Category: surgery

Of the many thousand operations I did in my surgical career, most were life-improving rather than life-saving. To me, life-saving implies immediate or imminent risk of death: gunshot wounds, stabbings, gastrointestinal bleeding or perforations, punctur…

“Man is a dupeable animal. Quacks in medicine, quacks in religion, and quacks in politics know this, and act upon that knowledge. There is scarcely anyone who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling…there is scarcely a disease for which a cha…

We don’t always choose to tap into the power of our emotions. Our reluctance frequently comes from our background, as the transformation required to channel our feelings is uncomfortable, forcing us to examine our biases and sit with them. Even t…

Every surgeon dreams of the day when they’ll wield the cold steel of the scalpel independently. Of the day they’ll see their name on the daily operating room (OR) schedule. Of the day they’ll be the one leading the surgery team. Of th…

An excerpt from A Surgeon’s Knot. The phone jarred Jackson Cooper, MD’s weary, anxious brain into consciousness from the edge of sleep. He jumped up, dropping the receiver on the cold floor of the call room. “Hello,” he said, te…

It’s no secret that health care workers are some of the most stressed and burned-out professionals in the workforce. Health care was a tough job even before we had to bear the brunt of the worst of the pandemic. Even now that we’re nearly f…

The alarming rise in physicians resigning from their roles is a testament to the severity of the crisis. Where physicians were once the pillars of health care, delivering vital services to their communities, they now find themselves struggling with dim…