Like a master painter who creates world-famous paintings with rich imagination and extraordinary skills, and like a master watchmaker who creates complex time machines with dexterous hands and tough patience, sublimating neurosurgical techniques into surgical art should be the highest goal of every neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeons face the most complex structure and powerful function of the human brain in nature. Surgeons combine surgical skills with academic thinking and humanistic qualities so that surgical techniques can be sublimated into surgical art. More than twenty years ago, when I started to contact with neurosurgery, neurosurgery was a weak discipline in the domestic western medical system at that time, and many physicians from other disciplines said that neurosurgery patients came in standing and went out lying down, and this was indeed the case in my actual contact. At that time, the preoperative diagnosis of neurosurgical diseases in my hospital relied on cerebral angiography and ventriculography, and it was only two years after I became a brain surgeon that I saw a CT film for the first time. At that time, surgery was performed by homemade unipolar electrocoagulation forceps cauterization, and the removal of meningiomas relied on digging out tumors with fingers, and there were drawings in foreign monographs that described in detail how to dig out tumors with fingers, which would inevitably result in varying degrees of damage to normal brain tissue. This made me wonder about my future as a neurosurgeon. After I entered a higher educational institution, I learned about CT, MRI, and DSA for preoperative diagnosis, microscopes and bipolar electrocoagulation tweezers for surgery, as well as the legendary stories of great figures such as Wang Zhongzhong, Shi Yuquan, and Duan Guosheng, and dreamed that one day I would be able to perform the most complex brain surgeries just like they did. After going abroad, he saw various advanced surgical instruments and equipments, read a large number of professional books, learned the most advanced knowledge of microscopic neuroanatomy, participated in high-level academic conferences, saw the elegance of the world-class masters, and realized that neurosurgery is the tip of the pyramid in the western medical system. 1, practicing basic surgical skills Surgical technology to improve by the usual accumulation, to practice a pair of dexterous hands, to learn to do some tailoring crafts, such as threading, locking the edge of the nail buttons, sewing and mending clothes, and so on. To learn some basic drawing skills, to be able to lesion graphics, surgical incisions, bone flap shape and anatomy of the surgical area personally drawing. The mind should be agile and the hands should be skillful, and the training of basic surgical skills should be emphasized. To practice both hands can tie knots, one hand can flexibly hold multiple pieces of hemostats and scissors. To be able to accurately and beautifully complete the four basic surgical procedures of incision, hemostasis, visualization and suturing. The process of opening and closing the skull should be divided into anatomical levels, bleeding should be minimal, the stitches of the dura mater and scalp sutures should be as beautiful as an embroidery woman doing women’s work, and the skin edges should be aligned neatly after hair sutures. Whether operator or assistant, especially when we do our residency, it is important to develop good surgical habits and movements on the operating table to minimize ineffective operations or wasted movements. Surgeons need to know: every swing of the scalpel and surgical instruments causes damage to brain tissue. After a long period of clinical practice, when we grow into senior physicians, we will be able to apply fine and accurate surgical movements to the intracranial surgical operation stage. We should pay attention to the exercise of our hands, and the exercise of our hands should be carried out throughout the whole life of practicing medicine. The hands of a magician are not inherently acquired, but are practiced through hard work later in life. Human life is the most precious, when our hands touch the patient’s life center – the brain, as neurosurgeons, we realize the significance of entrusting life with our hands. The improvement of surgical techniques also depends on the scientific method, and postgraduates should apply the scientific research methods they have learned to every aspect of surgical treatment of patients. For each surgery that you have participated in, you should be able to learn by example and think over and over again. During the surgery, you should carefully observe each step of the surgical process and each detail of the surgery, carefully observe and experience the basic surgical movements of the superior surgeon, and after the surgery, you should carefully review the details of the surgery, and you should be diligent and good at summarizing, so that if you do three surgeries, you should gain the experience that other people have gained by doing ten surgeries. This should be the talent and spirituality of neurosurgeons. The 21st century is the century of neuroscience, and the high development of science and technology has created a variety of advanced surgical instruments and equipment, such as surgical microscopes, bipolar electrocoagulation forceps, neuronavigation, intraoperative MRI, intraoperative CT, surgical robots, and so on. However, even more advanced instruments and equipment are operated by human beings, and the greatest advantage of human beings is that they have thinking. Patients come to the hospital to find a doctor to see a doctor, and ultimately, it is the doctor who can relieve the patient’s pain, and the instruments and equipment should be used by doctors with thinking ability. In medical activities, people should always occupy a dominant position. 