Host Dr. Lee Sharma welcomes Dr. Julie Hallet to discuss her groundbreaking JAMA Surgery study on how surgeon-anesthesiologist familiarity improves patient outcomes in high-risk surgeries. Learn why stable OR teams matter, the challenges of implementing change, and how this research could transform healthcare delivery.
Can the familiarity between a surgeon and anesthesiologist impact patient outcomes? In this episode, Dr. Lee Sharma, welcomes Dr. Julie Hallet, to share insights from her recent JAMA Surgery study, which found that increased familiarity between surgeon-anesthesiologist teams leads to reduced 90-day morbidity in high-risk GI, GYN oncology, and spine surgeries. Sparked by her frustrations with inconsistent anesthesiology teams in Ontario’s regionalized system, Dr. Hallet’s research highlights the power of non-technical skills, trust, and shared worldviews in improving OR outcomes. She discusses why there’s no “magic number” for team familiarity, the challenges of scheduling stable teams, and her ongoing work to address anesthesiologists’ concerns and develop cost-neutral care models. This episode offers actionable insights for clinicians, administrators, and policymakers aiming to enhance patient care through team-based approaches.
Three Actionable Takeaways:
About the Show:
Behind every procedure, every patient encounter, lies an untold story of conflict and negotiation. Scalpel and Sword, hosted by Dr. Lee Sharma—physician, mediator, and guide—invites listeners into the unseen battles and breakthroughs of modern medicine. With real conversations, human stories, and practical tools, this podcast empowers physicians to reclaim their voices, sharpen their skills, and wield their healing power with both precision and purpose.
About the Guest:
Dr. Julie Hallet is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Toronto and a hepatobiliary, pancreatic, and GI surgical oncologist at the Odette Cancer Center at Sunnybrook Health Sciences. With a medical degree from Université Laval and fellowships in complex surgical oncology (University of Toronto) and advanced hepatobiliary surgery (Strasbourg, France), she is also an associate scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute. Her research focuses on improving surgical outcomes through team dynamics and system-level changes.
Email: Julie.hallet@sunnybrook.ca
Twitter: @HalletJulie
Dr. Lee Sharma is a gynecologist based in Auburn, AL, with over 30 years of clinical experience. She holds a Master’s in Conflict Resolution and is passionate about helping colleagues navigate workplace challenges and thrive through open conversations and practical tools.
[00:00:00] Hello, peaceful warriors. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, and I'm thrilled to have on the podcast today Dr. Julie Halle. Dr. Halle is a associate professor of surgery at the University of Toronto. She is a hepatobilliary, pancreatic and GI surgical oncologist at the Odette Cancer Center at Sunnybrook Health Sciences.
She's also an associate scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. We're gonna have a lot of fun listening to my French right here, because I just was blown away by all of her experience. Um. She got her medical degree at the University Te Laval in Quebec City, Quebec. She also did her complex surgical oncology fellowship at the University of Toronto.
She did an advanced hepatobiliary and pancreatic mid, um, fellowship at the institute, the Rare Church S Cancer. Um. In, in [00:01:00] Strasburg, France, and I'm so thrilled to have her on the podcast today. Welcome, Dr. Halai. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. So Dr. Halai and her colleagues published to me one of the most interesting articles I've read in a long time, and this was in JAMA Surgery in May of this year.
And it talked about the familiarity of the surgeon, anesthesiologist, dyad, and how this affected major morbidity after a high risk elective surgery. And what they did was they actually looked at the number of times that the same surgeon and the same anesthesiologist were doing cases and focused on high risk gi, lowest risk GI G one oncology and spine surgery.
And what they found was, as you saw an increase in the dyad familiarity, as they operated more together, the 90 day morbidity of these patients actually decreased. What was the genesis of writing this [00:02:00] paper? Um, well, like a lot of the research I do, it sort of started out of, um. I wanna say questions, but really frustrations from day-to-day clinical practice.
