Surgical Ergonomics from an Occupational Medicine Perspective with Dr. Claudia Corwin
This episode of the podcast is sponsored by PearsonRavitz Insurance. You can learn about them and schedule a consultation on my website at: https://pearsonravitz.com/surgicalergonomics/
Disclosure:
PearsonRavitz is a paid sponsor and the affiliate link above supports the podcast at no cost to you.
Episode details:
Dr. Corwin is a Clinical Associate Professor on the faculty of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. As both a surgeon and occupational / environmental medicine physician, she has broad clinical experience that informs her public health practice. She currently serves as Associate Director of Employee Health for the University of Iowa. In this role she engages her expertise in, collaborative work related to the health and safety of healthcare system workershazard recognition, evaluation, control, and policy development.
In this episode Dr. Corwin:
– Shares her journey from training in General and Transplant surgery and then switching career paths by pursuing her Masters in Public Health and training in occupational medicine
– Describes that surgeons, other proceduralists and OR personnel have a high rate of work-related MSK injuries, on par with prevalence rates in construction workers
– Defines work-related injury per OSHA’s description and the conditions that need to be met for a worker’s symptoms to be considered work-related (i.e. temporality and plausibility)
– Elaborates on the difficulties of instituting work restrictions for surgeons and proceduralists, both due to individual and system-related issues (lack of infrastructure). This is in contrast to the situation among departments of nursing.
– Clarifies the differences between impairment (loss of structure and/or function which is very algorithmic per AMA guidelines) and disability (inability to perform duties of the job)
– Shares her advice for early career surgeons/proceduralists i.e. urges them to get evaluated early by physical therapists familiar with the OR work environment and learn preventive strategies, not to ignore their symptoms and to share them with trusted colleagues and get the help they need
You can reach Dr. Corwin via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccorwin31/
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