest: there's been a few occasions, obviously. i mean, you learn. luckily, at places like hopkins we are privileged that we have some of the most brilliant and best physicians in the world. i wouldn't say that has happened at hopkins to me much as much as happened in medical school and as much as it happened as a resident when i saw colleagues not only in my discipline, but in other disciplines doing things that i consider to not be good for either the welfare of a patient, making decisions to continue a treatment, making decisions to stop a treatment. given the families false expectations, that is something i feel strongly against it, and i told myself i will never do that. my goal in life is always to be honest with my patients. when i come out of the operating room, the first thing i go and do is say this is what happened, this is what we know, this is what we're going to do. you know every single thing this my brain right now. c-span: you say in the book one of the things you have changed is patient no longer needs to have a relationship with their primary care doctor, that you go right -- in other words, you go around that rather than that time. explain that. >> guest: well, one of the things that i began to realize, and i think that has made my relationship with my patients very strong, is that sometimes what we do as surgeons in a specialty is we try to come in as, like, the potential forces. we just -- like the special forces. we just go in, and we think about taking the tumor out, and we tend to think, that's it, that's all we can do. when in reality what i've been able to do in my group is to take that tissue, work in the laboratory to try to find a cure. and then i turn around, and i get the patients involved in not only their own care, but also in being part of history. i consent them so they can donate that tissue. those come strictly from the institutional review board of hopkins. so they feel part of history. and my relationship with those patients continues to evolve beyond just taking care of their tumor, you know? and that's, i think that is a role that we can fulfill very well as brain surgeons, especially the ones who specialize in brain tumors. so i don't necessarily take away the role of the primary care physician, but i try to make it easier for the primary care physician who sometimes they feel frustrated because they don't have the knowledge and the specialty to deal with patients with brain cancer, and i do. i have tried to put myself, surround myself by people who do this all the time, who know how to talk to patients, who know how to deal with the families who are upset, who are frustrated because their loved ones are dying of brain cancer. so i try to take the role of the primary care physician into a subspecialty, but i surround myself by a lot of people. c-span: so when in your life did people stop questioning wouldn't you got into -- whether or not you got into all these places because of affirmative action? [laughter] and i assume that that has happened. >> guest: of course. brian, it's never going to end. i bet you that people are going to see this interview, and they're going to wonder why is it that i am not there? why is it that my son is not there? why is it that my loved one is not there? he took a spot from someone else. i get this over and over. and as you can imagine, and writing this book is not going to be the exception. and that's why you asked me, why is it that i can publish my story? i needed to be ready for this. when the show "hopkins" came out, i got death threats, i got e-mails, i got people who hated me, people who loved me, people who missed, you know, the message. they think that i have taken someone else's spot in high school, that i have done to someone else who was born and raised in the united states should be the brain surgeon now here in front of you doing this interview. so that's never going to end, you know? i welcome. i think that's what makes this country the most beautiful country, that people can express their opinions. i don't agree with them, but i respect their opinions. as long as it doesn't affect my life or the life of my patients or the life of my family. i welcome. words come and go. what never -- what stays is the ideas and what you do for people. c-span: how often is race an issue this your life? >> guest: i would say that is every day. every day i get a request for an interview, a possibility of doing something, people will always say, you know, we want to have this guy because he's famous, because he's mexican, and no one else is like him. i say, look, this is my agenda. and as you know, i want to talk about my story and what i do as a brain surgeon. so there are things that i can do. but that plays a role every single day in my life, to be honest with you. i don't can shy away from it. i welcome it. i realized when i was in medical school that what i thought was a weakness, the fact that i came as a poor immigrant and now i i was a brain surgeon, it turned out to be the greatest strength of my life. the true definition of the american dream. c-span: take us through a day from the very beginning to the end. >> guest: today, you know? let's do today. i got up at five a.m -- c-span: you do this every day? >> guest: i do this