‘The pressure paralysed my ability to function’: Surgeon describes his nightmare year with the yips
A US surgeon tells 6minutes he’s highlighting the time his 'head got in the way of his hands' to help younger doctors.
“The operating theatre became a courtroom to me and I felt on trial”.
Dr James Naples is talking about his time as a trainee surgeon when he experienced what gets described in the sporting arena as the yips — that repeated spasm of anxiety in the heart and the sudden and unexplained loss of the ability to act despite knowing what you need to do.
“For an entire year, early in my training as a surgeon, I struggled to perform even the simplest procedure,” the Harvard Medical School otolaryngology surgeon wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
“I woke up early and stayed late. I willed my skills to get better. They didn’t. I performed countless simulations and repetitions.
