Full Transcript Sponsor Message: Tax Strategy for Physicians 0:03 Quick question. Are [music] you paying more in taxes than you should? Most high 0:08 earning physicians overpay [music] by tens of thousands because their CPA only 0:13 looks backward, not forward. Guilt is different. Dedicated CPAs powered by AI 0:20 that work year [music] round, not just at filing time. tax strategy and 0:26 proactive planning [music] for practice owners, investors, and physicians with 0:31 complex financial lives. Built specifically for professionals [music] 0:36 who want to keep more of what they earn. Check out joingelt.com. 0:43 That's j o i n gt.com. 0:52 [music] If you work in healthcare, you already know this. Conflict is 0:57 everywhere. In the O, [music] in labor and delivery, in committee 1:02 meetings between physicians, nurses, administrators, and teams that are all 1:09 trying to do the right thing. But here's the problem. Most of us were never 1:15 trained to handle conflict well. We learned procedures. We learned 1:21 diagnostics, but we didn't learn how to [music] navigate the moments when few
Sponsor Message: Spark Conflict Framework 1:26 professionals strongly disagree. That's why I developed the Spark 1:31 Framework. Spark stands for stop, pause, 1:38 ask, don't assume, reflect, and respond, [music] and create 1:44 a path forward. It's a practical system designed [music] specifically for high 1:50 stakes healthc care environments through keynote [music] talks, residency 1:55 workshops, and spark master classes. I teach physicians, nurses, and healthcare 2:01 teams how to turn [music] destructive conflict into productive conversations 2:07 that strengthen teams and improve care. If your hospital, [music] 2:11 residency program, or medical conference is looking for a speaker on conflict, 2:16 communication, and leadership, and healthcare, I'd [music] love to work 2:20 with you. You can learn more in the show notes. Because in medicine, conflict is 2:27 inevitable, but handled well, it can make teams 2:33 stronger. 2:43 >> [music] 2:47 >> In every operating room, in every ward, in every clinic and every team meeting, 2:52 a silent battle bruise, conflict, negotiation, 2:57 identity. Welcome to the scalpel and sword podcast 3:01 where I, Dr. Lee Chararma, [music] physician and conflict analyst, explore 3:05 the hidden negotiations beyond modern medicine. Let's trade burnout for 3:10 boundaries and learn the art of healing with precision [music] and power. 3:18 Hello my peaceful warriors and welcome to the scalpel and sword podcast. I am 3:23 your host Dr. Lee Chararma, physician and conflict analyst and I'm going to 3:28 ask you a question. What if one of the most important skills in medicine was
Podcast Introduction and Guest Introductions 3:34 never actually part of your formal curriculum? What if one of the biggest 3:40 things that was going to make you really effective in the practice of medicine in 3:44 working in a team at communicating with your patient was not something that you 3:48 were ever formally taught. Thankfully, I feel like this is changing in our system 3:54 of medical education. And to get into this, I'm so excited to have two 3:59 wonderful guests on the podcast today. So, Caroline and Rachel, would you like 4:03 to introduce yourselves? Yeah, I can go ahead and I am a first year medical 4:09 student at the University of South Alabama. I'm originally from Opelica, 4:13 Alabama. Went to Auburn for undergrad and biochem. Just really got into 4:18 medicine cuz I wanted to help people. it in the end, especially being a woman who 4:24 has been to a doctor myself and stuff and hearing experiences from friends and 4:28 stuff, I learned that we have a lot of need for expanding 4:34 healthc care for just about everybody honestly and then having compassionate 4:38 providers in that space. So, that's kind of what drives me. 4:41 >> I love that. Thank you for being here. Rachel, tell us about you. 4:44 >> Well, my name is Rachel Carter. I am a thirdyear medical student at the 4:48 University of South Alabama. I also went to Auburn for my undergraduate 4:53 education. I got my degree in neuroscience. I worked in a lab for a 4:58 year before medical school. That's actually where Caroline and I met. And 5:01 I'm interested in pursuing neurology. I was originally nursing and I started 5:06 working in healthcare and kind of realized that I really enjoyed the 5:08 doctor role. I think also just being a woman. I have an aunt who's a nurse and 5:12 I just assumed women take the caretaker role. And yeah, once I kind of realized 5:18 that I have more options available to me as far as jobs in healthcare, that's 5:23 whenever my eyes really started to open. >> Wow. You guys, first of all, I'm so 5:28 excited you're both here. I do want to say that the reason this all started is 5:33 I was fortunate enough to meet Caroline and Rachel at our state medical 5:36 association meeting. And Caroline and my daughter went to high school together. 5:40 They were both in marching band. So, I was very excited to see her again and 5:44 connect. And I think as a parent, it's really beautiful for me to see you guys 5:49 on this journey. I feel like in some ways that those of us who are in 5:52 medicine are kind of big sisters to all of you and that's why we get so happy 5:56 watching you just flourish. And so I'm really grateful you both are here. So 6:02 Caroline, you're also a third year, right? 