Tens of millions of patients undergo surgery every year in the United States, yet very few have the opportunity to be on the other side and observe a surgical procedure in action.
I had that rare privilege recently in the course of writing a story for Stanford Medicine magazine about surgery and how far the field has come in recent decades. The operating room, I discovered, is a world unto itself. It's governed by a strict set of rules to help safeguard patients, but within those strictures, there is an elaborate kind of dance and much artistry in the way clinicians work together and finesse the tools to help heal their patients.
Sepideh Gholami, MD, a six-year surgery resident at Stanford who is featured in the story, said it was in part this sense of artistry – the movement, rhythm and pacing – that attracted her to the profession. And like many surgeons, she found it gratifying to be able to use her hands to fix a problem to quickly restore a patient’s well-being. She describes one of her early experiences, assisting in a procedure to remove a life-threatening tumor from a young man’s colon.
“I remember going to the family afterward, saying that we were able to get it all out, and seeing the glow in their faces,” she told me. She said it was reminiscent of the experience of her own mother, who had a tumor extracted from her breast: “This is how it happened for my mom, who is now disease-free,” she said.
In the story, Gholami talks about her rather unusual path from an early childhood in revolutionary Iran to becoming a surgeon in the United States, as well as the changes in the profession that have opened the way to young women like her. The story also explores the remarkable innovations in technology that have made the patient experience today far less invasive and less painful. Those innovations, as well as new workplace rules that limit trainees’ hours, have dramatically changed the way young surgeons like Gholami are being trained to become the independent, skilled practitioners of the future.
Previously: Stanford Medicine magazine opens up the world of surgery
Photo of Gholami by Max Aguilera-Hellweg
