awareness
Dealing with Bullying
By Hilary Sanfey MB. BCh. MHPE, FACS, FRCSEd (hon) Bullying is a persistent pattern of mistreatment that includes verbal, nonverbal, psychological, or physical abuse and humiliation. The behavior is usually hierarchical although it can come from peers or coworkers. The detrimental consequences of burnout, ranging from job dissatisfaction to suicide, are becoming more apparent as is the adverse impact on patient safety. Surgery is often cited as a specialty where such behavior is particularly prevalent. Many senior surgeons trained in an era where ridicule and humiliation were considered to have a positive effect on clinical care, education, or even patient safety and thus tried to justify such behavior. Surgery is also a specialty where suffering is supposed to take place in silence; thus few victims or bystanders speak up for fear of ridicule or retaliation. Five categories of workplace bullying have been identified by Rayner et al: Threats to professional...
AWS and ACS address Intimate Partner Violence in the Surgical Community
By Stephanie Bonne Nearly 2 years ago, the women’s surgical community was shocked by the loss of one of our own. Dr. Sherilyn Gordon-Burroughs, a gifted transplant surgeon, accomplished researcher, residency program director, and mother of a young daughter, was found dead in her home in an apparent murder-suicide committed by her husband. Her young daughter was left an orphan, cared for by her family. The immediate responses of shock and sorrow were apparent, but in the coming weeks as those waned, an unsettling thought came to the forefront: How did this happen? Dr. Gordon-Burroughs was an African American woman who became an academic transplant surgeon-scientist at a time when the odds were overwhelmingly against her. How does someone who was so academically and clinically successful become the victim of intimate partner violence? Can this happen to my colleagues? Can this happen to me? We learned once again a few...
This is Everyone’s Lane
By Stephanie Bonne On a busy day in the ICU, I was back and forth between meetings, notes and patients, when my phone buzzed a couple times with twitter notifications. Something seemed to be up. I stepped out of the elevator as the page loaded, and found myself in the hallway of the hospital staring in disbelief: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of all the articles in the Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves… A tweet from the NRA. Seriously? Content aside, the tone is divisive, condescending, disenfranchising, and makes malicious claims about the quality of peer review, the foundation of evidence based medicine. I’m a trauma surgeon at a busy urban center. At this point, I’ve been up for 2 days, I’m a week behind...
What potential impact do surgeons have on breastfeeding?
By Nikki Mills In celebration and recognition of breastfeeding awareness month, I decided to write an article for the Association of Women Surgeons weekly blog. Some female surgeons have first hand experience in breastfeeding, and many have stories about their own personal challenges and experience. For those that rely only on the education they received on the topic during their medical training, their knowledge may be quite limited. On the positive side, awareness is increasing on the broad-ranging benefits of breastfeeding for both Mum & Baby. Research in this area has increased exponentially in the last decade, and the wonders and complexities of breastmilk composition are continuing to unfold. Antenatal education for mums is improving, and the motivation and intention to breastfeed is at an all-time high. Unfortunately, for a proportion of Mums, the breastfeeding journey does not progress as expected. When difficulties occur with breastfeeding, it can be a...
