About Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast
The podcast dedicated to discussing how surgeons can be the best versions of themselves, inside and outside the operating room. Hosted by surgeons Chad Ball and Ameer Farooq, Cold Steel explores the many facets of surgical life with guests at the cutting edge of surgical science. The official podcast of the Canadian Journal of Surgery.
Learning to Talk Like a Surgeon - Sorena Afshar on Communication in Surgery and Job Interview Prep
How can we better prepare ourselves and our trainees for sitting the oral exam? By this point, residents have typically already passed their written exam. And so they have the book knowledge, but how do you get that book knowledge from inside your brain to your mouth and obvious obviously, onto your examiner and onto their page? To answer that question, I invited Dr. Sorena Afshar onto the podcast this week.
Dr. Afshar is a colorectal surgeon in the UK and has a keen interest in communication and surgery. He's also the founder of Surgical Minds, which is a website where you can actually use an AI model to practice your oral exams. We have a fascinating discussion in this episode about language and the nature of learning a new language, what it means to be an immigrant, and how you see your non-native language. But then we really get into the idea of the oral exam, or the Viva.
What is the point of the oral exam? How can we best prepare for it? And what are some of Dr. Afshar's tips and tricks for bringing the best of yourself to the oral exam? We also talk about his attempts to use AI to actually examine something quite difficult to tell a computer to understand.
Links:
https://surgicalminds.com (https://surgicalminds.com)
Sorena Afshar - The Pears Cumbria School of Medicine (https://cumbriamed.ac.uk/staff/1240/)
6 Oct 2026
How to Train Like a Surgeon: Strength, Injury Prevention, and Career Longevity with Gil Spitz
22 Sept 2026
Cold Steel, Hot Credits: A discussion with Nikhil Patil on SR&ED and other ways to support innovation in your practice
Why is a surgical podcast talking about tax credits????
We strongly believe that in order to be a more effective surgeon, we have to address all aspects of our lives. Unfortunately or fortunately, a big part of that is making sure our finances are well taken care of.
Nikhil Patil is the CEO of Innovotis Consulting. He joined us on this episode to talk about Scientific, Research & Experimental Development (SR & ED) Credits. We talk about what SR&ED is, how physicians can make use of it, and more broadly, how physicians can support innovation in their practice.
Links:
Dr. Nikhil Patil:
nikhil@innovotis.com (mailto:nikhil@innovotis.com)
https://www.innovotis.com/ (https://www.innovotis.com/)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilpatilmd/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilpatilmd/)
Check out our previous episode with Mark Soth on "Designing a Good Life": https://open.spotify.com/episode/13sCyzbP7wAR3R4wwPrYIW?si=kjMveLBaSg-NmkqnNa8p6Q (https://open.spotify.com/episode/13sCyzbP7wAR3R4wwPrYIW?si=kjMveLBaSg-NmkqnNa8p6Q)
Who has been a guest on Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Campbell Roxburgh
Andrea Merrill
Mohamed Belal
Selwyn O. Rogers Jr.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
7 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 56 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
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