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Julie Ann Freischlag, MD

Arch Surg. 2007;142(1):7.

This is my request for commentaries we plan on publishing each month in the ARCHIVES. We want to hear from our editorial board, our invited reviewers, and our readership on how they feel on any topic of their choice. We are looking for clinical, research, educational, political, or other passions that you would like to tell us about. We would like the commentary section to allow our readership to feel the "pulse" of surgery throughout the United States as well as internationally as many of our editors and readers are from many foreign countries. These should be short (1400 words) and poignant—make us think and feel!

I most recently traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, and Istanbul, Turkey, to visit hospitals in each of those cities with which Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have an affiliation. I traveled with 2 of my assistant professors for the week. It was an amazing experience. To visit places and surgeons outside of the United States in those areas was a first for me. The enthusiasm for surgery was the same at both places; however, the struggles to practice and access new technology were much tougher than what I experience here in Baltimore. I went in May. You can imagine how I felt come summer when war broke out again in Lebanon—what emotions I have had. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with my young colleagues. I learned more about who they are and how they felt, and they taught me more than they will ever know. I would recommend listening to the upcoming, younger generation. They are different; they see things in an alternate light; and they know where we need to go. Taking some extra time to have conversations outside of the hospital and operating room is so important in understanding your faculty, colleagues, residents, and medical students. You may not need to travel so far—or to a place that few go—but the conversation can still take place. I would highly recommend it. It will create a better environment in which we all work.

So, send us your commentaries. We want to know what you are thinking . . . and feeling.

AUTHOR INFORMATION
Correspondence: Dr Freischlag, Archives of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University, 720 Rutland Ave, Ross 759, Baltimore, MD 21205 (archsurg{at}jama-archives.org).

Financial Disclosure: None reported.

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