Striving for excellence.

Those who know me and have worked alongside me know I take immense pride in my clinical work.  I am always pushing myself to be better as I strive for excellence.

Two things that are very important to consider are the following: What is excellence? and how do we strive for it?

Daniel F Chambliss described excellence as the ‘consistent superiority of performance’.  In his study he observed 100s of swimmers of various abilities over the years to analyse what leads to excellence. 

Conclusions from this paper include that doing more of the same thing does not lead to excellence but reflecting and making change does.  Dissect the technical process carefully and always look to make small refinements.  To achieve excellence we need to take action.  

After every surgery I will analyse what went well and identify areas to improve for the next time.  Changes which are consistent, careful, repeated and compounded together over time will then become habit.

Achieving excellence is easy if the work you do is fun, rewarding and challenging.  The pursuit is effortless as you gain an increased feeling of reward and satisfaction.  

But remember excellence is an ever changing destination.  When you think you are nearly there it moves and we actually never reach it. But don’t worry, that’s okay.