Time Zones, Jet Lag, and Surgical Focus: The Hidden Costs of Global Medicine
I once flew ten hours across three time zones, landed just after midnight, napped for an hour in a quiet call room, and scrubbed into a liver transplant before sunrise. The patient was prepped. The team was waiting. The donor organ had a narrow window before it would no longer be viable. That kind of […]
Mechanical Hearts and Broken Systems: When Tech Can’t Replace Trust
I’ve stood in the operating room while a mechanical heart pumped life through a patient’s body. It’s a miracle, really how far we’ve come. We can bypass nature with titanium valves, regulate arrhythmias with pacemakers, and 3D-print parts of a human face. Technology, in many ways, is astonishing. But as much as I admire these […]
Archiving a Lost Economy: My Private Collection of Yugoslav Industrial Brands
The Unexpected Collector I never set out to become a collector. At least, not in the traditional sense. I don’t have rare coins or antique stamps. What I do have is a growing collection of everyday objects from a country that no longer exists: Yugoslavia. Old matchboxes, detergent labels, chocolate wrappers, soda bottles, notebooks, and […]
Reading Dostoevsky Between Procedures: How Literature Keeps Me Sane
Between the Scalpel and the Page There’s something strange, almost contradictory, about reading Russian literature during a surgical rotation. One minute, I’m closing an incision with practiced precision; the next, I’m in the staff lounge, nose buried in The Brothers Karamazov, pondering the meaning of free will. People often ask me how I unwind after […]
Burnout and Bravery: Lessons from the Longest Shifts in My Surgical Career
The Shift That Never Ends I remember one night in particular—48 hours with barely any sleep, scrubbing in and out of emergency surgeries, the hospital lights growing dim in my mind even as they stayed bright overhead. The shift was so long, I started to lose track of time. My body ached, my eyes burned, […]
Surgery Without Borders: How Medicine Becomes a Universal Language
A Global Journey in the OR As a surgeon, I’ve had the unique privilege of stepping into operating rooms on nearly every continent. Each time I put on scrubs and wash my hands at the sink, I’m reminded that medicine, and especially surgery, is one of the few professions where the rituals, the ethics, and […]