Surgeons Can Avoid Lasting Pain Through Exercise Literacy

Surgeons Can Avoid Lasting Pain Through Exercise Literacy

The physical demands of surgery are in many ways similar to those of high-performance athletes. No professional athlete would consider performing without careful attention to strengthening and physical preparedness, yet surgeons routinely place rigorous demands on their bodies without any training plan specific to their work demands. A series of exercises were developed to help stretch and strengthen the key core muscles to support surgeons during operating to prevent neck pain. This study hypothesizes that Neck pain discomfort will decrease following an 8-week intervention program compared to baseline reported scores.

Participant will be asked to fill out a series 5 questionnaires at beginning of the study, end of the 8-week intervention and 1 month later to determine how the exercise program affected their general health, neck pain, and function.

1. Demographic information about their age, height, weight, sex, surgical experience, surgical frequency, level of pain, and exercise frequency and types. (21 items)
2. A questionnaire about neck pain (10 items)
3. A questionnaire about how pain interferes with their life (8 items)
4. A questionnaire about general health (10 items)
5. A questionnaire about how much the participant typically exercise. (4 items) All these questionnaires can be completed on a computer or tablet and the data will be stored on a secure site (RedCap). This should be completed in approximately 20 minutes at each assessment.

Next participants will be instructed how to perform a series of 4 exercises described in the intervention

Every week the participant will be sent a 3-item questionnaire to report their level of pain, surgical burden, and exercise compliance for the week. There are only 3 multiple choice questions which should take approximately 1 minute to complete per week.

Inclusion Criteria:

• must be an actively operating surgeon either faculty, fellow, or resident.
• Must report at least 4 out of 10 with pain at worst over the previous week at intake that is attributed to operating.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants will be excluded if they have prior neck or upper back surgery within the last year.
• If the participant has any other medical condition that would prevent the participant from performing shoulder and neck strengthening and stretching exercises.