The academic surgeon
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The Academic Surgeon Editorial G. A. Androulakis
It is a great honor and privilege to have this opportunity to express some of my thoughts regarding the qualitative – if I may call them so - characteristics of the personality of the academic surgeon. Throughout my long academic career, I have often found myself before the crucial question: what are the qualitative characteristics, the inherent otherwise classed as talent and / or acquired, namely education and skills, that compose the profile of the successful academic surgeon in a position of leadership. First, however, allow me to attempt to define the concept of the academic surgeon especially since in the anglosaxon bibliography the debate persists as to whether one same person can simultaneously distinguish themselves both as a clinical surgeon and as a theoretical academic teacher. Many, however, consider this very question an oxymoron or as an antinomy at least in terms of interpreting the term academic, as excessively or exclusively concerned with intellectual matters and lacking experience of practical affairs. This confusion unfortunately is neither uncommon nor rare when Hellenic terms are transferred to foreign bibliography and then repatriated with a different meaning. In this case, the very term “academic” refers to the highest educative master, namely the university teacher. Notably, the term itself has its roots in Plato’s Academy which was the famous philosophical educative institution founded by the philosopher himself. Consequently, it transpires that the term “academic” relates to the context of the university teacher and not to that of the theoretical surgeon. In other words, the profile of the academic surgeon personifies the meaning of surgery as a science and
G. A. Androulakis is Professor of Surgery in Medical School of National and KapodistrianUniversity of Athens This article initially formed part of lecture given at the opening ceremony of the New European Surgical Academy Congress in May 2009, Athens Greece
Art and clearly explains the label of the surgeon as surgical scientist, as the anglosaxons choose to call the surgeon [1]. It is already clear – I trust – that the academic surgeon maintains a remarkable balance between art and science. It is precisely the surgery that harmonically combines theory with clinical practice and skills and broad theoretical knowledge. It is the surgeon who is so beautifully painted by the words of Williams Longmire: “Developing and maintaining the technical skills that will identify an individual as a well trained surgeon and at the same time qualify him or her as a scientist”. These principles which prescribe the academic surgeon remain unaltered through time [2,3]. Thus the personality of the academic surgeon is a synthesis and consists of four [4] distinct unities: a) The Clinical Surgeon b) The Researcher c) The Teacher d) The Administrator and finally e) The Communicator. Allow me please to address them one by one.
The Clinical Surgeon I have always believed and continue to do so that first and
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