Stimulus - Learn Tools to Crush It in Your Medical Career

Guest Joshua Russell, clinician, writer, and educator, discusses skill decay in emergency medicine. Regardless of experience, skill decay sets in quickly after an absence. The challenges of medical practice and cognitive overload contribute to skill decay. Strategies to combat skill decay include returning to a proctor position and using visualizations for preparation.

The podcast discusses strategies for managing stressful events, protective strategies during and after traumatic events, the physiology of PTSD, specific techniques to downregulate the nervous system, and finding equanimity. The guest, Ryan Cheney, shares insights on self-care during mass casualty events and exercises for processing difficult cases. They explore the emotional range of individuals involved in the Las Vegas mass casualty event and the importance of training, resilience, breath work, mindfulness, relationships, and playtime in building resilience.

The August 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut, Lebanon is thought to be one of the most powerful artificial, non-nuclear explosions ever, causing over 200 deaths and 7500 injuries. In today’s episode, we walk through a firsthand account of what happened during this mass casualty event from the lens of an emergency physician who was there.Guest Bio: Sarah Abdul-Nabi, MD is an emergency medicine resident at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.  She is the author of Airway Breathing Circulation: An Emergency Medicine Resident's Experience of the Beirut Explosion.Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025, a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. Space is limited.🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!The Flameproof CourseThe hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast websiteWe discuss:The moment of the Beirut explosion, when the ceiling started to fall in, the room started to shake, and then everything went dark [04:40];Sarah’s first patient, and then the deluge that arrived within 2 minutes [07:10];The initial chaos of managing a mass casualty with minimal light, no electricity, and a damaged ED [11:10];Being unable to stop chest compressions on a young woman with a brain hemorrhage, even after your attending tells you it’s futile [16:15];What it was like to go back to work 2 days later and why Sarah needed to take a couple weeks off to recover emotionally [21:10];The catharsis of debriefing, staring at nature, and journaling [23:30];The unbearable fear and self-doubt that were part of her recovery [29:00];Reflective solitude vs. isolation [31:30];And more.

Frederik Imbo, founder of Imboorling, shares insights on how to not take things personally, achieving sustainable happiness, dealing with patient reviews in healthcare, and the joy of giving without expectations. He emphasizes self-awareness and self-restoration, as well as the importance of direct communication and self-love for personal growth.

Jim Adams, MD is direct, transparent, and unapologetic in his ‘tough love’ management strategy. In this episode, Jim breaks down: how setting expectations early helps to manage complaints later, managing those who degrade social capital, redirecting conflict to mutual benefit, and how understanding what motivates others’ behavior keeps you from taking things personally. Guest Bio:  Jim Adams, MD  is professor and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He is also the senior vice president and chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine. Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025, a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. Space is limited.🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!The Flameproof CourseThe hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website We discuss:   Zen and the art of scheduling [05:30]; Why you might not want to be a complainer [07:05]; The benefit of assuming people are unreasonable and crazy [08:10]; A strategy for handling people who degrade social capital [10:30]; Blend and redirect, a technique for negotiation and collaboration that’ll make you much happier than combat [14:00]; “People are not against you. They're just for themselves.” [16:15].

In this episode, Dr. Jaime Hope discusses the power of cognitive reframing and how it can help in difficult situations. Topics include reframing interactions with hostile patients, discussing comfort measures with dying patients' families, and dealing with dramatic patients. Dr. Hope also explores addiction and promoting compassion as well as the impact of reframing oneself and their job for increased job satisfaction. Great advice is shared for first-year medical students on listening to patients and the importance of empathy.