every day. five a.m. my alarm goes around 4:50, i take ten minutes to gather my thoughts, then i get up. i went for a run because i'm training for a half marathon that i'm running in honor of my patients battling brain cancer. and i'm not going to lie to you, i'm not completely in perfect shape, but i'm giving it my best be, but i'm going to do it. it's going to be the baltimore marathon. i went to my office, made a few phone calls, saw a few patients, came here to the washington, d.c. with you. i'm going to go back into the overting room. tonight i'll get home around 8 p.m., have hi dinner with my kids for about 30 minutes, tell them a story, put hem to bed, go back to my office until 10, 10:30, spend about half an hour with my wife. and overnight i am on call for the hospital, so i receive about tour or five calls through the night. any patient that wants to get ahold of me, they always have my phone. sometimes they call the hospital because they know i need to get some rest, but i do that every single day. certain days a week -- seven days a week, 365 days a week, and i've done it since i remember. that's my level of energy. c-span: how much fatigue do you have? >> guest: i'm human. of course i get tired. and i always tell people, i get tired. and every morning when i get up at five a.m., my body aches, you know, and i'm sore because i've been training, and i am tired. but i think about all those patients that are struggling every day, and as soon as i do that and i get up, it's like the world starts. and i love to watch the sun coming up every morning, if it does. i love rainy days like this as well. it's part of life. it's the cycle of life. c-span: so ten years there now based on what you've watched happening in madison, what do you think will be different about the art of brain surgery? >> guest: i would say that ten years from now we are going to be seeing more personalized medicine. right now, for instance, in hi profession, in brain surgery, for a brain tumor we take as hutch as we can, we give the patient chemotherapy and radiation. ten years from now what i envision thanks to the work from a lot of people around the world including our laboratory, we're going to be able to take this tumor and say this patient specifically responds to this treatment. we're going to turn around s and we're going to give personalized medicine to that patient. and that's what i think is going to revolutionize our system. and we can't allow our country not to be able -- and what i feel so strongly, that we still need to support research, we still need to be able to support those creative minds that are going to be able to help us to live and long and healthy life. c-span: looking back over all of your education, harvard, university of california at berkeley and all, what was the tough time during your medical training? >> guest: i would say my medical train was up caughtedly -- undoubtedly being a resident. right around that time i got stucking with the needle -- c-span: san francisco. >> guest: san francisco. yeah, no question about it. there was different challenges. i was coming to hopkins as a young attending and having to face all the other issues, racism, patients, establishing your practice. it was a challenge. but back then, working as a resident to train to become the special forces with little sleep, lot of work, little money, no resources, being in the hospital all the time, not seeing my children, that was up doubtedly some of the most challenging times that i had to survive. and, you know, having the rob with the hiv -- the problem with the hiv, having the actual deal with the fact that, you know, san francisco was a beautiful city, but it was also excruciatingly painful to live because of how expensive it was. this was around the time that we were at the peak of the dot.com companies, you know, in san francisco. that was a very, very challenging time in my life. and i talk about this in the book, obviously. different challenges by the time i came to hopkins. but those i have incredible memories, but the memories that pain me the most are those memory, those times when i would wake up, and my kids were in my face, little ones, gabby and david, and they were trying to play with me, and i was completely isn't. c-span: you have a co-author, ms. revas. >> guest: yes. c-span: how did you relate to her in this? did she interview you? >> guest: yes, i tell you, she's absolutely incredible. she's written several incredibly successful books. she was part of the team that wrote the pursuit of happiness, i mean, she's done an incredible amount of work. and the moment that i met her, the moment that we talked and, obviously, the publishers, they all gather a lot of resources to be able to do this because she's an incredibly accomplished writer. she came in and spent time with me, personally, right here. she'd run around with me in the hospital, in my laboratory, with my patients, and then she had multiple interviews with me, we worked through multiple drafts. it took us about three years to complete this project, of going back and forth all the time. c-span: the name of the book is "becoming dr. q.." alfredo quinones-in owe owes saw, and this is published by the university of california press. we thank you for