A few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine. He’s an excellent spine surgeon, and we had done an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) a few weeks before. I was asking how the patient was doing. It turned out he did great and wound up going home that same day.
This is rare. I mean really rare. We don’t typically send ACDFs home the same day. We didn’t use to send hysterectomy patients home the same day. They’re even moving closer and closer to total joints going home the same day. (There are docs doing it, but it’s rare.)
Do you know what the key is to these miraculous moves?
Part of it is the surgery itself, blood loss, time, difficulty, expected pain, etc.
But that isn’t the number one thing. The number one thing is patient mindset. A patient who has the right mindset has a much higher chance of doing well, having a good experience and going home early.
Mindset is the key. You really can judge with pretty good accuracy who will do well after surgery just by meeting them. It’s not always true, but it is more often than not.
One of my favorite stories is about this guy who was probably 6 feet 5 inches tall, overweight and let’s say in his mid 50’s. He needed this big foot reconstruction. We explained to him that he would need to be totally non weight bearing for 2 months.
We outlined how difficult this would be and that if he walked on the foot he would tear apart all of the work and be worse off in than where he started.
“No problem.”
We spent a lot of time trying to talk him out of the surgery knowing he was going to struggle.
“No way. I can do it. I’ll get the knee walker, and I’ll be fine.”
We finally went ahead with the surgery.
Post-op visit number one he comes in walking on his foot.
“I’m a big guy. How am I supposed to stay off of my foot?” was his answer.
Mindset. Despite what he said, he was never going to do it. NEVER. We knew it. He knew it.
Finding the best surgeon on the planet to fix your foot doesn’t mean anything if you’re going to walk on it post-op day one.
I’m looking for people who want to be better. Better in every way, but most importantly better than they were yesterday. I’m looking for people with a growth mindset., people who want to succeed and be great. Those are the kinds of people I’m teaching in Physician Assistant Exam Scholars. No whiners, complainers or people who want to stay were they are.
If you want to get better Physician Assistant Exam Scholars is for you. The October issue covers memorizing and retrieving data. A simple tactic to make it easier to retain and use facts, but if you prefer, keep doing it they way you’ve been doing it. No worries.
Physician Assistant Exam Scholar’s Newsletter
Brian Wallace