6:04 >> No, I'm a first year. You're a first year. Okay. I knew there was different 6:07 years. So, this will be really interesting because I feel like we're 6:10 going to get some really cool perspectives on being a third being 6:14 versus a first year and sort of how that experience of conflict has been for you. 6:19 Rachel, do you have any kind of memory of the first time you really encountered 6:24 conflict in healthcare? >> Well, I started working in healthcare 6:27 whenever I was like 18. Rental load, not fully developed. I guess I just 6:32 witnessed a lot of culture behaviors that you're not necessarily accustomed 6:36 to in the outside world. I think healthcare is unique in the fact that we 6:41 are exposed to everyone in the population and we just have a unique mix 6:47 of characters within the healthare system. But I certainly dealt with 6:51 conflict during my undergraduate education like working in an emergency 6:55 department and I was also a patient safety assistant and worked as a unit 6:59 clerk. But I think institutions that are more focused on education, they
Early Conflict Experiences in Healthcare 7:04 typically have just a better culture surrounding how to communicate and how 7:11 to get along with your peers. There's a lot more cohesiveness and teamwork 7:14 whenever you're working at like an academic institution. So, I don't know. 7:19 I was just very young just getting into the experience, but I've definitely 7:22 learned more in my medical school education about how to navigate 7:26 conflict. That's really interesting that that's sort of the first time and I love 7:30 how you say that like Fredal Lo was still developing so you were still very 7:33 young and experienced in this but also too I think those experiences are 7:36 probably even more impressionable given the fact that you were so young when you 7:40 encountered them. I also love how your observation of being in an academic 7:45 situation you maybe saw more teamwork or maybe more structure in terms of working 7:51 with conflict as opposed to maybe in a private hospital. And I think that's 7:54 something we're definitely going to get into later on. But I think that's so 7:57 cool that you noticed that. So really, really interesting. Caroline, I mean, 8:02 you're very young in this journey, but you've also worked in a lab and you've 8:05 also had that experience. Do you have any kind of memory of the first time 8:08 maybe you witnessed some of this conflict in medical education? 8:12 >> Yeah, absolutely. Although it was it like Rachel, I didn't start working in 8:16 medicine until a little bit later in life, but I took two gap years and 8:22 during those two gap years, I worked either in a clinic or as a tech in the 8:26 hospital for pretty much the entire time >> and definitely experienced what Rachel's 8:32 talking about. And I feel that a lot of our healthcare workers are really tired 8:37 and especially nurses and techs and EDS workers 8:42 >> feel very tired, very underappreciated, probably underpaid and it just comes out 8:48 in conflict sometimes and it comes out against each other and that's mostly 8:54 what I experienced. And although that was a tidy tangent just responding to 8:58 Rachel, but I do actually have a memory of the first time I had a solid conflict 9:03 with co-orker although it wasn't in healthcare but it was graduates not my 9:08 graduate program. The lab that we both worked in I was an undergrad and working 9:15 with graduate students and is this related enough? 9:19 >> Yeah. Okay, great. So kind of along the lines of graduate education actually 9:24 because my PI was the one who kind of diffused the situation. We had a 9:28 situation where one of the graduate students took on an internship and we 9:34 were so excited for them. But we noticed that summer that they had the 9:38 internship, they did less and less and less in the lab and eventually it got to 9:44 the point where we were like, "Hey, we're so excited that you have this 9:46 internship. Please just do a little bit of work. Yeah. And also they would come 9:52 into lab stressed because they were pressed for time and stuff. So it was a 9:56 tense environment to work in. And my PI emailed her real fast and we met that 10:02 day. And I explained the situation to her and that he was being kind of 10:06 standoffish and that we were having tension in the lab. And she was like, 10:12 "Did you try talking to him?" Asking like why he's acting this way or what's 10:17 going on or what you can do? And I was like, "I sure did not try that at all." 10:22 So that really diffused it honestly was just being open and honest and just 10:28 talking to each other about the way you feel. And it doesn't really feel like 10:32 much of a professional thing to do, but in the end, you're two people period. 10:38 So, like you have to have those conversations sometimes like no matter 10:42 how much you want to wear that professional hat, someone's going to 10:44 hurt someone's feelings some point. Oh my gosh. Okay, there's so much I want to 10:48 get into. One of the things that I think is really interesting about your story, 10:51 Caroline, and again, it's one of the things that's great about having both of 10:55 you here in different phases of your education is this concept of hierarchy. 