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Dr. Cameron Roth is a fellowship-trained orthopedic doctor specializing in hand, wrist, and upper extremity surgery and co-host of the podcast, Behind the Sports Medicine Podcast.

In this episode we talk about what it actually feels like to finish training and go out into the world as an attending for the first time when the buck stops with you.

We talk about imposter syndrome and the real divide between how men and women experience the culture of surgery, particularly orthopedic surgeons.

We touch on the fallacy of certainty. You train under one attending who tells you there is one right way to do things. Then you rotate to another attending who tells you the same thing about a completely different technique. Both are certain. Both are wrong about their certainty.

We also get into the first complication after training, and how it hits differently than anything you experienced as a resident.

We consider whether being a woman in surgery might be a superpower, or, perhaps, that surgery selects for badass women. The extra scrutiny, the bias, the being underestimated, done consciously, can produce antifragility. Not just toughness. The capacity to grow stronger under pressure. I think every surgeon, regardless of gender, needs to hear this reframe.

We also cover what genuine availability to patients looks like versus the kind that breeds resentment, and what it means to show up for patients from service energy rather than fear.

This one is for every surgeon who has ever stood at the scrub sink before a hard case and wondered why their career doesn't feel like they thought it should.