You’ll have to sign here,” I instructed a chubby patient of mine, after I had explained to her the risks of undergoing surgery for a brain tumour. She had come in complaining of an unremitting headache, and the MRI revealed a tumour the size of a tennis ball in her right frontal lobe. She was 23 years old. After explaining the need for an operation, I began talking to her about the possibility of death, paralysis, seizures, infection, or a postoperative haemorrhage requiring a redo surgery, wanting to give her a full disclosure of the possible complications any brain surgery can entail. “Will you shave my whole head?” she asked, combing her hands through her pink highlights. I remembered George Eliot: Our vanities differ as our noses do.

“We usually don’t, but if you insist, we will!” I teased, and was rewarded with a priceless expression as her fair complexion turned ashen. I hastened to comfort her. “We’ll make a tiny incision behind your hairline,” I pointed to where we would cut, “and a few weeks later, no one will know you’ve even had an operation, which is the beauty of modern medicine,” I said, and watched as her face regained colour.