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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2006;30:825-826
© 2006 Elsevier Science NL
Editorials |
Department of Thoracic Surgery, Sureyyapasa Thoracic and Cardiovascular Diseases Teaching and Investigation Hospital, Istanbul, TR-34854, Turkey
* Tel.: +905322660234; fax: +902163520954. (Email: semihh{at}atlas.net.tr).
It was a tremendous honour for me to have been elected, last year, as the President of the Society. The president is elected by the members to represent the Society in every aspect for a given period while directing the Society with the governing body towards the righteous goals. Please believe me that there are few responsibilities in a person's life heavier than this.
I was introduced to ESTS in 1996 and elected as the National Regent in the same year. Then, in 2000, I was elected as the Councillor in London. Until 2004, I worked for the Society in the Council and had the opportunity to serve more by organizing the annual meeting in 2002 in Istanbul. And now we are in 2006 and I have the unique privilege to address such a distinguished audience here as the President of the Society. All these accomplishments are the result of a letter I had written to a surgeon to discuss a patient I had operated on. This gentleman introduced me to this Society. My deepest regards and thanks are, and will always be, for my friend Professor Guillermo Ramos of Valladolid. The years, indeed, were not always so smooth or relaxed; I cannot find any words sufficient enough to thank from within my heart my loving wife and my lovely daughters, who have always given their endless support and incredible understanding to me during the very busy and sometimes very stressful years.
Our unique specialty
As a thoracic surgeon, I have always been asking some questions to myself about the specialty we are in. I am pretty sure that most, if not all, of the thoracic surgeons have asked or will ask similar questions at least once in their professional life. The questions arise generally on the fact that the fields of medicine we are dealing with consist of one of the most challenging situations in terms of preoperative and operative difficulties as well as the postoperative consequences of the operations performed. Surgery in our specialty is demanding. Our patients and their families are not the happiest ones in the Hospital. In spite of high speed progression in medicine, the survival rates of our patients with lung cancer have unfortunately not improved in parallel to this advancement in the last decades. We have not become one of those surgeons who can promise high survival rates to their patients and the families while they are desperately waiting to hear just one promising word from us.
All the area of our daily practice is full of challenges that sometimes can make us happy, however, in long term it leaves us asking that unavoidable question to ourselves: what is our driving force against the difficulties of our field?
Countless authors including the spiritual leader of one religion have written numerous books about the art of happiness saying briefly that ‘the very motion of our life is towards happiness’. There is no doubt that this statement is true: we all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. Now, we should come to the answer of the question of how a thoracic surgeon can find the way to happiness in spite of his or her very difficult daily practice. The answer lies simply in one word: enthusiasm. This makes us happy while we are working in a field of challenge and this is the main energizing drive for us and, this helps us do our job better and better every day.
Enthusiasm: the art of happiness for a thoracic surgeon
Enthusiasm means great excitement for or interest in a subject or cause. It comes from Greek enthousiasmos with a meaning of ‘to be inspired by a god’. Maybe the best explanation of this word was made by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his famous saying: ‘nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm’.
Enthusiasm is the main difference between two things, two persons or two lives. It is a power that creates the difference; a person who has this gift will eventually differ from those who do not have. When the matter comes to medicine, enthusiasm turns into a vital word that every person serving people in need has to have. Nevertheless, not all people in medicine can be expected to have the same level of enthusiasm as they do not have the same level of other essential characteristics of our practice that is knowledge, acquired ability and natural talent. While comparing these characteristics with enthusiasm, we should have a closer look inside of these words separately to understand their sources clearly.
Knowledge
We all want to have more knowledge to take better care of our patients, to define ourselves to our patients and colleagues better and to have a higher career and income. We all want all of these things for our happiness.
We need to dedicate our time and effort and sometimes spend our financial sources to achieve increase in knowledge. What is the reason of spending our time reading sources, collecting data, focusing on ‘whys’ and writing and sharing our experiences with other colleagues? Why do some people have more knowledge than others? They have more knowledge because this is the only way to keep their burning fire alive. Their enthusiasm directs them to the knowledge. Indeed, knowledge is an unchangeable part of the meaning of enthusiasm.
Acquired ability
Acquired ability differs from natural talent in that it is gained by repetitive exercises. Most of the people stand at the same distance from the ability gained by work. If we all work for the same duration on the same subject, all of us will have gained almost the same acquired ability from what we have worked on. It is unavoidable that you will be the one who is practising better with increased ability if you work harder and longer by dedicating more time and energy. All people work but some people work harder. Indeed, the person who works harder will be differentiated from the others with his differentiated ability created by his differentiated enthusiasm.
Natural talent
Most probably, one of the greatest wishes of a surgeon is to have a natural talent to perform those magical operations with zero complication rates, in the fastest mode ever, with highest postoperative comfort and survivals. But, we should keep in mind that in essence, a person need not be talented to be prominent among others. Talent by itself is of no value unless it is in the right place and at the right time. I am sure that there are some Picassos, Mozarts or Shakespeares among us performing surgical operations everyday at the operating theatres and giving all their energy to ‘how to increase survivals’. Similarly, a person who may have talent to create very simple instrument, which could take the role of the lungs after bilateral pneumonectomy, may now be engaging with TV repair somewhere. If you are not in the right place your talent does not mean anything. How could you be in the right place? If you have passion enough to follow your own way you will be able to be in the right place where your abilities could reach to the stars. Passion is another meaning of enthusiasm.
The passion we have for our specialty is the main power that gives us the energy to withstand against all the difficulties of our job. This enthusiasm leads us to acquire more knowledge, use our abilities and realize the talents we have. In the absence of enthusiasm practice of thoracic surgery could be painful for the surgeon and harmful for the patients.
Some people spent their years to give shape to the rocks centuries ago to operate a patient. Some people lived in the laboratories to find the smallest enemies of human being. With the inheritance of this chain of enthusiasm for doing good things for the benefit of mankind, a group of surgeons with great passion for thoracic surgery established a Society in Europe 13 years ago. The aim of this new establishment was to strengthen the thoracic surgical practice as well as to increase the place of thoracic surgeons in Europe to the point they deserve.
By considering increasing needs of membership in parallel to increased request for better patient care in Europe, the responsibility of ESTS now is to provide the platforms for its members to make them reach the knowledge, increase their abilities and realize their natural talent. Everyone has to be sure that such a great Society of people with unique enthusiasm will always have the power to realize these goals under any circumstances.
Footnotes
\#9734; Presented at the 3rd ESTS Spring Meeting in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, May 12th 2006.
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