10:59 You had somebody these were graduate students. You were an undergraduate 11:02 student Caroline and you were in this conflict and this was something 11:06 definitely was about resources about the amount of time being invested in the 11:10 workload that was being divided and you know the fact that there was workload 11:14 that expectations was not being met but what I love about that story and why I 11:18 think it's so cool that that was one of your earliest memories of conflict is 11:24 not only was your early experience of hierarchy but the person who was at the 11:29 top of that hierarchy was the one who number one was receptive 11:34 to you engaging when you asked and gave you a very practical lifelong solution. 11:40 Did you talk to him? Such a simple thing, but what a powerful piece of 11:45 advice. Yeah, unfortunately I didn't talk to him about that situation. It 11:50 kind of just fizzled out. But I worked in that lab for a good bit longer and 11:54 practiced that over time. When something would come up, when he would be late or 11:59 something and have an excuse, I'd say, "Okay, I understand what you're trying
Learning Conflict Through Lab and Clinical Training 12:04 to tell me, >> well, okay, so it would be an 12:07 interaction between two graduate students that I was watching 12:10 >> and they'd be kind of getting into a tuffle because of the lateness and then 12:13 the response and the snarkiness or whatever." And I'm like, I understand 12:16 what you're trying to say. You're trying to say that you have a good excuse. How 12:19 about we say, "Hey, so sorry I was late." And just learned how to have 12:24 uncomfortable conversations and say like, "Hey, this is something that I 12:28 would have rather heard." And being able to have the conversation. And I think 12:33 that's a great skill that you learn very early on that sometimes the best 12:37 conversations that we have are the ones that are most uncomfortable, but they're 12:40 the ones that we need to have. And so you got actual practice doing that even 12:44 before you in medical school. I think that's incredible. And if you still have 12:48 your PI's email, you should still email her and go, I was on a podcast and I 12:52 talked about you and this life skill you taught me is really awesome because I 12:57 think the people who have that behavior modeled for them very early on like 13:01 Rachel was saying before we have our funal love developed, you had somebody 13:05 show you how to do conflict well. And that's not something we get a lot in 13:11 medicine, is it? That's not something that a lot of us had as an early 13:14 experience of having people do conflict well. You were both talking about 13:17 working in medicine very early. My first job in a hospital, I was 16. I was a 13:21 hospital secretary and my office was outside the doctor's lounge and 13:26 literally I'm at my desk and typing and I hear boom is here 13:32 and they're throwing chairs and things like that. And that was my first 13:36 experience of watching doctors in conflict was watching chairs and hearing 13:41 the words fly. And I mean I still remember that. I still remember like I 13:45 was sitting in my desk. I can still sort of see and hear and all that experience. 13:50 And I think your insight Rachel in the fact that academic hospitals sometimes 13:54 do this better than private hospitals is because teamwork is not less essential 14:00 in those situation but it's more ingrained in academic medicine which is 14:03 not something we always see in private practice. 14:05 >> Rachel, do you feel like you got any kind of formal training in conflict 14:10 early on in your medical education? Yeah, I was going back and kind of 14:13 looking at my notes from like clinical skills sessions and ethics sessions. And 14:18 there was this one session in particular during my first year of medical school. 14:22 It was a professional identity formation lecture. And it's the first session that 14:27 really dawned on me of, oh, I'm not just a participant in the health care system. 14:32 I'm training to be a leader in the healthare system. And what do I want 14:35 that to look like? Who are my role models? What do I want to emulate? How 14:39 do I want to be perceived to the team? and you know how to navigate that. So 14:44 that was like the first time that I was like, "Oh my gosh, I have to put my big 14:48 girl pants on. This is getting real." But we just kind of started to talk 14:51 about situations that we may encounter in healthcare because this was prior to 14:55 us going into the clinic and stuff for our first year. So they're just kind of 14:59 preparing us saying, "Hey, there may be a disconnect between what you're 15:02 learning in the classroom and what you see emulated in clinical practice and 15:05 that's okay." And you know, how do you deal with that dissonance? it's I don't 15:11 like this way of practicing. I would like to do it a different way or just 15:15 trying to identify who you want to be as a provider. So that was my first like 15:20 big woohoo moment. >> I love that. I can tell you that was 15:24 never something I had. And the idea of professional identity if you were lucky 15:30 enough I think to have a physician that you shadowed or a physician in your 15:35 family a lot of times I think those were the sources of professional identity. 