Um, so I work at a pet bay surg, as you mentioned, and where I work in Ontario, Canada, we have a regionalized system, meaning that, um, only 10 hospitals can do this type of surgery and surgeons have to be, uh, fellowship trade and have to maintain high volume. We have some very specific requirements we need to maintain as a center and as a surgeon to be allowed to do those procedures.
And I found it interesting that none of those requirements involved the anesthesiology team. So while we were very specialized, while our hospital is specialized because of the volume outcomes that we all know for decades now are beneficial to patients with those very unique procedures mm-hmm. Um, you know, we didn't have that type of volume with the anesthesiologists and we have a department with about 50 anesthesiologists.
So, you know, a number of days. I will operate in a year. I could be working with a different anesthesiologist every time, and I did not fully understand that. And so we [00:03:00] dug into the volume outcome initially for hepatobiliary surgery, and then we said, okay, more cases. Like the patients will fare better. But what about how, when you, you combine the anesthesiologist and the surgeon, it's not just the volume of one and the other, but how well we also work together.
And so I did that work initially for, um, the HPBE surgery specialty, because that's. What I do on a day-to-day basis. Mm-hmm. Um, and then when that came out and we started talking about building specialized teams, lots of surgeons, some other specialties were coming to me or, you know, catching me in the hallway and going, well, what about my specialty?
Like, I think it's the same thing for us. We also need. Its still just, we work with more often and more stable teams, like is there data for my specialty? And so that's how we sort of expanded the work to all what we call high risk procedures, which means it's procedures were. Patients come in, um, and we'll have at least a 24 hour hospital stay and a minimum, uh, major morbidity just so that we're able to find a difference, right?
If the major [00:04:00] morbidity is so low to start with, like laparoscopy, chole, cystectomy, or an ectomy, for example, it's very hard to detect a difference, right? It's so cool that you're. Your research is organic, it's coming out of your personal experience. I have a question as a surgeon and I would like to answer this question.
Yeah. And I think that's where all stellar research comes from. I think it's also really neat that your colleagues approached you and said, Hey, we wanna know how this affects us as well. And I think one of the things that you bring out in the paper is that. Some specialties like yours where you are having different anesthesiologists every time.
There are other specialties like cardiac surgery, lung surgery, where some of that's already built in. And so we already know on some level that there are some specialties where this is already happening. So looking at advanced GYN surgery, looking at what you do, it's very illuminating. And one of the things I thought was really interesting too, as you started to look at this trend of the diet with the anesthesiologist and the surgeon [00:05:00] was.
That it wasn't even just as you looked at the familiarity that it was actually linear. As the surgeon anesthesiologist team operated more and more together, that actually outcomes continue to improve. So there wasn't really a minimum threshold. They said, okay, if we do this many surgeries we're good.
It's really one of those things that as this team is together, the outcomes are continuing to improve. Um. What kind of things came out in the research that you feel like supported or kind of led to that improvement in outcome? Yeah, I, I'm glad you picked up on that. It's really like every single case we do together matters.
And, and we really tortured the data to find a cutoff because when we talk with policy makers, you know, d or executive people who made the schedule, who build the teams, they wanna hear a number, they wanna know, this is what I need to aim for. Mm-hmm. And once I aim for that, we're good. Right. It's like this sort of like.
Target. Um, but we're not able to find that there is no target. We just need to improve [00:06:00] and stabilize teams. And, um, I think like our research is just based on population data, so we cannot say why this happens. We can only hypothesize based on. Other things, um, that have been written both in the healthcare, uh, space, but also in business or in sports or in education where we have more, what we call sort of business psychology data to support how teams are being built.
And, um, based on that, uh, we know first and foremost that. Non-technical skills in the operating room are absolutely crucial, right? When we do, um, analyses of errors in D or most often, it's related to communication or collaboration problems and not on technical skills. Mm-hmm. So we know those are really important.
We've been trying to teach them in residency to faculty in like. Continuing professional developments, uh, for years. But I, I think that there's something that happens when people work together more, where those skills are enhanced and where those skills are better applied together. And that is very hard to teach, not come back to that in one [00:07:00] moment.
