Doctority: Plastic Surgery

Doctority: Plastic Surgery treats the choice of a plastic surgery residency as something best understood from inside the program. Each numbered episode centers on a single institution. Jenna talks with residents there, and the conversations follow a stated structure: 'the logistics, the leadership, and the lifestyle' of training at that program. The logistics turn out to be very concrete. Jenna asks residents to walk through what each level of trainee does at each stage of a procedure, and they answer in operating-room terms. Dr. Spencer Anderson, a fifth-year resident at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, recalls watching one facelift as a second-year and then being allowed to take the lead on one side of the face in the next. That early exposure, he says, is what gave him confidence by his third and fourth facelifts. At Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Dr. Michael Baratta and Dr. Ying Wu describe how the work is divided on deep flap cases. Juniors close the abdomen. Seniors work on the microsurgery alongside the attending, and one resident describes taking on more and more of the microsurgery, including the vein anastomosis. Autonomy comes up in both conversations. The second strand is the Time's Up PRS Plastic Surgeon Spotlight, made in collaboration with an initiative that promotes diversity in plastic surgery education and leadership. These episodes swap the program tour for the career story. Dr. Marco Ellis, an assistant professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, recalls running to work because the train did not start early enough, then showering and pre-rounding before heading to the operating room. He credits senior surgeons who wrote letters for him and sponsored him, and says he tries to do the same for students now. Dr. Amanda Gosman, Chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine, describes a busy county hospital in Cleveland whose militaristic, male-dominated culture made her question which specialty to choose. Dr. Steven Williams, founder and lead plastic surgeon of Tri-Valley Plastic Surgery, speaks about the under-representation of African-American men in the specialty and about patients who seek him out for that reason. He says he would rather amplify the conversations happening now than dwell on bad stories from years ago. In an episode framed around Black History Month, Rose speaks with Dr. Yemi Ogunleye, who is introduced as Director of Transgender Surgery. Ogunleye tells aspiring surgeons that intelligence is common in a hospital and that the real test is being present around the clock. The two strands work together: one shows what training looks like day to day, and the other shows what a long career in the field has demanded. For a listener comparing programs, the residency episodes are the natural place to start, and the spotlights add a view of the road beyond them.