Brevity

Everything about surgery, except surgery, is brief.

A prime example:

On rounds the other day, an intern was presenting a patient who I had seen the previous night. The surgery team was consulted to rule out ischemic colitis, which is a surgical emergency. As often happens, the chief resident interrupted the intern after about 2 minutes into his presentation and jumped to discussing the plan, all the while making movements toward the patient's room.

Since we had skipped the physical exam part of the intern's presentation, the chief turned to me as we were entering the patient's room and asked me, "What did you find on physical exam?" I knew that I had exactly three seconds to respond, so I said quickly, "Abdominal pain was not out of proportion to exam." The end.

Doctors use objective facts like physical exam findings and laboratory data to communicate opinions. In this case, I needed to tell my surgery chief, "I don't think this patient has a surgical belly," using one sentence summarizing my physical exam. That's a lot harder to do than it sounds, which is probably why my chief rewarded me with high praise: "I'm glad you said that; it's exactly what I wanted to hear."