Every profession has its own beauty and challenge, but perhaps one of the most outstanding is the children’s surgical profession. The children’s organs vary in size as they are in continuous growth. Their life has just begun, so one wrong move during an operation can end a life which is not yet fulfilled.

One of Japan’s most famous professors and pediatric surgeons, Atsuyuki Yamataka performs hundreds of operations every year (he has performed more than 10 thousand operations so far). Yamataka’s name is well-known for pediatric surgeons in the United States. In professional circles he is said − I quote Alan Flake famous pediatric surgeon’s words − „to have an ability and to be able to perform operations that many people not”. Parents whose children are often rejected by other doctors because of the disease and surgical complexity visit him from various places of Japan. By the time Yamataka gained these skills, not only had he come a long way in his profession, but in the 10th year of his career he undertook an operation that he had also rejected for the first time after a consultation with other doctors. He was convinced that the operation was too risky, and not only difficult, but impossible.  The child was called Toya Tomioka, whose oesophagus did not work properly. In another hospital doctors replaced it to a portion of his small intestine, but they placed it outside his chest, and a swelling arose. When the swelling was moving, Toya was teased by other children. Toya’s family told Yamataka that they would like the boy to undergo surgery even if he might die. Yamataka could not say any word. Later he thought over his fears, the fate and status of the child Toya Tomioka, consulted experts living abroad, studied the case again and again in all possible ways, then undertook the operation, which he performed successfully. The news about this successful surgery was spread all over Japan and abroad.

Atsuyuki YAMATAKA regularly starts a surgical operation with fear. What we, as ordinary people, call fear has a completely different meaning in Yamataka’s dictionary. His fears admonish him to be cautious, more professional, maximally prepared while each new case is unique for him where he mustn’t make any mistakes.

He said, “When I have to study a new case, I do not know whether I am able to heal the patient. I carefully study the case and prepare myself for the operation. During the preparation I start to see the light showing the answer whether I will be able to perform the operation successfully.” He confesses that the outcome of a surgical operation is decided in 90% under preparation.

Atsuyuki YAMATAKA’s life is a role model for me because of his ability to transcend himself in order that he should save lives while testifying outstanding professionalism.

We all fight against something, we are all afraid of something even if we do not admit it, or we do not know. Sometimes life is much stronger than we are, particularly when a disease appears. Fears and striving for professionalism differently teach those who want to be prepared while giving new knowledge in our lives all the time. It does not matter how the outcome of something is created.

Practical tasks

Look at your life and your personality to see what things generate fear in you when you think of them. Can you live a full life with fears when your life does not unfold in some areas? Could your fears be the forces to support you if you face them as Yamatake did?

Meditate on the following:

On this earth there are no people who would have been born strong. Every strong man owes its strength to the challenges undertaken earlier, they have been able to surpass their weakness and turn it into force. Even the strong man can be afraid, but his fear cannot trammel him, but faith and knowledge will lead him through the darkness towards the light.

It is not Yamatake in the picture.