Ann Surg. 2019 Dec 2.

Coaching as a Mechanism to Challenge Surgical Professional Identities

Byrnes, Mary E.; Engler, Tedi A.; Greenberg, Caprice C.; Fry, Brian T.; Dombrowski, Janet & Dimick, Justin B.

Summary

Centered around the theme of the “surgical personality,” researchers analyzed exit interviews with 34 bariatric surgeons after a 2-year surgical coaching program in the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative. They found that surgical coaching offers an avenue for surgeons to be vulnerable and allow them to improve outside the confines of potentially caustic professional norms, thus improving the culture of surgery.