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Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast

Clinical Challenges in Surgical Education: Power & Leadership

Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast

Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Education, Science

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever feel powerless in the clinical environment? You’re not alone - and you may have more power than you think. In this Clinical Challenges in Surgical Education, hosts Drs. Maya Hunt and Mckenzie Rowe explore power and leadership within surgical learning environments. Joined by guests Drs. Paula Ferrada, Chair of Surgery at Inova Fairfax, and Frances Mei Hardin, co-founder of the Hippocratic Collective, the team discusses frameworks of conceptualizing power, how it can be found at any point in training, and tips on how to identify and better wield our own power in learning environments.

Episode Hosts:
Guests: 
  • Dr. Paula Ferrada, Inova Fairfax, @pferrada1, paula.ferrada@inova.org
  • Dr. Frances Mei Hardin, Hippocratic Collective, @francesmeimd, francesmei@hippocratic-collective.com
Learning Objectives:
  • Identify different sources of power within individuals
  • Define framework of ‘power-over’ vs. ‘power-to/power-with’
  • Recognize how leaders (including residents) may wield different types of power in both harmful and helpful ways
  • Spark self-reflection upon how each of us wields our own power in our role
References:
  1. Brown B. Brené Brown on Power and Leadership. https://brenebrown.com/resources/brene-brown-on-power-and-leadership/. 
  2. Pansardi P, Bindi M. The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with. Journal of Political Power. 2021;14(1):51-71. doi:10.1080/2158379x.2021.1877001 
  3. Bolman LG, Deal TE. Power, Conflict, and Coalition. In: Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. 7th ed. Jossey-Bass; 2021:187-207. 
  4. Ferrada P. Breaking the silence: Addressing toxic leadership to restore psychological safety in healthcare. Forbes. October 8, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2025/10/08/breaking-the-silence-addressing-toxic-leadership-to-restore-psychological-safety-in-healthcare/. 
Sponsor Disclaimer:
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Transcript

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0:00.0

Behind the Knife, THE Surgery Podcast, relevant and engaging content designed to another exciting Behind the Knife episode brought to you by the collaboration of Surgical Education Fellows, also known as Kosef.

0:28.6

We hope you enjoyed our last episode on Gossip and we're excited to bring you another episode today.

0:33.6

I'm Maya Hunt, Kosef's Behind the Knife lead for this year, and I'm a general surgery

0:38.1

resident at Indiana University, where I'm currently finishing my professional development time

0:42.5

as a surgical education research fellow, while also obtaining my master's of health

0:46.3

professions education through the University of Illinois, Chicago. And I'm McKenzie Row,

0:51.0

another Kosef member and co-host for this episode. I'm a general surgery resident, but currently a surgical education and leadership fellow at a Nova Fairfax medical campus in northern Virginia.

1:01.3

And you might be wondering, what the heck is COSIF?

1:03.6

Well, we're a multi-institutional organization of surgical education research fellows, working together to foster peer mentorship, networking, and scholarly

1:12.0

collaboration. We meet every week to discuss ongoing research efforts by individuals or by smaller

1:16.9

groups within the team. If you're a surgical education fellow or a surgery resident interested

1:21.8

in education and you want to join KOSIF, you can find our email in the show notes. So today,

1:26.6

we're diving into something we don't

1:27.8

often talk about in residency, power. Why are we talking about this today, Maya? Well, power dynamics

1:33.3

in the surgical environment have been something I've noticed since medical school rotations,

1:37.3

where I saw subtle and not so subtle ways that power dynamics were at play amongst

1:41.2

attendings, residents, and students. During my fourth year, while listening

1:44.8

to an episode of Brunei Brown's podcast unlocking us about leadership and power that was unrelated to

1:49.8

medicine, it really made me realize how power is used should be part of the discussion around

1:55.2

leadership. And yet I wasn't seeing it within the sphere of surgical education. It was a present

1:59.8

absence, if you will.

2:01.4

It's definitely not something we talk about enough. I think it's because it feels pretty intangible

...

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