How do you continue to deliver optimal performance in the operating room?

“Operating rooms almost always deliver peak performance, and I wanted to know what ingredients make that possible.” So says Eduard Schmidt, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University.

“We study whether people feel free to approach their colleagues, even in situations where there is a lot of pressure, for example if they become dry or directive,” explains Schmidt. “In the literature you will find plenty of evidence that when everyone dares to speak up, better decisions are often made than when you follow someone with blinders on.”

According to Hamming, surgery used to be much more hierarchical than it is today. “That sometimes led to complicated scenes.” The surgeon says he considers it important in his own leadership to involve everyone during an operation. “If you’re very intensively involved in an operation – and certainly if it gets a little tense – then you tend to have a kind of shrinking of the world. Then you don’t see what’s going on around you. is a trap, and then it’s very good if there are people who take you out of this concentration. This way, you continue to check together if we are on the right track.

Hamming says surgical training has paid more attention to cooperation and communication over the past fifteen years. “It’s not just about your medical skills, it’s also about your professional behavior. That attention wasn’t there in the past.”