Um, and so when we have teams that work together more often, it creates what some people have called transactive memory systems, which means that the, the, the two people working together often sort of create an. A common understanding of what the norms of the work are, what the goals are, uh, what the resources are, how we, we both work, and that creates more cohesion, more trust as well, um, and more likelihood of offering help, but also accepting help.
And in sometimes an implicit way. And so all of that probably translates in the operating room in better uptake of best practices, better response to, um, stress and difficult situations. And it doesn't mean to be something catastrophic or dramatic. Sometimes it's small things and we're just better able to manage them together and that has a downward impact on the patient.
Um. And I, I think the important thing here is also that we cannot recreate that, um, artificially. So I think after the question of like, what's the target? The second question I get most often [00:08:00] when I talk about this is, so what is it that those stable teams do that's different that we need to replicate?
And, and my answer to that now is you cannot put familiarity in a bottle. And it's, it's not something that will become a medicine. You can take it before you, you get into the operating room and suddenly people that, that have never worked together. Will function as if they had to work together. Often, um, there is something implicit about stability of the team and familiarity of the anesthesiology surgery dyad that you cannot replicate with pathways or protocols and so on.
You just have to make people work together more often. That's the only way to do it, and that might be more complex sometimes from an organizational perspective, but I think that's really where the secret is. That is amazing and that insight into sort of that team dynamic and team creation, it's not something that you can, like you said, formulate.
It's not something that's process driven. It's something that's created over time as the surgeon and the [00:09:00] anesthesiologist work together and. One of the things you, and you state that so beautifully that you know, sometimes people, it's like, is there a secret sauce? Is there something that we can apply to sort of make this happen?
It's like, no, it's something that occurs over time and there's a, a trust that occurs in that relationship. As you work with people, there's a humility, there's a level of acceptance that you feel more transparent with that team. If you have concerns about something, you're more likely to share it. And one of the things as you put that in the article is that, that.
Familiarity breeds a way of looking at things, a way of approaching problems. And in the conflict resolution literature, we often refer to that as a worldview, that you've created a, a common worldview that everybody has. And as you are all approaching the same problem, you're approaching it with a very similar, um, level of understanding, a very similar level of the goals, and that's just gonna create a better outcome.
And you've definitely shown that mm-hmm. In this paper. Mm-hmm. It's also very interesting [00:10:00] 'cause you talked about this and you also talked about, you know, working with policymakers and, and, and people in governance in the operating room that, you know, we'd love to have the whole team all together every single time.
We'd love to have the same scrub and the same circulator. We'd love to have that every single time, but that may not always happen. And so, at least starting with having a surgeon and anesthesiologist. That are together and having that dyad grow, sometimes you may not have the luxury of having the exact same team every single time, as much as we'd all love to have that, but especially in a large hospital system.
And I'm sure that you know, you've got a large, busy surgical schedule. You may not have the same team every single time having the same anesthesiologist, maybe more of an approachable goal. Yeah. I, I think it absolutely is. And, and you're right. The entire team matters. Right. The thing is, I had data for anesthesiologists and surgeons in, in our populational data in Ontario, so I couldn't mm-hmm.
Uh, say the scrub nurse or the circulator or anesthesia assistance, but I would suspect that we would find similar [00:11:00] results. Mm-hmm. And to me, it just makes sense. But I, I got that comment several times from, from surgeons and anesthesiologists, like, yeah, well that's very nice data, but like. We all know that already.
I'm like, yeah, I think we intuitively know it, but there is no data. And without data, you cannot go to leadership because it'll tell you, yeah, yeah, sure, it's important. But if don't have something that they'd have to answer to, then change doesn't happen. Even with the data change is very, very difficult, um, to, to trigger or to make happen.
And, um, it, it's kind of surprising to me because it won't necessarily be always the same team. And I, I don't think that that. What's the message is, is just to increase. Mm-hmm. Like stabilize the teams so they can't defer from one day to the other. But on, on the overall picture, it will be a stable team.
