Urologists advocate for resources to help surgeons prepare for, cope with adverse events

Editor's Note

Adverse events are a ubiquitous, inevitable consequence of surgical practice, and more must be done to support surgeons before and after they occur.

This is the central message of a video published March 27 by Urology Times, in which British urologist Kevin Turner, MA DM FRCS, of Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Bournemouth University, follows up on the recent Urologic Oncology paper “Hospital and departmental level strategies for managing the impact of adverse events on surgeons.”

While acknowledging that patients and their loved ones are always most affected by adverse surgical events, Turner points out the potential of the impact on surgeons’ future performance leading to further events that affect more patients and families. As a result, more must be done on two fronts. First, more must be done to prepare surgeons for dealing with adverse events, including work centered around resilience and psychological flexibility. Second, more must be done to support surgeons after the fact. 

“If we do nothing else, we must talk to each other about this more,” he says. “Just talking about it helps to mitigate that adverse event.”