As a surgical resident, the single most common prescription I write is for an opioid. While opioids are a very effective way to treat our patients’ pain after surgery, they are also at the center of an exploding public health crisis. Annual overdose deaths are at their highest rate ever and millions of American’s have […]
Pitfalls of social media in medicine
In recent years, social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Doximity, and Facebook have become important tools for surgeons to network, learn, educate, disseminate research, and to foster mentorship and long-standing professional connections. A recent Journal of Surgical Research article by Heather Logghe MD et al. describes how surgeons in particular can use Twitter to […]
Finding Your Own Strengths and Creating Your Path to Leadership
Leadership skills development is key to professional growth. Though not a specific competency expected of general surgery residents, we all expect our trainees to grown into team leaders over the course of training. In the General Surgery Milestones, leadership is not a specific category, but to achieve the highest competency, the trainee “assumes overall leadership […]
Gun Violence in the United States and a Trauma Surgeon’s Moral Question
Chris was dying when I first met him. He had been shot a few minutes before and was now in the trauma bay bleeding to death. I was the trauma surgeon on call; I operated on him. He had an iliac artery and colon injury. We repaired the artery and resected the colon, forming an […]
The Surgeon Stereotype
“What’s the difference between God and a surgeon? God doesn’t think He’s a surgeon.”1 Jokes like these are very commonplace; they poke fun at the notion that surgeons are arrogant, overconfident, and mean. As a fourth year medical student going into general surgery, I have been told by my classmates, residents, and attendings that I […]
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