OPERATION FAIL

ACK when I was a third-

B year medical student, I started thinking about a career in surgery. I can’t say I had any earth-shattering revelation regarding choosing this specialty. I just liked the intensity, the idea that you had to train really hard, but that, eventually, you’d have a really special skill that would allow you to open people up and fix things.

I thought surgery was ballsy. For me, it felt like a calling – albeit one that involved a massive commitment: to take someone’s life in your hands and be responsible for what happened next. It felt intoxicating, almost godlike.

Now, more than two decades after medical school, I feel the same way. I’ve made thousands – no, millions of decisions about patients, some big, some small, some right, some not, and almost all of which had some consequence.

Many – no, the majority of those decisions were right, but so many were wrong.

Most of my patients have done well, and yet I can vividly remember almost every one who didn’t. I can remember what they looked like when they were suffering or dying, the desperate sadness of their families, who felt helpless to make them better.

As strong as we surgeons are supposed to act in surgery, we all have to figure out how to deal with complications. Managing them medically is the easy part. The challenge is how to handle them emotionally.

‘I distinctly remember hoping, when he was really sick, that he’d just die’

Complications sit on your shoulders