1. Your surgeon is (or should be!) still learning. They say that the peak time for surgeons is 10-20 years AFTER they finish their training. That’s not because our training is bad—it’s that the human body is complex and it takes a looooong time to see the various things it’ll throw at you Be wary of a lack of continuous curiosity ↓

6. Primum non nocere. I work with a couple of elderly orthopedic surgeons who think they are competent to do certain operations, but they’re doing their patients a disservice. As for (4), one of my general surgeons retired at 67 years of age. He was slower and more hesitant as the years progressed. It was time 😓

Hmm, while I don't disagree (surgeon for 33 yrs here), I would say that number 3, for me, is not entirely accurate. Like when my retina spontaneously detached during the insetting of a pec flap for an oropharyngeal defect, and the scrub nurse completely disappeared from my line of sight, I did have to step out. Turned the case over to a partner and got myself to the retina specialist down the street pronto. Bubble done. Had vision back when the patch came off 12 hrs later. So...

I recently had emergency spinal operation on my L7 s1-2 for a bacterial infection that I almost died from. My surgeon came into my room later to check on me and was so good natured and humble. I’m an artist and was painting with watercolor when he came into my recovery room. He smiled and said my operation went very well and he got outall of the infection, scoured the location and found a healthy spine and muscle/nerve network. I said I’d make him a cartoon depicting his crew hard at work.

Thank you. I’ve worked in research ethics for over 23 years and interacted with many surgeons and specialists. Very few share their human side as you just did. It was refreshing.

I was an X-ray tech for 25 years and MRI tech for 20 before I retired. I worked in surgery as a Tech, at a 31 room surgical floor in a large hospital in Houston as my first job. It was a huge lesson in surgeons and the team that make up each surgery. Over the years I worked at different places and worked with orthopedic surgeons mainly and got to respect the work that most of them did. Your lessons brought back memories of watching the surgery while waiting to take the X-Ray, thanks.