The most important tool you have is your brain. The most important skill is knowing how to use it. If you’ve gotten this far, you have been blessed with above-average intelligence, but are you using what you’ve got? Are you driving that corvette like it’s a VW bus because you’re scared to use it? Are you afraid to make decisions?
When I’m looking for people to trust in, people to work with the first level is knowing they can do their job and that I can trust them to do that. Do you know the instruments? When I ask for something, can you find it?
The second level (and this is far more rare) is can you think?
If the patient starts bleeding and I ask for a lap and a hemostat do you grab the suction? Do you make sure there are plenty of laps available in case it turns into a mess? Or do you stand there and stare blankly back at me?
The same goes for students and new PAs. Are you willing to work and think? Or are you hoping someone else solves the problem while you stare off pretending to be thinking about it?
Being able to think is the #1 skill you need and the #1 skill you bring to the table. I’m not just a pair of hands in the OR. Honestly, half the time, I could be replaced by a good stack of towels if that were the case.
But in order to think you have to know the basics. If you don’t know the surgery, it’s hard to anticipate and help think through problems. If you don’t know “surgery,” it’s hard to be helpful when you aren’t familiar with a particular case. You have to know the ground work, and the same thing goes for medicine. If you don’t have the language and the basics you can’t think through the higher-level stuff.
The Final Step will help you to solidify the basics, the stuff you absolutly must know.
Get your copy here
Brian Wallace
