This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Draw upon the 'Art of Surgery'
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
In a previous blog, I mentioned the value of preparation as a means to bring your “A” game to the operating room. I delineated the 5 Ps: prepare (read), plan (the steps), practice, picture and pray.
One of the best ways to consolidate preparation for me is to draw out the steps of the surgery the evening before the surgery. When I practice and rehearse this step, the cases indeed progress more lyrically and smoothly.
Drawing is a left hemispheric function. The visual spatial skills surgeons so desperately need are mobilized and consolidated. Drawing brings clarity as well as confidence. In order to draw anything, we must first have the image in our mind. When we imagine the surgery, we have – as Steven Covey states in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – successfully completed the first creation.
Conversely, if we are unable to draw out the steps of a surgery, we are simply not prepared.
Drawing further tests our understanding of pertinent anatomy. As I often chide our residents, “if you think you know the anatomy, try drawing it.” I recognized this truth the first time I tried to sketch the bony anatomy of the elbow from memory. I failed miserably because my image – my first creation – was incomplete.
When we draw the relevant anatomy and rehearse the steps well before the case, the stress dissipates, creativity expands and we truly bring our best selves to surgery. Remember the timeless advice of master surgeon Maurice Muller, MD: “The OR is a bad place to think.” Thought should be exercised before the case so we can perform surgery at our best.
Get back to the drawing board and watch the cases flow.