What Otolaryngologists Can Learn from Athletes

You wouldn’t (and shouldn’t!) take surgical advice from Steph Curry, Simone Biles, or Patrick Mahomes. But any one of these elite athletes could teach you a few things that may improve your surgical performance and elevate your career. The gulf between the Olympics and the operating room isn’t as wide as you may think. Both are high-pressure environments that require constant adaptation and split-second decision making. Both venues require extraordinary physical dexterity and concentration. Both award outcomes, not effort.

You may not spend hours a day shooting hoops, like NBA star Steph Curry, who famously told a reporter that he practices until he makes 500 baskets a day, but you’ve certainly spent thousands of hours refining your surgical techniques (ESPN. https://tinyurl.com/3k752zds). You’ve probably never faced a balance beam, but the anxiety you felt returning to the OR after a harrowing surgical case likely rivals what USA gymnast Biles felt when she returned to international competition after her withdrawal from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to a serious case of the “twisties,” a loss of connection between the brain’s intent and the body’s execution in mid-air (Olympics. com. https://tinyurl.com/57bnwm54). And although you almost surely do not have a Super Bowl ring, you know that studying and analyzing your options increases your odds of a successful surgery, just as careful analyses of football patterns and evolving plays have contributed to the success of NFL quarterback Mahomes (NY Times. https://tinyurl.com/3eauppyx).

Curry, Biles, Mahomes, and most other professional athletes have devoted countless hours to honing their mind game. Biles and Mahomes have spoken publicly about their work with sports psychologists, and most D1 and professional athletic teams employ sports psychologists and/or mental performance coaches to bring out the best in their athletes. Yet despite the similarities between sports and surgery, very few surgeons work with sports psychologists or performance coaches (The Kansas City Star. https://tinyurl.com/yc5tnwkn; ESPN. https://tinyurl.com/2aky235a). Most otolaryngologists and otolaryngology residents have never received any formal mental skills training, even though their success—and their patients’ outcomes— rely on their ability to maintain focus and adroitly adapt to changing circumstances.

“The sports world really acknowledges that the mental dimension is important for outcomes,” said W. Jack Palmer, MD, a senior otolaryngology resident at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and lead author of “Optimizing Otolaryngology Training Through Sports Psychology” (JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. doi: 10.1001/jamaoto.2025.2896).

In contrast, he said, “this sort of mental development is not as acknowledged as important in medicine. It’s assumed that, as you go through the process of a difficult training program, you will accumulate these skills. Mental skills training is not formally taught in medical education or otolaryngology residency, and I think it should be.”