Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)
Inspiring and Developing Young Academic Surgeons
The Academic Surgeon is the official blog of the AAS. We post anywhere from one to three times a week and our contributors will focus on issues relevant to young academic surgeons, residents, fellows, and even medical students.
If you would like to contribute, please submit your post here: https://www.aasurg.org/the-academic-surgeon-blog-submission/
From January, 1909, through April, 1910, Abraham Flexner1 traveled throughout the United States and Canada on a trip that revolutionized North American medical education. He visited every one of the existing 155 medical schools and, by the end of 1910, had published his report detailing the resources and practices of all these schools.2 Startlingly, he …
I never thought I was going to be the attending who started off a sentence with “when I was a student/resident…” But one day, I realized, I had become that person. It was not to prove that I worked harder checking labs or rounding on my patients. It was in a different context. I was …
We all remember our first experiences seeing patients during medical school and wondering “Am I doing this right?” During medical school hours upon hours were spent buried in books, journals, and occasionally attending lectures, to build a base of knowledge that would allow us the privilege of providing care to patients once in the clerkships. …
I’ve been thinking a lot about death. No, I’m no more depressed than usual, and I’d tell you if I were. I’m thinking about death in the Atul Gawande Being Mortal way, the way Shoshana Berger writes so eloquently about in an outstanding essay. Palliative medicine, I’m hoping beyond hope, is finally starting to make …
In my fourth year of general surgery residency, I traveled on a surgical medical mission trip to Guatemala with a recent emeritus surgeon, another surgeon in the midst of his busy surgical practice, and a team of nine others including another surgery resident, nurses, and an engineer. The experience I had was invaluable and exceeded …
Congratulations to the six new Councilors who will be representing the classes of 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and resident/fellows. We look forward to their future leadership! Thank you to all the outstanding candidates who self nominated. There are many opportunities to get involved in the AAS, including the committee self nomination process that is …
When filling out my hospital profile, I was asked to list my hobbies. Admittedly, after an eye roll, I wrote theatre and running and adamantly told the staff to please not put my hobbies on the webpage. Like usual, my requests were completely ignored, and my hobbies were listed after my lengthy training and board …
‘These are the duties of a physician: First… to heal his mind and to give help himself before giving it to anyone else.’ ~Epitaph of an Athenian doctor, 2AD Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever; the capacity to recover quickly …
During his travels, Odysseus must navigate a narrow strait where are on one side is Scylla, the legendary sea monster known to devour men alive and on the other is Charybdis, a terrible whirlpool known to destroy entire ships. What is he to do? This feeling of dread of having to make a choice between …
Over the last several years of my training in medical school and residency, I found myself drawn to transplant surgery as a career. I was drawn to transplant for reasons similar to why I was initially drawn to surgery—requires dedication, ambition, a strong work ethic, technically challenging, and an opportunity to fundamentally change patients’ lives …
