68. Surgeons are Not Superhuman with Dr. Kevin Turner

Kevin Turner, MA, DM, FRCS (Urology) is a Consultant Urological Surgeon at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.  In 2015, he helped to start the Surgeon Wellbeing Research Team with colleagues from the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University.  Kevin and team ran a UK national survey from 2016-2019 – data from which has helped us understand how complications affect surgeons, the pervasiveness of this issue, and helped to create important objective measures and definitions in the field – like the difference between complications and errors.  They also ran a randomized trial of resilience training in surgical trainees based on ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy).  Since then, Kevin has become a leader and mainstay at academic meetings bringing our understanding of the impact of adverse events and complications into a major spotlight.  Backed by data, but full of tremendous personal insight, this conversation is a must listen for surgeons who are interested in understanding why complications hurt us and how we can alleviate that impact to better care for our patients and ourselves.  

More from Dr. Turner: 

Surgery Harms Surgeons. What Can We Do? Journal of Urology. https://www.auajournals.org/doi/10.1097/JU.0000000000002861

Turner, K., Bolderston, H., Thomas, K., Greville-Harris, M., Withers, C. & McDougall, S (2022). Impact of adverse events on surgeons, British Journal of Surgery, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znab447

Bolderston, H., Greville-Harris, M., Thomas, K., Kane, A., & Turner, K. (2020). Resilience and surgeons: train the individual or change the system?  The Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 102:6, 244-247. https://doi.org/10.1308/rcsbull.2020.170

https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/impact-complications-and-errors-surgeons