Scrubbing With Aristotle: Cultivating Surgical Wisdom through Inflection Points

Jonathan D D'Angelo; David A Cook; Anne-Lise D D'Angelo

doi:10.1016/j.jsurg.2023.08.018

Scrubbing With Aristotle: Cultivating Surgical Wisdom through Inflection Points

J Surg Educ. 2023 Dec;80(12):1751-1754. doi: 10.1016/j.jsurg.2023.08.018. Epub 2023 Sep 24.

Authors

Jonathan D D'Angelo¹, David A Cook², Anne-Lise D D'Angelo³

Affiliations

¹ Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Electronic address: dangelo.jonathan@mayo.edu.
² Office of Applied Scholarship and Education Science, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science; Division of General Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
³ Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

PMID: 37752024
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsurg.2023.08.018

Abstract

Surgical educators and researchers have well-considered a breadth of topics related to surgery. However, there is one concept that is notably absent in this corpus: surgical wisdom. In this perspective, we draw on work from Aristotle and psychology research to introduce the concept of phronesis, which we believe is useful for understanding surgical wisdom. We further illustrate how this concept can be a useful tool for surgical educators through the discussion of four distinct functions of phronesis, and illustrating the ability of these functions to help learners cultivate knowledge at important decision points, or inflection points, in surgical training and a surgical career.

Keywords: knowledge; mentorship; phronesis; teaching; wisdom.