53. The Five Fears of Scott Weingart

Scott Weingart is arguably one of the most influential and polarizing physicians on the planet. He is not one to mince words and often comes across as definitive in how he describes his practice of medicine.  What people don't realize, he says, is that his clinical care is often guided by fear, not bravado, ego, or machismo. In this episode, Scott breaks down his five fears when it comes to medical practice and thinks that those who seek to follow his advice should take these fears into account before acting.

Guest Bio:  Scott Weingart is an emergency physician who went on to complete fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and ECMO at the Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. He is currently chief of the Division of Emergency Critical Care at Stony Brook Hospital and a tenured professor of emergency medicine at Stony Brook Medicine. He is best known for his podcast on Resuscitation and ED Critical Care called the EMCrit Podcast; it currently is downloaded > 400,000 times per month. Scott is the author of multiple books including Emergency Medicine Decision Making and the Resuscitation Crisis Manual. 

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For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website

We discuss:

• The distinction between carrying fear and being afraid [06:50];
• Delayed sequence intubation (DSI) as an example for how healthy fear can keep things safe in the emergency department [09:30];
• The importance of embracing the idea that sick patients don’t take a joke [13:40];
• Scott’s fear number one: lawyers [15:15];
• A common fear that Scott does not personally experience: being an imposter [21:00];
• Fear of Monday morning quarterbacking [28:10];
• Fear of procedural complications [33:15];
• How Scott Weingart is not a jerk. He’s an acquired taste. [41:35];
• Scott’s final fear: a patient dying on his watch [46:55];

And more.