By Emily H. Shin, MD

At the beginning of my career, I wrote my “Leadership Philosophy” as part of my requisite Army leadership training. I wrote: “Great leadership starts introspectively. Developing and nurturing respect for oneself and encouraging others to do the same is fundamental to creating a cohesive, productive unit…This includes having confidence that one can get the job done, taking initiative, and having pride in personal and group achievement…my role as a leader is to communicate the purpose of the mission, convey and disseminate my passion for the mission, and give opportunities to my subordinates to rise to the occasion in execution.”

Now that it’s 5-6 years later, I am enjoying the opportunity to evaluate my philosophy’s success.

In practice, the surgeon is the leader, and the act of doing the surgery is the mission. The purpose is to improve the quality of life and function of the patient. I enlist the team members to join in with as much enthusiasm as possible. During my last deployment, we worked to save the lives and limbs of our partner nation’s wounded. As a surgical team, we worked closely with the special operations medics. I really enjoyed getting them to understand the anatomy of what we were accomplishing and how much they could help and participate in the act of doing surgery (for example, seeing their delight at what happens when they pull on extensor tendons in an open wound).

As in during operational surgical missions, I think I still live by my philosophy in my everyday practice teaching residents. The ability to help people through the faculties granted by title of “hand surgeon” is an amazing privilege and a gift. I take this very seriously. There are many amazing things we can do to save and improve the quality of lives for our patients. There is no greater joy than watching someone discover this for themselves.

I like to remind myself daily that this is the purpose of this other mission, which is to train the next generation of orthopedic surgeons and hand surgeons. As I become more senior in my department and in the Army (being a Lieutenant Colonel means you’re old!), I continue communicating the nobility in this purpose and hope to inspire my colleagues and subordinates to rise to the occasion.