It seemed like an ordinary lunch with friends until Leslie Brook started feeling awful. Her severe headache and cold sweat led her to an ambulance, and finally to Ramin Rak, M.D., F.A.A.N.S., the board certified neurosurgeon who operated on her cerebral hemorrhage.

“Your heart drops, and I was on my way to the hospital,” Leslie’s husband explained. “They said, ‘Well, we have a doctor who’s meeting us at Huntington. … Dr. Rak is wonderful. You’re in great hands. He’ll take good care of you. I would want him to take care of me if I was there.’”

Dr. Rak is the Director of Awake Craniotomy and Brain Mapping at the Long Island Brain Tumor Center at NSPC and has established programs for these procedures at Long Island hospitals. Other specialties include brain tumors and cerebrovascular and skull base diseases. To treat these conditions, Dr. Rak uses advanced spine and brain decompression techniques, as well as minimally invasive techniques such as stereotactic radio surgery with Cyberknife®.

Dr. Rak performed surgery for Leslie’s cerebral hemorrhage and informed her that she would need several weeks of therapy. Leslie’s husband praised Dr. Rak: “Her recovery has been amazing. Not only did she survive, but there was no motor, speech, no deficit at all. The physical recovery is complete. My wife is the wife I had before, and we are forever grateful to Dr. Rak for what he did for us.”

Leslie’s husband offered some advice for other patients: “If… they call Dr. Rak, thank your lucky stars. He gave her and us a second chance, and we’re going to take advantage of every second he’s allowed us to have.”