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Facing Fear -- What Surgeons Can Learn from Commandos, with guest Dr. Doug Johnston: Episode 19
Surgeons spend years mastering the technical skills their job demands: How to cut, suture, repair and remove various parts of the body.
But there’s a crucial psychological component to surgery that’s not covered in textbooks or taught in medical schools, even though it can affect an operation’s outcome.
It’s the surgeon’s ability to manage stress and fear.
Operating room emergencies like a ruptured blood vessel, or the daunting complexity of removing a brain tumor, can overwhelm surgeons who aren’t prepared. But how do you prepare?
At Cleveland Clinic, the nation’s No. 1 heart hospital, cardiothoracic surgeons are looking to elite performers in other professions with high-risk and even life-or-death stakes – specifically, to military special forces operators, or commandos.
Working with a company called Arena Labs founded by a former Navy SEAL, the Clinic is studying the principles of elite performance under stress. Its cardiothoracic surgeons are learning ways to mitigate fear’s effects, through training sessions, virtual-reality simulations, and debriefings and performance reviews after each operation. They’re measuring the physiological impact of stress in the operating room. And they’re creating a “fear curriculum” to help surgical residents develop strategies to manage their anxieties.
Here to tell us about these efforts is Dr. Douglas Johnston. He’s a staff cardiac surgeon and researcher with Cleveland Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Institute. His specialties include replacing diseased or defective aortic valves, and repairing aortic aneurysms.
Dr. Johnston was a Presidential Scholar at Dartmouth College, where he earned an undergraduate degree in anthropology and spent time in India researching tuberculosis. He received his medical degree at Harvard Medical School, and was a general surgery intern and resident at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed his surgical training with a fellowship at Cleveland Clinic, and has been a member of the cardiac surgery staff there since 2008.
Our interview took place on the Cleveland Clinic campus.
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By The Cleveland Museum of Natural History
4.8
66 ratings
Surgeons spend years mastering the technical skills their job demands: How to cut, suture, repair and remove various parts of the body.
But there’s a crucial psychological component to surgery that’s not covered in textbooks or taught in medical schools, even though it can affect an operation’s outcome.
It’s the surgeon’s ability to manage stress and fear.
Operating room emergencies like a ruptured blood vessel, or the daunting complexity of removing a brain tumor, can overwhelm surgeons who aren’t prepared. But how do you prepare?
At Cleveland Clinic, the nation’s No. 1 heart hospital, cardiothoracic surgeons are looking to elite performers in other professions with high-risk and even life-or-death stakes – specifically, to military special forces operators, or commandos.
Working with a company called Arena Labs founded by a former Navy SEAL, the Clinic is studying the principles of elite performance under stress. Its cardiothoracic surgeons are learning ways to mitigate fear’s effects, through training sessions, virtual-reality simulations, and debriefings and performance reviews after each operation. They’re measuring the physiological impact of stress in the operating room. And they’re creating a “fear curriculum” to help surgical residents develop strategies to manage their anxieties.
Here to tell us about these efforts is Dr. Douglas Johnston. He’s a staff cardiac surgeon and researcher with Cleveland Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Institute. His specialties include replacing diseased or defective aortic valves, and repairing aortic aneurysms.
Dr. Johnston was a Presidential Scholar at Dartmouth College, where he earned an undergraduate degree in anthropology and spent time in India researching tuberculosis. He received his medical degree at Harvard Medical School, and was a general surgery intern and resident at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed his surgical training with a fellowship at Cleveland Clinic, and has been a member of the cardiac surgery staff there since 2008.
Our interview took place on the Cleveland Clinic campus.