Finding My Rhythm: Healing, Leading, Becoming

I was no longer a trainee. I was an attending surgeon now, experienced and confident—at least on the surface. When I was referred a young man in his early twenties with recurrent testicular cancer, I approached the case with both skill and caution. He had already undergone orchiectomy and chemotherapy for bulky retroperitoneal disease, but residual masses remained. The next step was surgical resection. It was a complex procedure, made even more precarious by the scarring in his lungs—a side effect of his chemotherapy.

The operation required not just surgical precision but a team that understood the delicate postoperative tightrope walk. Every medication, every fluid bolus could tip the balance in the wrong direction. I knew our OR and ICU teams were competent, but these cases were rare, and I worried about whether we had the depth of experience needed.

Because he had Medi-Cal, his options were limited. I reached out to colleagues at the county hospital where I had trained, a place well-equipped to handle such complexity. An attending I respected reviewed the case and assured me she believed I was the right surgeon, and our hospital could handle it.

I had an honest discussion with the patient and his family. Though developmentally delayed, he understood more than many realized. What mattered most to him, in that moment, was watching the Super Bowl. We scheduled his surgery for the day after.

He showed up for surgery with a handmade card in hand. It said how grateful he was to be in my care, that he trusted me. I tucked the card into my coat pocket, heart full.

The surgery went beautifully. No complications. I was cautiously optimistic.

He spent a few days in the ICU, then moved to the floor, doing well. Until he wasn’t. One night, his oxygen levels dropped and his heart rate climbed. No fever. No infection. Nothing that pointed to a clear cause. I rushed in, ran every test I could think of. Everything came back normal.

The next night, he coded. He died. Just like that.

I stood in the hallway stunned, holding the card he had given me, tears streaming down my face. His parents declined an autopsy. To this day, I don’t know why he died. And that not knowing… it haunts me.

We met with attorneys, reviewed every detail. There was no smoking gun, no missed test, no error to explain it. His parents looked at me not with blame, but with heartbreak. They asked the question I couldn’t answer: Why?

Every year on the anniversary of his death, they emailed me. Just to remember. Just to make sure I remembered. I always did. I always will.

That loss changed me. It made me hesitate, made me question my instincts. I felt let down by the system—by the attending who reassured me, by the limits of the care team, by the harsh reality that despite our best training, we didn’t know everything. But more than anything, I questioned myself. I pulled back from patient care. Not because I didn’t care—but because I cared so much it broke me.

I couldn’t accept that the system had failed this young man—but it had. With all our technology, all our skill, we still failed him. That truth unraveled something in me. I had always believed that if I worked hard enough, cared deeply enough, and operated skillfully enough, I could save people. But this case taught me a harder truth: no matter how good I was as a surgeon, I could not control every outcome. It takes a team. And even then—we are not gods.

As a leader, that was a reckoning. I had to wrestle with the painful paradox that I could be both healer and, inadvertently, a source of harm. That my hands, trained to save, could still fall short. Accepting our limitations—mine, the system’s—was one of the hardest lessons of my career.

In time, I came to understand that it wasn’t about being perfect. It was about being present. About showing up with integrity, owning my decisions, grieving the losses, and leading with humility. I began to lean not just on my skill, but on my faith—trusting that even in the moments I didn’t understand, God was working through me. I had to learn to surrender the outcome, to do my part with excellence and let go of the rest.

His card still sits in my desk drawer. A quiet reminder.
That healing is holy work.
That leadership demands courage—not just in the OR, but in the silence afterward.
And that some scars never leave us.
Nor should they.