Bart-Jan Veen: The 2am Job Interview In Board Shorts
from Inside The Shoulder Hosted by Dr. Kenneth Cutbush
Bart-Jan Veen was in Byron Bay when the interview for his next post came through. It was the middle of the night in Australia and the middle of the working day in the Netherlands. He sat down in board shorts and a tie while drunk surfers walked past shouting at the screen. He got the job. The Dutch shoulder surgeon talks about the fellowship year that reset his career. He arrived in Brisbane in 2020, days before the country locked down, with his wife and two young sons and no support network at all. His eldest had to start school in a language he did not speak. Bart-Jan is unusually direct about what the year taught him that had nothing to do with technique. That a surgical practice is a business and you have to be willing to build a name, which he says is close to taboo in Dutch medicine. That committing to a single joint rather than hedging across hips, knees and trauma is what actually accelerates a career. That the operating room rewards the surgeon who stays calm and finishes the case over the one who panics. They also discuss the arthroscopic releases that changed how he treats patients who never regain movement, where 3D virtual surgical planning has taken shoulder replacement, and why he still posts difficult cases to a WhatsApp group of Australian fellows when he wants a second opinion. "Surgery is not about the incision. It's about the decision."
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