‘It's not brain surgery’ – it's a common phrase used to put a seemingly insurmountable challenge into context. But for real-life neurosurgery resident Dr. Nir Lipsman, it often is brain surgery.

“I do a certain kind of research in deep brain stimulation,” Lipsman says on the set of “Saving Hope.”

Lipsman, a neurosurgery resident in his fifth year at Toronto Western Hospital, was invited to be a consultant on “Saving Hope” to teach the actors such things as how they should stand around the O.R. table or how to hold the instruments correctly.

“I tell them exactly what would happen and make it as realistic as possible,” says Lipsman.

“They had a scene where the neurosurgeon was clipping an aneurysm so they wanted to know everything about what a neurosurgeon would actually do in the operating room,” he says.

It’s all about subtlety when it comes to the operating room, especially when brain surgery is involved.

“When we’re taught in school to hold scissors, we often use our middle finger and our thumb to go through the loops, but in reality it’s often easier in surgery to use your ring finger and your thumb,” Lipsman says. “These small nuances make it more realistic when you see things on screen.”

Lipsman’s research in deep brain stimulation is particularly interesting for coma patient, Charlie Harris.

“We have the ability to introduce one or two electrodes to deep parts of the brain, all done over image guidance and when we do that, we hook up those electrodes to a battery that is underneath the right collarbone, almost like a pacemaker,” Lipsman explains. “As we introduce electricity, we’re able to disrupt the structures in the brain that are causing certain kinds of symptoms.”

Symptoms like…comas!

“There’s evidence and increased literature about what parts of the brain are disruptive in a coma. We think that we can reduce a coma and . . . restart those circuits, improving their neurological function and wake them up,” hypothesizes Lipsman.

“We’re exploring deep brain stimulation in things like depression and Alzheimer’s disease and anorexia, as well as in movement disorders. There are many applications we can use it for.”

So will deep brain stimulation work for Charlie?

“It’s a promising area of research," Lipsman says. "It’s all investigational and experimental at this point, but it’s something that might fit the bill for him.”