Why Would A Chair of Colorectal Surgery Add Podcasting to His To-Do List?

Q: You are the editor of 7 surgery journals, in addition to being the chair of colorectal surgery — so why add podcasts onto your to-do list? Why do you think surgeons turn to this medium for information?

A: The podcast, Behind the Knife, is probably one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever done.

People get their information in new ways now. The wonderful thing about podcasts is that it’s passive learning. You can be running on a treadmill, out on a walk, or driving to or from work and listening to the podcast. It’s not like you have to divert your eyes and watch a screen.

We’ve found that a large range of people — from trainees to surgery department chairs to people outside of medicine — listen to the podcast. That’s why we do some educational aspects, but also life stories.

There are a lot of people out there who are “famous surgeons” or “famous people in medicine” and it’s wonderful to hear their stories first-hand. How did they come up with an operation? How did they get to their high-profile position?

In many cases, it’s outside of what you would think. They come from humble roots. Or it may be complete serendipity. But in many cases, the stories share the same factors. It’s through a lot of vision, hard work and persistence that these folks get to the point where the end is to advance not only themselves but, more importantly, their specialty and the care they provide patients.

It’s been really exciting to hear from these people: How did this come about? How did you do it? What did you do? We’ve had really good reception. We’re between 40,000 and 110,000 downloads a month of our podcast. I enjoy what we learn from each one of our guests, and hope our listeners do too.

— Scott Steele, MD

Chairman, Colorectal Surgery