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September 21, 2015 by Alden Harken, MD

Reflections from 30,000 feet . . . Being a Surgeon

Now being a surgeon is gratifying, rewarding, invigorating, inspirational, happy and fun – but it is also hard. A lot of surgeons don’t know this, but being hard is a critically important part of the appeal of our discipline. In fact, if surgery were not hard, we would eschew the entire field of surgery as the exclusive and unenviable domain of a cohort of effete non-participatory flamingos who exclusively watch ESPN and Downton Abbey instead of fielding fungoes in the trauma bay.

But hard work is exhausting – unless, of course, you love it. Then it becomes fun. Surgical investigation is also gratifying: to identify a very specific problem, develop a strategy to analyze that problem, collect data, examine those data and share your observations with colleagues at the AAS and theAcademic Surgical Congress is exhilarating.

And finally, to communicate what we do to others – we call it teaching – is supremely gratifying, because all surgeons are pathological extroverts. The parties don’t start until we arrive. We are also proud of what we do. Unlike a personal injury lawyer, we are never embarrassed at a cocktail party to acknowledge that we are surgeons.

Katherine Graham, former editor of the Washington Post, perhaps said it best when she wrote, “The luckiest people in the world are the ones that are doing something that they think is important and that everyone else thinks is important.” – That’s us!

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Alden Harken, MD

Alden Harken, MD has deep roots within the ASC, having served as president of both the AAS and the SUS. He has been honored with the University-wide Lindback Award from the University of Pennsylvania , the Thomas Jefferson Award from the University of Colorado and served as a Regent of the American College of Surgeons. Following his two decade tenure as Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Colorado, he has now served as Chair of the Department of Surgery at UCSF-East Bay for 14 years. His proudest accomplishment, however, is the recent celebration of his wedding anniversary to a fellow medical student 49 years ago.

Latest posts by Alden Harken, MD (see all)

  • Reflections from 30,000 feet . . . Being a Surgeon - September 21, 2015

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