Interview with a Surgical Assistant

Jenifer Silverman is a surgical assistant at Beth Israel Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Jenifer took a moment to answer some questions about the life of a surgical assistant.

What is your relationship with your patients like?

I have a good relationship with my patients. Some patients I only see once or twice, but others are repeats that I get along with really well. It's always nice to see some of those patients on the schedule. You start to get to know more about them and their interests and families, and they get to know a little bit about me, too. I work part-time and I have a couple of patients who request to come back when I am there, which is always nice.

What is your relationship with the surgeon(s) like?

I have a good working relationship with the surgeons I work with. I work mostly with a plastic surgeon, but I also do some per diem work in interventional radiology. They are all willing to teach and explain why they are doing certain procedures and why they use certain instruments or materials, such as suture type and size.

If you met someone who was thinking about becoming a surgical assistant and could give them one piece of advice about how to succeed on the job, what would it be?

It takes a lot of hard work to become a physician's assistant, but is very rewarding. Once you get a job, show up on time, listen, and watch how the surgeon likes things done. Try to anticipate the surgeon's next move so you can be ready when they need the next item. Find out what cases you will be working on ahead of time and read up on them. Each surgeon has their own personality and likes things done their own way. It can take some time for the surgeon to fully trust you and allow you to do things independently, such as suturing.

What kind of advancement might there be down the road from your current role?

The next step for me would be to go to medical school and become an MD. I now have to practice medicine under the supervision of a physician. If I wanted to practice medicine without needing supervision, I would need to become an MD. The nice thing about being a physician's assistant is that I can move laterally into different specialties without going back to school, so I can go to a different field. If, however, I wanted to become the one in charge during the surgery, I would need to go back to medical school.

What skills have you learned along the path to your current position?

While in school, I learned certain surgical skills during my didactic curriculum. I then got to put them to use while in the clinical year. I went to Cornell's physician's assistant program that had a surgical focus, so during the first 10 months, I practiced many different types of suturing on pigs' feet. I also learned ways to help assist the surgeon. Then, during clinical year, I had six surgical rotations where I was able to put what I learned to use and assist different surgeons in many different settings and specialties.