joining us. >> guest: thank you, brian, for having me. my pleasure. ♪ ♪ >> for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q and a.org. q and a programs are also available at c-span podcasts. ♪ ♪ >> join us later today when we'll show you our interview with dr. alfredo quinones hinojosa again in its entirety. it's one of the author interviews from our latest book, "sundays at eight." you can see the program today at 7 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. coming up on c-span2, next a congressional hearing looks into overcriminallization. then we'll show you today's "washington journal" program in its entirety. and later, a congressional hearing looking into phone scams. join us tonight on c-span2 for more booktv prime. at eight it's author sidney powell and his book, "licensed to lie," exposing corruption in the d. of justice. -- department of justice. at 9:35, mike earn talks about u.s. marshals. about an hour later it's lawrence tribe and his book, "uncertain justice." the roberts court and the constitution. and tonight on c-span, a special look at veterans health care, one of the major issues before congress this year. we'll show you highlights from c-span's coverage of the issue. here's a brief look at some of that footage. >> i think the va has the potential to be one of the finest institutions in the world. we've own certain aspects of the -- the pharmacy cannot be matched. it's one of best in the world, very efficient. there are many different things that are efficient within our system. but what we should ask ourselves, when someone came up with the idea of seeing a veteran in 14 days, that was actually, sounded like a good idea, that our veterans would be seen promptly. what we should be questioning is if we made a mistake and somehow overloaded the system, how come people's names disappeared off lists? how come hundreds of thousands of veterans electronically no longer existed? that should be be the question. retaliation exists because there's a culture. this culture retaliation, that's really the cancer to the veterans administration. most physicians and nurses and people working in the hospital are disgusted. morale's extremely low. people come up to me all the time and say, did that happen here? people care. the physicians -- it, when i heard some of the testimony i heard from the phoenix v.a., it was gut wrenching. i couldn't sleep. and i as a lot of -- i believe there's a lot of people within the v.a. system that feel the same way. but there exists a cancer within leadership, a few vims, that per -- individuals, that perpetuate this idea that we should be silent, that we shouldn't stand up and do the right thing and be honest. everyone makes mistakes, but when you make a mistake ask you try to conceal it, that is really the question we should be asking. who are these individuals who would alter data and hide the truth and prevent patient care? >> and that's a brief portion of our special looking into veterans' health care issues. you can see that program in its entirety tonight at eight eastern on our companion network, c-span. >> here are some of the highlights for this weekend. friday at 8 p.m. eastern, a history tour looking at the civil war. saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern, "the communicators" visits a technology fair on capitol hill. sunday on q and a, political commentator, author be and former presidential candidate pat buchanan. on c-span2 friday night at 8 eastern, books on hillary clinton, barack obama and'd ward snowden. and edward snowden. saturday at 10 p.m. on "after words," daniel hall per, and sunday morning at 10:30 we tour the literary sites of casper, wyoming. and saturday at 6 p.m. on the civil war, the defiction of slave i -- depiction of slavery in movies. and an interview with president herbert hoover. let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400 or e-mail us at [email protected]. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> the house judiciary committee's overcriminallization task force held a hearing earlier this year focusing on the impact of a criminal on the individual, families and commitments. the bipartisan task force was formed in 2013 and reauthorized in february of 2014. it was formed to assess current federal statutes and make improvements. this is just over an hour and ten minutes. >> task force on overcriminallization will come to order. without objection, the chair will be authorized to declare recesses during votes on the floor. let me say we're supposed to have an hour and a half worth of votes beginning at 10:30 to 10:45, and i don't think that it would be advisable to have the witnesses sit for an hour and a half, and i don't know how many members will be coming back after an hour and a half, so i'd like to wrap this up by 10:30 be, 1:45. 10:45. i have an opening statement, i yield myself five minutes. good morning, and welcome to the eighth hearing of the judiciary's meeting of the overcriminallization task force. over its first seven hearings, the task force examined issues relating to criminal intent over criminalization, penalties and other issues which affect criminal defendants during the can investigative and prosecutorial phases of the criminal justice process. ..