Thread by @DrMacEwart

Tomorrow I will attend my last @ACOS_MSS Convention. Feels like yesterday resurrecting #surgery at TCOM. Now so many future DO surgeons follow this path. From nothing to national conventions (virtual & in-person) in 4 years.

You don’t stop being a leader when you feel failure.

I’ve mentored so many in surgery, and it will no doubt be tough to walk in those doors to a national convention of people who look up to me. This is definitely not how I imagined this last one going down. However…you don’t stop being a leader when you feel failure.

Throughout history, many of the “greatest of their time” leaders/commanders/professionals failed in the face of their respective colleagues. In fact, the way they handled that failure before their audience was the toughest form of leadership to follow through with. It’s not easy.

Being a leader of one’s colleagues and teammates takes time, extensive effort, and self-discipline. In the same manner, it adds pressure, heat, and scrutiny. It doesn’t yield to the feelings of inadequacy, or temporary moments of timidity. No. Leadership is frankly unforgiving.

A leader in the world of surgery is expected to guide those around them, perform brilliantly on every exam, and organize the entire community. They are demanded to be more than a surgeon of the community, they are to be a scientist as well.

However, the surgeon-scientist is measured by self-dignifying publications in one’s own name. This flies in the face of the humility found in true leadership. The field undervalues research done for greater purposes when no credit is ever given (institution research).

This unforgiving field demands more than excellent exams throughout medical school, more than honors in surgery, and more than a near perfect score of the surgical shelf board exam. No. It demands excellence on exams that reward the wealthy, and smite the poor.

If my “failure” is that I did not meet someone’s arbitrary quota on a single exam of many, in the face of these amazing past four years, then fine…call that failure. Who I’ve built-up, what I’ve built in this Fort Worth community, and what we’ve achieved together is worth more.

I will not stop being a leader in the world of surgery. No. I will lead through what someone insists on labeling as failure, and I will demonstrate that this “failure” spoken of is actually a setup for my greatest successes as a leader in this field.

The hockey player in me does not shy away from a broken and bloodied nose. No. He welcomes the next swing with a smile. I am bound and determined to lead by example through this feeling of failure, so that those who come this route in their lives will know they are not alone.

Soon, I step into my last national surgical convention with ACOS-MSS, but it is just the beginning for my time with the @ACOSurgeons. This chapter is ending, the next beginning, and I can’t wait to push onto new horizons! Thank you for reading my Friday thoughts being #unmatched.

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