Brought to you by:
Corner Stitch: How to say ‘I messed up’
An anonymous vascular resident offers some advice for dealing with a troubling case in the latest edition of our Corner Stitch column by and for vascular surgery trainees. Little, if anything, in life prepares you for when you eventually cause…
‘Battlefield first aid’: A peer-to-peer prescription for dealing with adverse surgical outcomes
“Battlefield first aid” after a colleague has a bad case as the cornerstone of peer-to-peer support in vascular surgery was the feature of the recent Jesse E. Thompson, MD, Distinguished Guest Lecture at the 2025 Southern Association for Vascular Surgery…
Expiation, Karl Wallenda, Oppenheimer and us
On March 22, 1978, Karl Wallenda went up on a high wire in Puerto Rico strung between two high-rise buildings. There was no safety net. The winds were blowing hard. A crowd was massed below, awaiting the event. As a…
Of moral distress, coronavirus and implications for burnout
Moral distress has been described as “as a phenomenon in which one knows the right action to take but is constrained from taking it.”1 Continuous exposure to moral distress leads to moral injury. The term “moral injury” was first described…
Wellness: Of dreaming in blood and the ‘moral injury’ contained in a healthcare setting
Have you ever “dreamt in blood”? A vivid, waking nightmare that reminds you of exsanguinating hemorrhage that can’t be stopped? I have. An Iraqi war fighter who sustained catastrophic explosive lower-extremity and truncal wounds and required far-forward damage control resuscitation…