Phillip M. Pierorazio, MD, on the importance of mindfulness

In this video, Phillip M. Pierorazio, MD, discusses the importance of mindfulness. At the 25th Annual Fall Scientific Meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, Pierorazio gave the presentation “Getting To Zen - Generating a Life Mission Through Mindfulness.” He is chief in the Section of Urology at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and professor of surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Transcription:

It's now become one of the more popular conversations I have with people is how to use mindfulness, or at least the principles of mindfulness, in a surgical practice. One of the ways I always start that conversation is, what's the goal? Why are we doing this? It started with a quest and an attempt to understand how we could have longer, more sustainable, healthy careers. We know doctors are burning out, but we know surgeons specifically, and urologists especially, higher rates of burnout, shorter careers, lot of recidivism. It's hard to retain people and keep them happy. Our lives are stressful. Mindfulness in itself, is not the cure. Sitting cross legged, or doing yoga are not going to prevent any of those things, but the foundations of mindfulness, which are really rooted in being intentional or purposeful, enjoying or being present in the moment and trying to be as non-judgmental as possible, or basically being able to take things as they are and stop acting so emotionally or irrationally. You take the foundations of those 3 concepts, it can help you have a much more productive, fruitful, enjoyable existence as both a surgeon as a and a human being.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.