Cedars-Sinai Surgical Resident Applies Olympic Training to Medical Practice

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 are well-rounded individuals who enrich Cedars-Sinai with their valuable life lessons, experiences and accomplishments."

A Competitive Path

In the medical residency application she submitted to Cedars-Sinai, Toro Arana wrote: "It took me nine years of daily practice to make it to the Olympics, and I could spend many more years in search of the most powerful stroke that causes the least disruption to the velocity and balance of the boat.

"Similarly, the cardiothoracic surgeons I have worked with are constantly searching for more effective techniques to operate on the heart and its vasculature, limiting the intrinsic damage caused by their intervention. This pursuit of precision and excellence, combined with a constant push towards innovation, drove me to surgery from an early age."

Growing up, Toro Arana dabbled in sports. But academics were her sweet spot.

"The only Olympics I thought about were the Math Olympics," she said, "which I competed in every year, starting in seventh grade."

When the local hospital's chief of Trauma Surgery came to speak at Toro Arana's school when she was 15, she quizzed him about experiences in the operating room.

"What do you do when one of your patients dies in your OR?" she asked, unintimidated. A few days later she was watching him operate on a patient with a gunshot wound, attempting a new lifesaving procedure. She took that experience to MIT, determined to join the ranks of people pushing the boundaries of medical innovation.

No Room for Intimidation

Although Toro Arana didn't learn to row until college, she was not intimidated by teammates who had been recruited to join the team. She was motivated by them, driven to work even harder.

When she learned about opportunities to represent Puerto Rico at national and international rowing competitions, motivation kicked in again. Coaches told her she should consider training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She was excited, but medical school also was on her agenda. She would need to balance both.

After two years of medical school at Stanford University, Toro Arana put education on a three-year hold to train full time with premier coaches-training that would get her to the Olympics.

"The opportunity to compete as the first woman to row in the Olympics for Puerto Rico was a big incentive for me, and I made many sacrifices to make that happen," she said.

Important Takeaways

Toro Arana placed 21st out of 32 competitors; what she won was priceless.

As she wrote in her residency application: "I envision standing on the right side of my patient, my scalpel poised on the skin over their sternum, feeling the same way that I felt when I heard the announcer at the start line of my first Olympic race: confident that I have planned and prepared to the extent of what was possible, humbled by the uncertainty of what truly awaits, standing on my toes ready to respond to whatever may arise down the course, with absolute commitment to perform my best at the task at hand."

Toro Arana has a packed schedule these days-12-hour shifts at Cedars-Sinai, six days a week-but she still rows and competes when she has time. Next month she will participate in the World Rowing Beach Sprints Finals in Italy.

"I don't want to lose that part of myself," she said.

At dawn on a recent weekday, Toro Arana was at the water's edge in Marina del Rey, just off a night shift. Oars in hand, she sat down in her boat and rowed.

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: Navy Veteran Gets Lifesaving Heart Surgery

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