A pivot to integrate lessons on working within the medical system, along with clinical care is more important than ever, Xiaofei (Sophie) Zhou, MD, of University Hospitals, said.
Dr. Zhou, associate program director of the neurosurgical residency at Cleveland-based University Hospitals, spoke about the importance of broadening surgeon education during an upcoming episode of “Becker’s Spine and Orthopedic Podcast.”
Note: This is an edited excerpt.
Question: What are the most important shifts in spine and neurosurgery education that we need to see in 2026?
Dr. Xiaofei (Sophie) Zhou: I think one of the things that we all focus on is surgery itself. When you go through neurosurgery, it’s seven years of training, you do thousands of cases, you come out very experienced in surgery and you come out very nuanced in your decision making. That’s across the field in all of the different programs that I’ve seen throughout the U.S. But I think one of the things that we don’t have a focus on is: How does that translate in the current medical world? I think we see neurosurgery and surgery in any kind of medical practice as medicine itself, but it doesn’t exist alone. It exists in our medical system.
There should be a broader teaching of how medicine translates with insurance. How does that translate in private practice? How does that translate in academic medicine? What is an RVU? I think those are the things that we don’t focus on as much. At the end of the day, our greatest focus is our patients, and that should always remain true. But I think to be a better physician, we should understand where our patients are coming from and their financial backgrounds. What does it mean to take care of our patients, not just in their disease process, but what does it mean to get them access to care? I think that’s a really important part of medicine nowadays that we really should refocus on.
Q: How are you balancing between teaching innovations but also avoiding unnecessary interventions?
XZ: We’re always at the cusp of the next new thing, and you always think that the new thing you’re trying is going to be the next biggest and greatest [thing]. You have to really understand when you try something new, you have to look at if it effectively changes management of the patients. Does it provide good quality care? It’s not just this new cool thing, but [surgeons should ] really look at it with some amount of focus on: Is it beneficial to my patient for the cost, and is it beneficial to my patient for the effort?
One of the things that academic medicine does a really good job with to create that balance is that we do research projects. We look at outcomes, and I think really focusing on the outcomes being driven by the data is how you discern what is good and what is just flashy.
