There are many things that may be common in certain parts of the world… that are not common in others… and this particular operation was another step forward for South Africa…
I tried to post the link, where the patient discusses what it was like… hanging between the two worlds… sleep and consciousness… but it would not come up. sorry…
(We should not forget that the world’s first heart transplant was performed in South Africa… 
… I still remember the thrill of reading that News)
And we should recall that Barnard’s pioneering surgery took place over 50 years ago in what was still referred to as Darkest Africa. So in 1967 the nominally ‘developed world’ had to catch up with the so-called third world!
I would suggest that is inconceivable that conscious brain surgery has not been performed in African hospitals by skilled African neurosurgeons for as long as the techniques
have been shared by professional peers world-wide.
But as @anon88169868 points out, a shaggy-dog story is still a shaggy-dog time-filler, and media journalists are well-known for their dismal understanding of science, especially medicine, and failure to research or check facts.
We may be at cross-purposes… I merely reported this recent operation, in the way it was presented in the Press in South Africa and, indeed, all across the world.
It was a great success… due to the skills and dedication of the medical team…
Maybe crossed wires, as you say, Stella. The guitar-playing bit nailed it as a news story, and of course the skills involved.
I picked up, I think, on the seeming suggestion that this kind of surgery is a ‘great leap forward to modernity in SA as black/brown surgeons manage to do a rare operation that white surgeons have being doing every day since Elvis hit the charts’, because I thought I caught a hint of that. Bit paternalistic? But Africans are used to it, as in Kipling’s hymn to imperialism:
TAKE up the White Man’s burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Sorry if I got it wrong! 
No problem Peter… In fact, somewhere I did read why this surgery is considered comparatively rare… seems that it does require a very large team of extremely-highly-skilled surgeons etc… all able to be in the one place for a very long time… “as long as it takes” … for that sort of of intensive surgery…
and that is not easy…
so, getting them together in the same country, in the same hospital… quite an achievement IMO… 
Perhaps this was another reason why it was so happily reported in the SA News etc…
Just so long as the surgeon hasn’t got some fava beans and a fine Chianti
I have recently read an excellent book ‘ Do No Harm ‘ by Henry Marsh who is a neurosurgeon He certainly doesn’t pull any punches about the reality of his work
I think it is amazing what these surgeons… and so many other medical people… can do these days… 
That’s liver you’re smacking lips over, John. We’re talking brains here, en croute with a sesame-seed bap and a lettuce leaf. Dijon mustard and tomato ketchup optional. 
Love Anthony Hopkins…x 
What about the Da Vinci Robot? Amazing tech
Got to have variety
@John_Scully, re variety 
Yes, indeed. And there’s that aplenty, spleen, testes (sweetbreads), tongue, cheek, breast, leg (various cuts), tripes and chitterlings, nothing should go to waste. Forgot blood (boudin noir) - a favourite of mine, should be able to get several kilo from a full-sized adult. Nyam nyam.
Brain Salad Surgery, Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Gruuuuuuesome