2, the cultivation of academic thinking and humanistic qualities The art of surgery should reflect the operator’s humanistic concern for the patient. Before the operation, the image film of the lesion should be studied repeatedly, the normal microscopic anatomical structure and the patho-anatomical variations of the lesion should be studied, and the operator should preview the whole process of the operation several times in his mind, and he should take into full consideration of the difficulties that may arise during the operation and the corresponding solutions. The more difficulties one thinks about before surgery, the fewer difficulties one will encounter during surgery. During the operation, one should not cause unnecessary damage by separating and revealing too much of the brain structures surrounding the lesion in order to show off one’s skill, unless such separation is of practical significance for the resection of the lesion. A high level of surgical skill is what every neurosurgeon aspires to, but surgical treatment is not surgical. When removing intracranial tumors, the neurosurgeon should be very clear about the significance of the choices of total resection, near-total resection, partial resection, biopsy, and nonsurgical treatment. For lesions that must require total resection, total resection should be performed as far as possible under the premise of ensuring surgical safety and quality of patient’s postoperative survival, such as craniopharyngioma. However, some tumors do not require total resection, such as optic nerve gliomas, and with most of the resection plus postoperative radiotherapy, the patient can achieve long-term survival, especially with preservation of vision, which improves the quality of patient’s survival. When I was still relatively young, I could remove all the optic nerve gliomas, and while I was happy with my surgical skills, the patient was permanently blinded, and I was inwardly disturbed when I saw the patient’s confused eyes. Now my surgical skills are much better than before, but I do not remove all the optic nerve gliomas, and I am comforted by the sight of my children’s bright eyes after surgery. I am comforted by the fact that my patients who were diagnosed with germ cell tumors before surgery are cured without surgery after radiation and chemotherapy. For a patient with pituitary hyperplasia (imaging changes of “pituitary tumor”) due to hypothyroidism, I was comforted to see that the “pituitary tumor” disappeared after the patient took medication, and that the patient was cured due to correct diagnosis and avoidance of surgery. The advancement of the medical career depends on two pillars: success and failure, and surgical death should be treated correctly. There are two reasons for surgical failure: first, the pathological characteristics of the lesion itself, and second, the level of treatment by the surgeon. Surgeons, while continuously improving their surgical skills, should make it clear to the patient’s family that the risks of surgery should be borne by both the surgeon and the patient (or the family). When dealing with difficult and complicated cases, doctors can choose not to do the operation, not to bear the loss of reputation of the doctor due to the failure of the operation, which is a clear way to protect themselves. For doctors who dare to be responsible, as long as the patient has one percent hope, when surgery is the only option to save the patient’s life, they should do their best to do a good job of the surgery, without thinking about their own reputation, to give the patient the hope of life. The progress of surgery is advancing in overcoming one difficult and complicated case after another. Academician Wang Zhong has said: it is not scary to have mistakes, but we should learn from them and keep progressing. The mistakes made can only be technical, and can never be the mistakes caused by the lack of responsibility. When a patient dies as a result of an operation, the doctor should pay tribute to the deceased in his heart and seriously summarize his experience with a view to the success of the operation in the next case, which is the best way to commemorate the deceased and respect for life. Doctors should not be deterred by the loss of a life or the complaints of the patient’s family, there are more lives with the same disease waiting for us to save. This is the surgeon’s vocation, saving lives is not only reflected in the success of the operation and the patient’s (or the family’s) gratitude, but also in the failure of the operation and the patient’s family’s condemnation. Neurosurgeons should have a good psychological quality and strong will to face all kinds of difficulties and challenges, one after another life will disappear in our magic hands in the resurrection, we enjoy the success of the operation to bring happiness at the same time, but also to withstand the failure of the operation of the blow and all kinds of blame. This is not inner indifference, but the will and determination to pursue the cause.