And there is scheduling complexity of course, because if we look at theology and the surgeons. We take call, we take post call days for the anesthesiologist, we take vacations. Like there, there's all sorts of things that [00:12:00] happen, um, that, that limit the ability to always be together. But I think we can do better in what we're doing right now, which is to some extent a little haphazard.
And you know, when we're looking at new models of care, what I find interesting is that's a zero cost change. Like right now, when we're asking for quality improvement, I'm always told the same thing by the people I work with in leadership is we don't have resources. If you wanna make changes, try to make them cost neutral.
This is cost neutral. There's no, there's nothing that we need to input, we just need to use the same people, but reorganize the way they work. Um, and so from that perspective, I, I don't know. It's so difficult to make it happen. We're still going through the motions. There's always resistant to change. Um, and one of the things we're doing, like looking at costs next, is sort of costing this because mm-hmm.
I wonder if we're not gonna find that we're actually saving money Yes. With this approach. And I like, we haven't even looked at that data yet, like [00:13:00] we're just starting the analysis. But I would be very curious to see that. Absolutely 100%. And it's one of those things, as you said, as you're going to people trying to make policy changes, it's quite one thing to walk in there and say, intuitively we know that having this familiarity between the surgeon anesthesiologist is going to improve patient outcomes.
It's quite another to have a hard data that actually shows that you had a 3% decrease and a 4% decrease in morbidity 90 days out, which is significant with having the same diad. One of the things that you also bring up in the paper that I think is so cool that there has been research in operating room processes, approving efficiency, and so that data exists, but this is data that proves that we actually have improved patient outcomes.
Mm-hmm. Which is what we want. And so it's really hard if you're going to people saying, you know, we're, we're not asking to spend more money. We are literally asking to have a team-based approach where we have a surgeon and [00:14:00] anesthesiologist who are together more often, who actually understand how each other work, and then we have information that says, this improves our patient outcome.
It's really hard to argue with that, and I agree with you a lot of times if you're trying to put a dollar sign on, it's like. There's no dollar signs. We're not asking for any new staff, we're not asking for new equipment. We're not asking for more time. We are literally asking you to take the same resource you have, but actually combine them in this way.
So it's beautiful to have the data 'cause it makes it so much easier to make the policy. Yeah. And, and I think, you know, with, um, the systems we have now, like whether it's our, like artificial intelligence for example, like we can't build ways to make that scheduling happen, right. Without somebody mm-hmm.
Spending. Dozens of hours having headaches over a spreadsheet. Like now we have the ability to make this happen more easily and in an automated way. Um, one thing though I don't wanna dismiss here is that there can be sort of unforeseen consequences from mm-hmm. Reorganizing models of care. And [00:15:00] so we're trying to look at that right now.
Um, first we're interviewing an anesthesiologist. Um, across the country in, in Canada to see what are their perspectives about this, because it's a big change for them. Um, if you wanna increase the familiarity, so the number of times they, they work with a surgeon more often, this means they'll have to be like somewhat specialized, right?
Like mm-hmm. They'll have to focus on one area of surgery to build that familiarity with specific surgeons. Um, and that's, unless. For cardiac anesthesiologist, that's a big shift, um, right in the way they would work. So we wanna understand what are their perspectives on this so that we can address that and how those care models are built.
We're also doing a census of care models around, um, Canada and the United States, um, to see what currently exists and what might be some of the challenges associated with the different care models. The second thing is, I think to be able to do that, you need to have. Um, a certain number of core surgeons and anesthesiologists, right, like some small community hospitals or rural hospitals where there might be [00:16:00] like six starts in an anesthesiologists may not be able to, to do that for practical reasons.
Mm-hmm. Um, so that, that also has to be taken into consideration. And third, uh, what we've heard lots of anesthesiologists is that they're actually worried that by. Changing the scheduling so that they're a bit more specialized. They're gonna lose expertise, um, in other areas. And so when they're faced with other high risk cases, emergently, um, or even in their elective practice, they will be less comfortable and that those patients mm-hmm.
