Urologist discusses when to say “no” as a professional

In this video, Phillip M. Pierorazio, MD, gives an overview of his presentation “No is a Complete Sentence: Setting Boundaries,” which he gave at the 25th Annual Fall Scientific Meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America. 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:

Please discuss your SMSNA 2024 presentation "No is a Complete Sentence: Setting Boundaries."

I was asked to speak about saying "no," and there are lots of people who give a great talk on this, and I tried to give my spin on that. Saying "no" is one of our biggest challenges in our careers as physicians, especially in academic careers, for people who are truly involved in the societies and committees and writing and grants and all of these different things. You just get pulled in so many different directions. And there's been a long, I think, false narrative in medicine about saying "yes" to as many things as possible. "That's how you get your foot in the door. That's how you get experienced. That's how you get established and known." And that is not true. The correct thing to do is say "yes" to the correct things, and to say "yes" to the correct things, you have to learn how to say "no," and it's really important to be able to do that. We only have limited energy and resources, mostly in terms of our cognitive function. There's only so many things we can work on and think about in a day. And once again, being purposeful, intentional about what we want to do, allows us to really focus our energies and focus our decision making, where we say "yes" and where we say "no."

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