ESP - Gasol scrubs up to see what might have been

LOS ANGELES (NBA) - Growing up in Spain, Pau Gasol faced a difficult decision.

His childhood ambition had been to follow his parents into the medical profession, but his obvious basketball talent was opening new doors, and the son of a doctor and a nurse was not sure which way to go.

He would choose basketball and, with a FIBA World Championship gold medal, an Olympic silver medal, a EuroBasket gold, two silvers and a bronze, as well as two NBA titles, he's made it a resounding success.

But medicine still has a hold on Gasol, and this summer, as he recovers from an injury of his own that will keep him out of the FIBA World Championship in Turkey, he swapped sneakers for scrubs to check out the work being done at the Los Angeles Children's Hospital on Sunset Boulevard.

"For me, it's important," Gasol said as part of ESPN's Outside The Lines feature. "I have a bond with it, and I'm amazed at the work hospitals do."
Gasol met with Dr. David Skaggs to take a tour of the hospital, but this one went further than most visits from athletes.

Before it was out, Gasol would agree to stand in with Skaggs on a life-saving operation on a 13-year-old girl, Isabelle, with scoliosis, a spinal problem that if uncorrected would eventually prevent her from breathing.

Skaggs never expected it to get that far, but from the beginning with Gasol, it was clear he was no ordinary visitor.

Gasol took his medical studies seriously before basketball eventually pulled him away, and his interest is still clear.

"When Pau first came by here, I gave him the usual dog and pony show, showing him all the neat things we do," Skaggs said. "And at one point, Pau looked at me and said, 'If you're fusing a child's spine and they're 2 years old, what are the long-term pulmonary implications of that?'

"I said, 'Hold on a second. Where did you come up with that question?' The thing that blew me away was his ability to instantly focus on the big controversy in pediatric spine surgery, which took me a decade to get. He seemed to get it in five minutes. So I thought he was pretty intelligent. Almost scary intelligent."

Gasol's obvious and serious interest prompted Skaggs to invite him to the surgery on Isabelle.

Gasol has performed on the biggest stages in basketball, under the most intense media glare, but his eyes would now be opened to a very different kind of pressure in a life-or-death operation.

"Well, he walked in as I was chiseling someone's spine," Skaggs said. "That's as tough a thing to watch as you probably could."

Gasol watched for long stretches of the operation, but at times was overcome.

"I'd never seen anything like it … I felt a little dizzy … I'd be thrilled to be able to be good at changing people's lives like that. Saving people's lives," Gasol said.

"You walk in the room and you see a little girl facedown with a huge cut on her back, her spine all showing. You see the deformity of her back. You see the blood. You see the drilling, the whole procedure with screws. The straightening. You can't get any more intense than that. To be a spinal surgeon, those surgeries are the top of the top. They have lives in their hands.

"I only hoped and dreamed to get to that level, but we'll never know."

Isabelle is now on course for a complete recovery, while Gasol can spend the rest of the summer contemplating the life he might have led.

"There's no question in my mind that Pau would be one of us if he took the other path and stayed in medical school," Skaggs said. "I kind of feel like he's one of my buddies in the college locker room.

"I tend to think athletes make the best orthopedic surgeons because those are the guys who can be up all night, get kicked in the face, make mistakes, injure someone and come back the next day with their tail wagging, trying their hardest.

"This job is definitely not for everybody."

FIBA