May pay the price. And so right now, I won't divulge all these results, but I was just looking at, um, our final set of results that this morning we looked at. For anesthesiologists that have higher pet Billary volume, we use a pet billary as a case, um, study for this. Mm-hmm. Does that impact their volume of non-PE billary cases and, um, it doesn't.
So people who work a lot work a lot and they will do a lot of all types of procedures. So it's possible to have. A practice that has a high volume of hepatobiliary cases, maintaining volume of other types of [00:17:00] procedures. And then, um, the other piece is whether, um, like having a high volume of eary cases would impact outcomes for other patients they care for.
Um, trying to sort of alleviate some of the concerns, um, that have been voiced, but like, and not forgetting there can be unforeseen consequences. And so I think we need to address those as we build the models. But yeah, to me it's common sense and. Unfortunately, I think in healthcare, um, common sense doesn't always prevail.
Um, so we need to work hard to make it, um, more prevalent in our day-to-day organization. Absolutely. I am. I think it's so cool that while you've put out this wonderful piece of data, and while it seems like it's, yeah, this is a, this is an easy thing too, that you're actually looking at unforeseen consequences.
And anytime you do that, before you World War, you know. Apply a, a policy in a large swath that you've already looked at the possible ramifications of that policy. So if there is a concern, you're sort of already trying to answer that. I think that's one of the keys [00:18:00] to having positive change in healthcare is that yes, we have a great idea and yes we have data, but let's look at the things that could possibly maybe not be good.
And have that data going into it. Um, I work at a very small community hospital. Um, I'm a GYN MIG surgeon, so I do robotics and laparoscopies. And the way my day is structured on my OR day, I tend to have the same anesthesiologist every single time. And we are good friends. We are, you know, we, uh, socialize outside of work as well.
He, his wife, his wife is my good friend, my husband. We're all, we all do things together. And I can honestly say that when he's there with me, that I feel like I'm more relaxed, I'm more confident. Um, we work together, we handle things very well together. If we have something that we're having to deal with.
We know each other well enough that we can handle it. And so I literally cannot wait to show him this because I think it's gonna be like, see, George, there's a reason why we work well together. It's because we have data that says that when we work together, our outcomes improve. And that's really cool . Um.
And I've been, I have the same experience to be honest. Um, I have a group of an anesthesiologist that I, I [00:19:00] hang out with. Um, they're all excellent. And while we don't have that familiarity based system, if I have a huge case, something that's high risk, that's out of the ordinary, I will like go and talk with the anesthetic department and ask if one of them can be booked into my room.
And it's not to say the other ones are not accident, they are as well. But there is something about walking in the room and knowing the person you're gonna work with. That makes me go. This is gonna be easier today. And sometimes, you know, we get in trouble still, but we, you know, go through it and we troubleshoot it and we're able to do that.
And, and there is no like. What ifs or whatever, because we're so used to having that, that teamwork together. Mm-hmm. And, you know, the piece about, um, addressing unforeseen consequences and so on. To me, the important thing was to talk about people about this. Um, ' cause the, the thing that I hate most are papers that, that stay on the shelf.
I mean, these days, um, they're online on PubMed, but mm-hmm. If it just stays there for, for people to read and it's not implemented in practice, I, I feel like I have, I've missed. [00:20:00] The target with the research. Um, I wanna drive real changes and, and try to, to set the example for how that change can happen in an institution.
Um, so we get the data, but after that, like try to work really hard on knowledge translation and ledge translation piece is about talking to people on the ground and asking them. What's happening? Listening sometimes to things I don't necessarily wanna hear or I don't necessarily agree with. Um, but, you know, being open to it.
Yeah. And, and taking it back and addressing it. And then also having a team of collaborators that have their foot on the ground. So, um, the team that you see on that paper is a team com, like composed of. Surgeons from different specialties, but also lots of anesthesiologists, um, that have different expertise and all have busy clinical practices in addition mm-hmm.
