The Courage to Lead

High-risk surgery: the courage to fail.

Not so long ago, cardiothoracic surgeons were often called to see patients late in the natural history of their disease and asked to consider higher-risk operations. Most surgeons of an earlier era, when routine cases often carried a greater than 5% mortality, were willing to do this. The growth of intense institutional and public scrutiny of 30-day mortality has brought this era to an end. Thi...

Hardiness: The courage to grow from stresses

The recent emphasis on positive psychology is welcome, and has spurred much relevant research. But, there are still many unresolved conceptual and research issues, as more variables are being proposed as relevant. As part of this process, the present paper proposes hardiness as an addition to positive psychology. Hardiness is a combination of attitudes that provides the courage and motivation t...

Do you have the courage to change?

The anatomy of courage

subordinate to medical duties. It also gives rise to thoughts about medicine's need to venerate its own great men, and the biographical forms used in doing it. This edition is very easy to read thanks to the size of page and clear typography, but it is appreciably more expensive than secondhand copies of earlier editions that are readily available. This volume with its realistic introduction by...

Courage Unmasked

Lying supine, the technician uses my mask to bolt me to the treatment table. After he leaves the room, I feel alone, and at first, afraid. I see and hear the radiation machine move around me, but feel nothing. Minutes later, the door opens, and the mask is unbolted. This process is repeated almost daily for 2 months... After 2 weeks, the skin on my neck and inside my mouth becomes red, sore, an...