Newswise — LOS ANGELES (Aug. 6, 2024) -- As part of the women’s crew team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she spent mornings and evenings gliding down Boston’s Charles River. At home in Puerto Rico during college breaks, she perfected her rowing technique in the island’s familiar waters.
Less than a decade later she was in Japan, rowing the Sea Forest Waterway in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games as the first-ever female rower to represent Puerto Rico. With the 2024 Summer Olympics now underway in Paris, Veronica Toro Arana, MD , a Cedars-Sinai cardiothoracic surgery resident, is reflecting on what she learned from the elite sports world and how those lessons are helping fuel her surgical training. “Rigorous and deliberate practice, the ability to handle high-pressure situations, technical expertise, an openness to coaching and a continuous pursuit of improvement were all important parts of training for the Tokyo Olympics,” Toro Arana said.
“And now I’m applying those learnings as I train to be a heart surgeon.” Joanna Chikwe, MD , professor and chair of the Department of Cardiac Surgery and the Irina and George Schaeffer Distinguished Chair in Cardiac Surgery in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, is Toro Arana’s mentor. “Exceptional surgical residents like Dr.
Toro Arana are recruited for their intellect, passion for the medical profession and commitment to saving lives,” Chikwe said. “They also are recruited because they a.