To their research backgrounds. So they're able to provide input on, on what's happening and, and what the data is showing and how we can, the. Articulate that into practice changes. Um, so maybe that's a message people wanna hear. Like, research that stays at a data [00:21:00] level will never be impactful. Right. You need to try to bring it forward.
Right? And that comes from talking to people. Absolutely. It's one of the reasons I was really so thrilled that you agreed to be on the podcast, because one of the things that in, in my research and working with hospitals and, and physician practices and conflict is that a lot of people in operating rooms don't realize how much conflict.
Impacts not only the flow of what's going on professionally, but also patient outcomes. This, uh, research shows that most operating room cases, there are an average of four conflicts. And like you said, it's not always big bust at people yelling at each other. It's sometimes a more quiet disagreement. This scrub, this circulator, this surgeon, this anesthesiologist, but still that has an impact on the flow of the case.
And what you show in your data is, and, and this is the reason I love this paper so much, this also to me. Part of the reason why I see this being such a pivotal impact on patient care is that if you have a surgeon [00:22:00] and anesthesiologist who are used to working together, they're also used to working through their conflicts together.
Even if they've got a disagreement, they've probably dealt with it. They probably know how to deal with it, and it's gonna get resolved faster, and it's gonna have a less impact on what's going on with the patient. And so that was the other reason when I read this. I was so thrilled because to me, as I'm working with operating rooms and they're trying to work on conflict management and process systems, this is one of these articles I can say, look, you really should focus on having a surgeon, anesthesiologist, dyad that has familiarity, and we have data that says this is going to improve patient outcomes.
It's really hard for people to argue with that when you have the hard literature. So. This is the reason I was also so happy to see this. So your paper's definitely not gonna sit on a shelf. It's definitely going to translate into hospitals making positive changes and the more that they have that awareness that this impacts patient care, the more motivation, hopefully they'll have to do it.[00:23:00]
Yeah, I really hope so. Thanks for, thanks for saying that. Um, and, and it's interesting what you're saying about conflict because I've heard so much talk about conflict, especially in this sort of micro society that is the operating room where we had mm-hmm. Our own set of norms and way that we work and, and so on.
I find that fascinating. Um, but I've always found conflict approach from the individual perspective saying when there's conflict, the problem is the individuals that are involved in the conflict. Number one that you, something was done that led to conflict. And so you have to fix that. Or the solution to the conflict revolves at the individual level.
Um, and I feel that puts a lot of burden on individuals that most often are really just doing their best, um mm-hmm. To provide good care to patients. And so it's interesting to me what you're seeing right now to sort of bring that. Conflict to a, a, a process level, which is creating an environment where conflict is less likely to arise or more likely to be easily [00:24:00] managed without putting the onus on the individual people.
I don't mean by that, that we don't have to work through conflict resolution and, and build the tools. Yeah. Individually , But, but there's many layers. Right? And it's interesting to talk about a different layer of it. Yes. And I, I love how, 'cause it, it is that recognition it's gonna happen. It's not a sort of, if it happens, it's really is gonna, it's, it's going to, it's the nature of what we do.
This is a very charged, very pressure filled environment. And anytime you're in that kind of environment that's sort of. Follows that, that's gonna be a question. But at the same time, if you have a relationship with somebody that you know how to work through it, like I know with my anesthesiologist that I love to work with, if there's something going on that maybe I'm not, okay, we need to fix this, but you and I work together, we know how to do this, we can communicate well.
You mentioned communication early on as being such a big part of what's coming out of this familiarity dyad, that it's much more likely it's gonna get resolved faster and. If there's a process in place [00:25:00] where it's either formal or informal, and a lot of times I think when you build familiarity, sometimes that becomes more informal.
You're used to working with somebody and they're used to working with you and say that you know their little things, you know their little things, and it's easier to resolve. Um, but having that in place just makes it less likely it will impact the patient and. As people start to see that, that's why I love this paper.
I'm gonna keep going back to how much I love it because it really does illustrate very beautifully something like a lot of you, like you sensed it, your colleague sensed it. This is intuitive. We kind of know this is the case. And I think that's so beautiful that you put it down on paper. Um, you also kind of mentioned expanding this to oop, other specialties, um, kind of expanding that to.
