The Good Surgeon
THE GOOD SURGEON
Forming surgeons of character, wisdom, and skill. Who are surgeons becoming as they learn to do this work? Surgical training is extraordinarily effective at teaching residents medical knowledge and technical skills. The Good Surgeon creates space within residency to attend to the human and moral dimensions of learning to practice surgery well.
Forming Good Surgeons
The Good Surgeon is a longitudinal formation program for surgical residents to wrestle with enduring questions. The program seeks to form surgeons who are not only technically excellent, but who also possess the character and practical wisdom needed to care well for patients and sustain a life in surgery. At its heart is a community rooted in friendship and mutual accountability—a place where residents and faculty can step outside the demands of clinical training to reflect together on the kind of surgeons they are becoming.
The Experience
Over the course of the academic year, residents and faculty gather for eight small-group dinner conversations organized around enduring questions of surgical practice and life:
● What am I aiming for?
● Who am I becoming?
● Who are my people?
● Who is my patient?
● Who are my patient’s people?
● How do we live after failure?
● How do we respond to brokenness?
● How should we then practice surgery?
The conversations are complemented by immersive experiences. We spend a morning together
at an art museum. We take trainees to the ballet. We learn to bake bread with a professional baker.
Together, these experiences cultivate practices of attention, reflection, and friendship that are
difficult to teach in the operating room alone.
By the Numbers
8
Dinner Conversations
3
Immersive Experiences
7
Current Institutions
2
New Sites in 2027
From Duke to a National Community
The Good Surgeon began at Duke through the collaboration of Ryan Antiel, pediatric surgeon and Director of the Trent Center, Brewer Eberly, family physician and MacDonald Agape Fellow at Duke Divinity School, and a faculty of friends.
What began as a local experiment in surgical education has grown into a national community of surgical residency programs:
Duke University • Wake Forest University • UNC–Chapel Hill • Rutgers • Georgetown University • Washington University in St. Louis • University of Michigan
Joining in 2027: Stanford University • UCLA
Faculty across the network share a common curriculum and learn from one another while
adapting the program to the culture and needs of their own surgical communities.
Train the Trainer
The Good Surgeon is designed to be led by faculty within their own surgical communities. Our Train-the-Trainer resources introduce faculty to the goals and structure of the program, the role of the facilitator, and practical approaches to creating the kinds of conversations and communities at the heart of the curriculum.
Ryan Antiel, MD, MSME and Bindu Thota, MD
Daniel Hall, MD, MDiv, MHSc & Kevin Ig-Izevbekhai, MD
Ryan Antiel, MD, MSME & J Brewer Eberly, Jr, MD
Ellen Raimond, PhD and Brewer Eberly, Jr, MD
Ryan Antiel, MD, MSME & Brewer Eberly, Jr, MD
Origins & Support
The original Good Surgeon curriculum and facilitator guide were created through a collaboration of surgeons, physicians, educators, humanists, and scholars at Duke and beyond and have continued to evolve through the experience and feedback of participating faculty and residents.
We are especially grateful to the surgical residents at Duke University and Wake Forest University who participated in the program’s earliest years. Their counsel, openness, and time were invaluable in shaping the program.
The Good Surgeon has received generous support from the Duke University School of Medicine Department of Surgery; Trent Center for Bioethics, Medical Humanities, and History of Medicine; Kenan Institute for Ethics; Duke Academy for Health Professions Education and Academic Development; and the Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine.
Learn more about The Good Surgeon