Per-oral endoscopic myotomy for palliation of achalasia: A video atlas

Feature Editor's Introduction-The crystallization of a procedure into a series of sequential steps may be the most basic, yet most powerful, framework for understanding, and teaching, an operation. The late 94th President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, David J. Sugarbaker, is oft-regarded as a master educator and visionary in our field. His residents and fellows will fondly remember their requirement to write the 10 steps of every operation on the white board in the operating room, before every case. They may even submit that this exercise establishes a cognitive framework that optimizes procedural learning through planning, expectation, encounter, and result. Video Atlas Articles at the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Techniques are purposed to stimulate this cognitive framework of surgical education in an enduring and peer-reviewed format. In the Video Atlas Article that follows, one of the most complex endoscopic procedures, and one that has gained remarkable traction over the past decade, per-oral endoscopic myotomy, is expertly distilled into a series of 9 successive steps, with each step taught through its own narrated video and corresponding short text description.