{"id":178,"date":"2025-10-09T16:10:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T06:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/?p=178"},"modified":"2025-10-24T08:51:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T22:51:17","slug":"coaching-and-surgical-mojo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/coaching-and-surgical-mojo\/","title":{"rendered":"Coaching and Surgical Mojo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tCoaching and Surgical Mojo\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t

Dr Keryn Harlow<\/em>
With thanks to Dr Simon Edmonds and Dr Michael Wynn Williams.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

I finished my AGES fellowship at the end of 2021. I had just spent 2 years completing a rigorous training programme in minimal access gynaecological surgery and I was heading home to the South Island of New Zealand. I was going to be the only AGES accredited surgeon in my public hospital and I had developed sweet surgical skills I was dying to show off. It was going to be amazing and Women’s Health in Canterbury was on the up.<\/p>\n

6 months later, in June 2022, my surgical mojo was gone. Moving back to New Zealand at the end of 2021 meant MIQ (Managed Isolation and Quarantine), spending 7 days in a hotel room with my then 2, 4 and 6yo boys followed by a summer re-establishing our lives and routines in our home city. My bucket was empty. But I had sweet skills I could use at work. Except I couldn’t. There were major peri-operative staff shortages and the majority of benign operating lists were cancelled. When I did get a list, it was at short notice, and colorectal support wasn’t available. I was barely operating and when I was, I was increasingly avoiding pouch of Douglas dissection. I was isolated and I had to get my mojo back.<\/p>\n

I started clinical supervision, I quit obstetrics, I started running and I got a couple of surgical coaches. Coaching is a concept we are very familiar with in the sporting world but less familiar with in our own domain. Coaching is different to mentoring. A mentor is usually a long-term relationship for holistic professional and personal growth. This is important and so is coaching. A coach is usually a short to medium term relationship to improve specific performance and skills. The relationship is more defined and the goals structured. The benefits are both personal: coach and coachee report improved surgical and non-surgical skills in the operating theatre, and institutional- improved technique leads to shorter operating times and less complications but also higher surgeon retention due to reduced stress and burn-out (1, 2). Coaching is for everyone, regardless of career stage or prestige.<\/p>\n

Luckily, in the age of machines, coaching is potentially available for everyone. Video coaching is delightfully easy to engage with, even for a self-identified technology noob and there are several tele-mentoring platforms available. And for the skeptics, there is even evidence that video based coaching in gynaecology results in a greater time improvement for laparoscopic vault closure (3). Now, I’m not one to go quietly, so to speak, so I had the means to seek out coaching despite my isolation. But currently, there is no Australasian surgical coaching programme. We need coaches and we need a database, somewhere that people go for continued improvement or mojo-hunting. Do the coaches need to be expert surgeons? Not at all – the current coach of the All Blacks has never played for the team and Lewis Hamilton’s performance coach is a physiotherapist from New Zealand.<\/p>\n

So let’s get started. Scan the QR code below for your expression of interest in becoming an AGES coach or coachee.<\/p>\n

And if you’re waiting for the epilogue- yes, 3 years later, I have my mojo back and the recto-vaginal septums of the South Island are on notice.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\t\t\t

References:<\/h3>\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
    \n
  1. Megan S. Orlando, Caprice C. Greenberg, Sudha R. Pavuluri Quamme, Andrew Yee, Adrienne E. Faerber, Cara R. King, Surgical coaching in obstetrics and gynecology: an evidence-based strategy to elevate surgical education and promote lifelong learning, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 227, Issue 1, 2022, Pages 51-56, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.ajog.2022.02.006<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Cailey Gleeson, November 23rd, 2021, How Cleveland Clinic Has Saved $133M in Physician Retention, https:\/\/www.beckershospitalreview.com\/quality\/hospital-physician-relationships\/how-cleveland-clinic-has-saved-133m-in-physician-retention\/<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. A Multicenter, Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess Video-Based Surgical Coaching in Gynecology, Swift, Brenna E. et al., Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology, Volume 32, Issue 8, 701 – 708.e1<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\t\t\t\t\"Keryn\n\t\t\t\t

    Dr Keryn Harlow<\/em>
    MBChB, DipObs, FRANZCOG<\/em>
    Fertility Associates Christchurch<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Dr Keryn Harlow reflects on losing and rediscovering her surgical mojo, highlighting coaching as a powerful tool for performance, wellbeing, and career longevity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/escope.ages.com.au\/october-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}