Thinking outside the box and operating smarter with Dr. Philip Haigh

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Episode details:

Dr. Philip Haigh is an endocrine and oncologic surgeon at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center (KP-LAMC), and a Clinical professor at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J Tyson School of Medicine. He is a regional resource within the Southern California Permanente Medical Group for treating patients with complicated thyroid, parathyroid disease, and sarcoma. His research interests are  focused on population studies on primary hyperparathyroidism and thyroid disease, and more recently in surgical ergonomics, particularly MSK pain in surgeons. He was a founding member and the first treasurer, and is currently the president of the Society of Surgical Ergonomics.

In this episode, Dr. Haigh:

- Shares his story of experiencing work-related neck pain, which eventually led to his interest in the field of surgical ergonomics and his role as a founding member and inaugural treasurer of the Society of Surgical Ergonomics (SSE)

- Discusses how he  was inspired to change his workflow around neck surgery by using the operating microscope for thyroid surgery (based on one paper that mentioned a potential ergonomic benefit)

- Describes his reasons for continuing to use the operating microscope  for thyroid surgery i.e. superior lighting and magnification (obviating the the need for a headlight and loupes respectively). His experience with this technique and findings are summarized in this paper published in the American Journal of Surgery

- Stresses the importance of microbreaks and stretches as interventions to improve surgical ergonomics and shares his experience implementing them at his institution

- Emphasizes his experience on operating with another surgeon for long and complex cases to reduce both the physical and cognitive load and hence,  working "smarter"

- Shares his vision for his role as the next President of the SSE

You can reach Dr. Haigh on X and LinkedIn

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