Syndicom

Young spinal surgeon seeks likeminded others for professional advice on challenging cases and camaraderie…

Camaraderie = from the French, camarade or comrade, circa 1840, meaning a spirit of friendly good-fellowship.

Ah yes, the first years out of school are always the hardest and you find yourself screaming silently ‘they never told me that during my training!’ But in all fairness, they couldn’t because the diversity of the ‘real world’ and all its complexity means a diversity of cases on which you get to work. Without the forthcoming Medpedia, we get to ‘learn on the pulses’.

In systems theory, any organism relies on requisite variety in order to survive its environment, that is, we need to develop the required variety of abilities to meet the various challenges we face in our environments. We exist in “necessary dynamic equilibrium”. Which would be great, if we could just get our heads around this case that presented itself this morning and challenges the limits of our abilities, or even recognition. What’s a young surgeon to do? surgeon to surgeon collaboration

Post a personal classified? Well, not really, but close. If you are a member of the Young Surgeon’s group on SpineConnect, with its 20 members and almost 50 cases, you post said challenging case with any images you have to the group, and seek the advice of your peers and a larger community.

The group is moderated by Dr Gary Ghiselli of Denver Spine and was started by both Gary and Dr Russ Huang who wanted to continue collaborating after they finished their training with Dr Henry Bohlman in Cleveland. As Gary tells it, ” we thought it would be a good way to continue collaboration even though he was in New York, I was in Denver and our other fellow colleague, Kevin McGuire was in Albany. It turned out to have a lot of interest from fellows starting their own spine practices and it continues to be a great outlet for young surgeons needing advice on new cases as well as a building block for a strong spine foundation.”

Indeed, as a group, the Young Surgeons Group hosts interesting cases presented by young surgeons with contributions by other young surgeons and advice from some who are more experienced. You can post a case, create a group, invite a colleague and browse other cases for similar ones to yours. Most cases receive a response from a group member within 12 hours, often receiving several within the first 24 hours of posting. Peers provide both clinical and personal support in many followup cases, to help with clinical decision making and long term patient care and recovery.

The Young Surgeons group has been active for over 2 years and its members are spread across the nation. It’s quite a peer network! So the next time, you feel the need for some requisite variety, sign up for SpineConnect (TM) at www.syndicom.com and join the Young Surgeons Group because as Forrest Gump says, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”. But somewhere out there, someone has had a similar experience and some collected wisdom to share.

If you are planning to attend the NASS conference in Toronto next week, remember to stop by the Syndicom booth (#1311) to learn more about SpineConnect or email us to schedule a demo!

Kirsten Broadfoot