Where, what specialties are, are you looking to look at all the operating rooms? Where are you headed with this research now? So right now we've looked at most specialties with high risk, um, procedures. In, in that paper there's some where we found a difference in outcome, as you mentioned. So like. High risk gi, that's mostly a pili.
Um, there is low risk gi, which is colorectal gastric surgery. It's how we [00:26:00] differentiate it. 'cause the risks are so different between the two. Mm-hmm. The, yeah. Oncology and spine surgery. Um, there's others where we did not find a difference, and some of them is because they already have the systems with high diad volume where the familiarity is already built in because of the processes in place.
That's cardiac. Orthopedics, um, and long surgery, which to me is kinda a proof of concept, right? It's like once you've already reached a very high level of familiarity, you're not detecting additional, um, improvements and outcomes because you, you've sort of optimized it, if I can simplify things that way.
And then there's a few where we were not able to detect a statistical significant difference. It doesn't mean that there's no effect that exists or that can be, um, identified in other settings. Just mean that in our settings where we're not able to, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, um, in, in those specialties.
So our next steps are to sort of. Continue building the case for it. So costing will be the first part. Um, seeing if there's, uh, improvement in, in cost when there's, IM, um, increased familiarity, trying, you know, again to convince or leadership in each hospital that this [00:27:00] is a good idea and numbers and money, um, speaks loudly, um, these days mm-hmm.
In, in healthcare. So we'll try to get that, um. And then the second piece is really getting the perspectives of the anesthesiologists on this. So we're going through a, a set of interviews, we're about halfway through right now, um, to really get their perspectives and, and then after that we'll be sort of try to build those care models or build blueprints to care models.
It might not be the same solution everywhere, right? The way that we schedule mm-hmm. Is inherently different depending on our. Organization, the number of people that are involved and so on, but maybe we can have some, some blueprints that people can, can follow in their different institutions. Mm-hmm. So that's the, the ultimate, um, goal we're, we're hoping to achieve.
Well, I think what you've already published has been so, so helpful and so positive, and I think as you build on that, especially as you are really looking, trying to address problems in application before they occur, by looking at talking the anesthesiologists, I think that's going to make it even easier to present this policy [00:28:00] and even a small hospital like mine.
Is gonna benefit from this. Um, and as you said, the application may look different for us because we are a smaller institution and the way that our anesthesiologists work may look a little bit different. But one of the things that I'm going to do is I'm going to go to our robotic steering and present this paper.
It's like this is something that we should really start looking at as, you know, a way to improve patient care by improving this relationship with our surgeon, our anesthesiologist, and having that familiarity. Um, I think you're gonna help a lot of people. This article, I think it's gonna help a lot of patients, which is beautiful.
Oh, thank you so much . Like the only reason we practice and, and we do research is ultimately to help patients, right? And so if, if that can help just a few patients and improve their outcomes or reduce their, their morbidity, I, I, to me, the goal has been reached. Um, so that, that will be the important part.
So thank you so much for saying that. Absolutely. No, I look forward to seeing more of your research. I'm gonna [00:29:00] be really excited to look for, as you're talking to the anesthesiologist and you publish that data, I think that's gonna be so brilliant. So I'm very excited to see that. Um, Dr. Halle, if people want to reach out to you and ask questions, what's the easiest way for them to find you?
I think, um, email or x, formerly known as Twitter. Um, I also reply on that. Uh, so my x handle is at Halle, Julie. Um, so my last name and first name and, uh, by email, uh, just Julie dot halle@sunnybrook.ca. Um, always happy to, to talk about this topic or help in any way I can. I don't always have all the answers, but I can try to find them.
Well, it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for your time and thank you for being on the podcast. We will include your contact information in the show notes for all of you who tuned in today to Scalpel and Sword. Thank you so much for being here and joining us for this wonderful conversation with Dr.
Julie Halle. And until next time you join us, be at Peace.