Vinay Prasad pulls no punches in this wide ranging conversation about the realities (and delusions) about chemotherapy research, principle centered social media engagement, flipping votes, the FDA drug approval process, the importance of early palliative care, the dangers of embellishing therapeutic benefit, medical reversals, effective vs efficacious, and trade offs in decision making. Guest Bio: Dr Vinay Prasad is a practicing hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco.  He studies cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making. He is author of over 250 academic articles, and the books Ending Medical Reversal (2015), and Malignant (2020).  He hosts the oncology podcast Plenary Session. Follow Vinay on Twitter.Episode Sponsor: This podcast is also brought to you by Panacea Financial, a financial services company created for doctors, by doctors -- aiming to improve the lives of physicians and physicians in training with products and services tailored to the medical community.  Spotlighted in this episode is the Panacea Financial Foundation which provides grants to underrepresented minorities in medicine. Panacea Financial is a Division of Sonabank, Member FDIC.Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025, a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. Space is limited.🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!The Flameproof CourseThe hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast websiteWe discuss:The realities of the dissemination of scientific information on Twitter [05:12];Vinay’s intent when he posts a controversial tweet [09:00];Why he’s an outlier in the cancer drug policy circle [16:15];A recent JAMA article which raises the question:  Do we have a collective delusion about the potential benefits of chemotherapy? [18:20];The FDA drug approval process [20:25];The discrepancy between what's measured in cancer clinical trials and what actually would matter to cancer patients [22:38];Questions to ask when being offered treatment options for cancer [24:30];The importance of having rich discussion with patients about treatment side effects and potential toxicities [28:30];The value of early palliative care and a common cognitive pitfall in oncology [31:25];The dangers of empathy and the better alternative:  compassion [35:00];Why embellishing the benefit of a treatment is the wrong thing to do [39:20];Prasad’s book Ending Medical Reversal and the potential harms of sudden flip-flopping of standards of care in medicine [44:00];The difference between ‘effective’ and ‘efficacious’ as it relates to public health and policy [47:46];Prasad’s thoughts on the language surrounding masks vs. the data surrounding masks [54:40];How not wearing a mask might be the product of a lot of long-standing failures in American economic policy and upward mobility [01:02:00];A deficiency of the pandemic which is to not thoroughly consider the trade-offs of the decisions we make [01:06:24];What the data tells us about the risk of COVID transmission in schools [01:08:34];And more.

In this podcast, master meditation teacher Robert Beatty discusses the basics of meditation, starting a meditation practice, mindfulness principles, and healthy coping mechanisms. He also explores the paradoxes of meditation and shares personal insights gained from long-term practice. The podcast delves into the concepts of impermanence, compassion, self-hatred, and self-acceptance. The speakers emphasize the importance of living in the present moment, finding balance and gratitude, and turning towards difficult emotions with the help of meditation.

We break down three techniques to inoculate yourself against the stress of time-critical tasks.Guest Bio: Jason Hine, MD is a community emergency medicine physician at Southern Maine Healthcare where he is the Medical Director of Education. He is a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine and the Temple EM Residency program where he served as chief.  He serves as an Associate Editor and Author on the DownEast EM blog and podcast and has an interest in procedural skill set decay as well as the role of academics in improving the recruitment, retention, and satisfaction of community physicians.  Episode Sponsor: Panacea Financial is a financial services company created for doctors, by doctors -- aiming to improve the lives of physicians and physicians in training with products and services tailored to the medical community.  Whether it's scheduling residency interviews, trying to buy a house during training, or looking for ways to fund your practice, Panacea Financial was created to remove the unique financial hurdles of physicians and allow you to better serve your communities. Panacea Financial is a Division of Sonabank, Member FDIC. You can follow them on the Insta, Twitter, Facebook, and everybody's well dressed favorite, Linkedin. Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025, a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. Space is limited.🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!The Flameproof CourseThe hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast websiteWe discuss:The importance of stress inoculation training when you need to perform a HALO (High Acuity Low Opportunity) procedure [05:15];How inoculating against stress helps you 1) perform well when confronted with the situation in real life and 2) serves as a memory aid [07:05];3 techniques for stress inoculation [08:00];Why you should not only ask people to observe you, but also request that they provide feedback on your imperfections [16:40];The advantages of low-fidelity stress inoculation strategies as compared with simulation labs [18:00];Additional tools for reducing stress [19:20];And more.

Guest Christiaan Maurer MD, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, discusses what terminal illness taught him about time and what people with cancer do and don't need. They also talk about preparing your family for a future without you, the most/least admirable traits in physicians, and the secret of life.