E137 Elijah Dixon on Mindfulness, Meditation and Being Past President of CAGS and AHPBA

Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast

Podcast transcript: https://www.canjsurg.ca/content/e137-elijah-dixon-mindfulness-meditation-and-being-past-president-cags-and-ahpba

This week we caught up with Dr. Elijah Dixon, a liver and pancreas surgeon at the University of Calgary, to talk about mindfulness and meditation. Dr. Dixon really opened our eyes to how those practices might help us both inside and outside the operating room. We also asked Dr. Dixon about what it was like to be the president of the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association as well as the Canadian Association of General Surgeons.

Links:

1. Eckhart Tolle: https://eckharttolle.com/

2. Waking Up app: https://www.wakingup.com/

3. One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir by Henry Shukman. https://www.amazon.ca/One-Blade-Grass-Finding-Memoir/dp/1640092625

4. Jillian Horton interview: https://soundcloud.com/cjs-podcast/e83-jillian-horton-on-writing-burnout-and-the-quest-for-a-better-culture-in-medicine

5. Stroke of Insight TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight?language=en

Bio (taken from https://cumming.ucalgary.ca/sites/default/files/teams/236/april-2016-newsletter.pdf):

Dr. Dixon is a Professor of Surgery, Oncology and Community Health
Sciences with the University of Calgary. He is a practicing General Surgeon at Foothills Hospital with a focus in Hepatobiliary/Pancreatic Surgery. Dr. Dixon completed his Undergrad in General Science and Medical School at the University of Manitoba, and then Surgical Residency at the University of Calgary. From there he went to the University of Toronto and did a Fellowship in Hepatobiliary/Pancreatic Surgery and GI Transplantation at the Toronto General Hospital. He then proceeded to the Harvard School ofPublic Health and did a Masters in Epidemiology.

Dr. Dixon’s research interests include the development of quality indicators of care for patients undergoing hepatic resection for metastatic colorectal cancer. He conducts clinical research, particularly in the area of hepato-pancreatico-biliary surgery.