"How can you tell ­the difference between a good surgeon and an exceptional one?"

"You could start by looking for the one who has the rare ability to visualize a human organ in three dimensions from little more than a scan."

"'The handful of the top surgeons in the world are like sculptors,' said Dr. Deepak Srivastava, a director at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco."

"'When cardiovascular surgeons go in to repair a defect in the heart, their success is so often dependent on an ability to see the anatomy in 3-D in their minds," said Srivastava. 'That's more difficult for younger, less experienced surgeons.'"