professionalism
From Barbers to Surgeon-Scientists and Beyond: Creation of the Modern Surgeon
By Connie Shao This is a special edition blog post presented in partnership with the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Surgery did not begin as a science. Early practitioners were barbers, monks, and battlefield medics operating without anesthesia, sterility, or formal training. In ancient Mesopotamia, surgeons drained abscesses and set fractures, blending technical skill with spiritual ritual. As outlined in the Code of Hammurabi written in 1754 BCE, this was all under the threat of severe punishment for failure[1]. By medieval Europe, surgery had been pushed even further from the practice of medicine as we know it today: physicians avoided it, while barber-surgeons, who trained through apprenticeships rather than universities, became the true procedural experts[2,3]. Paradoxically, these “lower-status” surgeons had more practical knowledge than academically trained physicians. That gap began to close during the Renaissance, when figures like Ambroise Paré...
Cold Tech, Warm Heart: How AI makes Private Practice More Personal
By: Dr. Erin King-Mullins In the current world of medicine where burnout is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, I’d like to make another case for artificial, or augmented, intelligence. With having to care for patients in a manner driven toward documentation for insurance reimbursement, let’s discuss how template life has been normalized. How many times have you met with your EMR system team to discuss how to make as many templates as possible to improve efficiency and decrease charting time? While it may tick off a few minutes of charting time and checks off necessary boxes... at the end of the day, if you go back and actually read the notes, can you differentiate between the patients? Have you gotten to the point in medicine where you rely so much on the template that you really don’t listen to key information your patient may be sharing with you? Every...
How to Improve Your Healthcare Profile Picture: Small Visual Details That Increase Patient Trust and Strengthen Your Business
Camellia Russell MBA, DPM (c) In a world where patients choose providers online before ever walking through the door, your profile photo does more work than you think. Your healthcare business’s profile picture is an asset. Patients now choose their care providers how they choose everything else online: looking at ratings and reviews, reading comments, and yes…scrutinizing your photos before deciding who they’ll trust. These decisions are often made in seconds. Will a patient tap to book your next available appointment or swipe away? Here’s what the research says: Patients want providers who look warm, competent, and approachable. They tend to avoid providers who look cold and serious. One study published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth found that perceived warmth and approachability were two of the biggest drivers when patients choose providers online.¹ Another study from BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making discovered that facial expression and photo quality impact...
Crafting Your Residency Professional Development (Research) Years
Authors: Paulina M. Gutkin, MD1, Nensi M. Ruzgar, MD, MHS2 1Stanford University, Stanford, CA 2Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Many academic general surgical residency programs offer 1-2 years of protected, non-clinical time as an opportunity to pursue research interests, advanced degrees, or select fellowships. This typically takes place after 2-3 years of clinical training. Deciding how to best approach this time requires thoughtful consideration of several key questions. What is my end goal? There are numerous career paths in surgery, and each may warrant a different approach to protected time. It is okay to not have a fully defined career path yet. Rather than focusing on details, it may be helpful to frame these years as an opportunity to establish a strong foundation and develop a specific skillset or area of expertise. If considering fellowship, early reflection on subspecialty interests is valuable. Data from NRMP 2025 Match1 highlight varying competitiveness...
Called to Step In
by Brett Weinstein *This story was shared with permission from involved parties. I didn’t wake up that morning expecting to deliver a baby in a car parking lot. I was a fourth-year medical student on a surgery sub-internship, just finishing a long day in the OR. When I walked through the parking lot, I noticed a couple frantically waving me down. The woman was in labor, her face clenched with pain, her husband pacing at her side, panic in his eyes. “Hi my name is Brett, I’m a medical student, can I take a look?” There was no time to wait for help. She was crowning. My heart pounded, but my feet moved before my mind caught up. I jumped into the backseat of their truck, barehanded, adrenaline roaring in my ears. For a moment, the world narrowed to just us – the mother, the baby, and me. Dark hair...
Doctors Need to Give Better Talks: How the Signature Speaker Series Can Help
by Nimmi S. Kapoor, MD, FACS Doctors give the worst talks. Now I understand why it is hard for me to stay awake, pay attention, and understand the point of all these talks at all these conferences I go to, and it’s not just because my phone is too distracting. Indeed, my phone distraction has spared me from some of the dreadfully boring talks I have been subjected to year after year. The Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) Signature Speaker series helped me realize why and how some talks hit the mark, while most others don’t. The lessons learned from this experience were transformative for me. I was able to move past my own anxiety with speaking—I tend to have a bit of a shake in my voice at the beginning of every talk—and learn the tools to give a meaningful, impactful talk. Our Motivational Speaker and Instructor, Patrick Combs,...
Permission to Pause
by Dr. Trisha Lal Like many general surgery residents, I’ve opted to pursue two years of academic development during my training. After two clinical years, I recently completed my first research year. It was a year of growth and learning – learning how to do research, and also, unexpectedly, learning how to rest. When I transitioned into research last July, I was genuinely elated at the idea of a slower pace. I pictured sunlit mornings with coffee and breakfast, focused work sessions, and midday walks. I told myself I would paint again. But instead, my days looked eerily familiar: I woke up early, jumped straight into work, ate lunch at my desk, and felt restless if I shut my laptop at 6 p.m. I realized, quickly and uncomfortably, that I didn’t know how to not be busy. After two years on the clinical grind, during which I spent 12-14 hours...
Applying the Growth Mindset in Surgery
By Fara Bellows In surgery, the only constant is change. With each passing milestone in our careers, we encounter new challenges, new demands, and new surroundings. We also face novelty within clinical medicine: the literature is always growing, new technologies and techniques arise, and practice changes can seemingly come out of nowhere. Surgeons tend to be perfectionists. We strive to do our best and to deliver exceptional patient care. But we are human, and as humans, we are never perfect at something the first time we do it. So it can be difficult to stray from our comfort zone and incorporate new techniques into our toolbox, perhaps due to fear of failure or fear of the unknown. It can also be painful to experience patient-related complications and struggle with learning curves. However, we cannot shy away from novel therapies or ideas. We must embrace novelty: a successful career relies on...
Training Your Subconscious Mind in Residency
By Dr. Anupama Singh This is a special edition blog post presented in partnership with the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Training my subconscious mind and building mental fortitude is a vital skill I learned at the start of my surgical residency. It molded me into a calmer person capable of adapting to any challenging situation and instilled in me a growth mindset that benefits me in all areas of my life, not just in residency. I wasn’t always like this. In high school, my friends and family labeled me as a “high-functioning anxious person.” I remember being unbothered by it. I still got the good grades and it didn’t matter if these achievements were the result of sleepless nights and spiraling, anxious thoughts that were trying to predict every outcome. That mentality was challenged when I started surgical residency,...
Protecting Your Surgical Career During Workplace Conflicts
by Andrea L. Merrill, MD Imagine yourself several years into your first job as a surgery attending. Things have been going well, but occasionally, you hear from your division chief that a nurse has complained about your “behavior.” Your chief hasn’t given you specific details, and no formal complaints have been made. To your dismay, your division chief has not asked you how communication and interprofessional interactions have been with the nursing staff as necessary context to receiving those complaints. You aren’t concerned because you have heard stories about male colleagues yelling, swearing, and demeaning learners, which you never do. Additionally, you rationalize that your RVU’s are high, your patient satisfaction scores are above average, the learner evaluations are favorable, and you are publishing research in peer review journals – you’re a rock star and untouchable. Then one day, you express concern about a patient safety issue with suggestions for...
