Act Like a Surgeon with Alessa Colaianni, MD
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What announcements and show notes are shared at the start of the episode?
Hey everyone, a few announcements before today's episode. First, tickets are on sale for our upcoming live show in Minneapolis on Saturday, April 22nd. So visit our website. We hope you'll join us there. Voting is still open for the Webby Awards. We've been nominated for our Shame and Medicine series and also for our Conversation series. So we hope you'll throw us some love on the Webby website. And last but not least, we encourage you to check out this week's episode of This American Life. It's called Nine Months Later and addresses the fallout of Roe being overturned. And features the voice of a member of the Nocturneist community, Dr. Linda Prine. And we're really happy to have been a small part of that episode.
Now on to today's episode. This episode of The Nocturne's is sponsored by Flip MD. FlipMD is a competitive marketplace where physicians can source and secure consulting side gigs. Jobs come from a broad range of clients across all major industries who are looking for medical experts in their field. FlipMD allows physicians to expand their careers through consulting and other non-clinical roles that fit their schedule and their interests. To learn more, visit Flip-MD.com. This season of the Nocturnus is sponsored by the Physicians Foundation. Support for the Nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
At the Nocturnist, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
You're listening to the Nocturneist, stories from the world of medicine. I'm Emily Silverman. Today's episode features a very good friend of mine, Alessa Colliani, who I've had the privilege of knowing since medical school. Alessa is an actor-turned odolaryngologist who tells a story today of losing and then regaining access to her emotional landscape. Alessa is a head-and-next surgeon at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. And she's also a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Guernica, the New England Journal of Medicine, and other venues. In the conversation that follows her story, Alessa and I talk about what it means to be a performer type, her decision to pivot from the theater to a career in surgery, and all of the interesting ways in which theater makes its way into our lives as physicians.
How does the episode introduce Alessa Colaianni’s background and her transition from acting to surgery?
But before we get there, let's take a listen to Alessa's story, which she told live at the Nocturnous Institute. In San Francisco in June of twenty twenty two. Here's Alessa.
I was never supposed to become a surgeon. Surgeons are serious. Surgeons are stoic. Surgeons are unflappable.
Aye.
And flapable. Before medical school, I thought I was gonna become an actor. In my childhood bedroom. Before sleep, but after bedtime, I would practice scenes from movies that I had seen. I would practice fainting onto my bed from different heights to get it right. I would steal my gaze against imagined intruders at the window. I practiced delivering breezy anecdotes from the imagined couch of a non existent talk show. I would um host science shows from the bathtub, see kids, that light on the bubbles. It's called Prismatic Effect. And I would answer our childhood telephone when telemarketers would call as different people every time. Well of course we'd love for you to come and wash our windows. When I cried, which I did easily and often, I would run to a mirror to watch myself cry.
I'm aware of how psychopathic that sounds now, um, but at the time it was discovery. What do I look like when I'm really grieving? How does my face contort? When I'm really scared, what does my s my voice sound like? I didn't know what I was practicing for. І вас линь на инструмент. And I figured it would come in handy if I got, you know, discovered at the mall. I thought long and hard about going to Chicago to Second City after college to pursue an acting career, but I went to medical school instead.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What announcements and show notes are shared at the start of the episode?
0:00–2:43
2
How does the episode introduce Alessa Colaianni’s background and her transition from acting to surgery?
2:43–7:15
3
What childhood games and performance practices shaped Alessa’s emotional awareness?
7:15–14:25
4
How does Alessa describe the moment she lost control during a critical surgery?
14:25–21:56
5
What insights does Alessa share about the moral complexity of being a surgeon?
21:56–28:19
6
How do Alessa and Emily explore the idea of the ‘performer’ soul type in medicine?
28:19–34:20
7
What philosophical questions about identity, performance, and the self arise in the conversation?
34:20–37:59
8
How does the episode wrap up with reflections on future creative projects and gratitude?
37:59–41:12