Resistance To Change In Today's Surgical Dogma

Today’s surgical dogma is tomorrow’s surgical dogsh*t, is a saying I heard throughout my residency. As many surgeries progressed from the previous standard of an open approach to laparoscopic and robotic approaches, surgeons were forced to adapt. At the beginning of the transition to laparoscopic and robotic surgery there was great resistance to change. As I neared the completion of my residency, laparoscopic procedures had become firmly rooted as a new normal and robotic surgery was right on its heels. As a resident learning, urologic surgery for the first time, my resistance to the change in surgical approaches was practically nonexistent. I was excited to learn new and advanced surgical techniques. I have always viewed myself as tolerant of some degree of ambiguity and uncertainty, more so than the general population. However, after taking the resistance to change questionnaire, my results revealed that my total resistance to change rating is actually about average. When reviewing the four measurement points of the questionnaire, my total average resistance to change …show more content…
Including my elevated cognitive rigidity score, as I frequently find myself telling others, that I like to do it the same way every time. This “cognitive rigidity” definitely is a byproduct of my surgical training. Many, if not all, surgeons are dogmatic about their methods, such that if an adverse event occurs, it is easier to discover the root cause of the event. Once, a hospital I worked in changed to a generic brand of suture that I used for an office based surgical procedure. I began to notice an increased rate of postoperative complications. When considering reasons for this increased rate of complications, the only change in the procedure had been the suture. Therefore, it was easy to identify why the outcomes had worsened. Changing back to the brand name suture alleviated the postoperative