15:39 because you looked up to those people and they were definitely role models in 15:44 you practicing medicine. Like my professional identity was very much 15:47 influenced by my mother and my father who were both physicians. So very much 15:50 of the way I practice I feel like is hearkening back to the way I knew my 15:54 parents were. And I think that's really cool that they got you to physically 15:59 think about what do I want this to look like? But you said something else too 16:03 that I want to get into. they went ahead or in your mind you were already 16:08 visualizing yourself as a leader when you thought about what that professional 16:12 identity looked like you saw yourself as someone who was leading in healthcare 16:16 and the fact that you already were thinking about that as a first year 16:19 medical student that is so powerful do you feel like that's something you're 16:24 even as a third-year medical student able to start to manifest that identity 16:29 >> oh absolutely because I mean we work with so many different people so we get 16:34 exposed to so many different ways of being a doctor. Ways of interacting with 16:37 the team, ways of interacting with patients. So, I just kind of silently 16:40 take notes on things that I like. Maybe even it's like a joke that they make 16:44 with a patient. I'm like, "That's a good one. I'm going to write that down. I'm 16:46 going to put that in my tool box." It's just kind of keeping that in the 16:49 background of your mind. Just observing the behaviors that you want to emulate 16:53 in your own practice. That's kind of been just a really good groundwork for 16:57 third year and observing physicians. >> That's cool. I don't know if this is 17:01 something that your attendings encourage, but do you ever have a chance 17:04 to say to them, I really like that you did X and I'm going to emulate that or 17:09 do you have a chance to have that kind of interaction with your attendings? 17:12 >> Yes. Well, virtual feedback is like something that's like a cornerstone of 17:16 medical education at this point. You get feedback on your feedback. So like we 17:21 have to fill out a survey and write information about all of our preceptors, 17:25 but also just like your preceptors are human and you can just talk to them at 17:29 the end like what kind of things did I do well and then you know you can 17:33 obviously tell a physician like whenever they've done something really good and I 17:36 have in the past before good and I think that's important as well because I think 17:41 one of the trends that's happening right now in medical education is the way 17:45 especially third fourth year medical students interns residents are getting 17:49 that feedback back. The way and the schedule in which that's being done, I 17:53 think has definitely changed. And I think the generation of doctors coming 17:56 up has had such a strong influence on that change. I always say that, you 18:01 know, the only feedback we ever got to see if we did something wrong. If you 18:04 got something wrong, you got yelled at. And if you did it right, we just never 18:06 heard anything. And that was your feedback. And I do not think that's 18:10 something that would be acceptable currently in this current climate. And 18:14 unfortunately, there's a lot of people who grew up my age, really old, who look 18:19 at the way we got feedback and think that we were right or what we got was 18:24 correct. And as we have younger physicians coming up who are wanting 18:28 more of that real-time feedback, we're like, why are they asking for this
Professional Identity and Feedback Culture 18:32 feedback? Why do they want this so often? And I think this is a real big 18:35 disconnect that part of the reason why I'm really happy you both are here is I 18:41 really think this is something that needs to get discussed is the idea that 18:45 we have generational change in the way that feedback and education takes place. 18:51 Caroline, have you already gotten this lecture that Rachel's gotten about 18:54 physician identity, professional identity? Have you already had that? 18:56 >> Yeah, I have. Yeah. >> What was your response to that? How did 19:00 you feel when you really started to think about the idea that you were 19:03 establishing a professional identity? I guess I had already come to terms with 19:07 the fact that it was a professional identity, but I had a lot of time to 19:10 stew on that invite gap years and being a tech and being like, okay, at some 19:15 point I'm going to be a doctor and I'd like to do things this way, that kind of 19:18 thing. What I was really impressed by in those little classes was the way that 19:23 they set us up to practice immediately. Um 19:27 >> so we have pre-assigned small groups that we all meet in regularly throughout 19:33 the semester for various things. It could be curriculum or ethics. I mean 19:38 ethics is curriculum but like it could be core subjects that kind of thing. So, 19:42 I want to say our first ever session in those groups, they immediately were 19:48 like, "Okay, these are your co-workers. Like, these are your professional peers 19:54 and let's set up some group norms. Let's learn how to give feedback. Let's learn 20:00 how to let the quiet ones speak up. Let's learn how to receive feedback like 20:07 immediately." And we would practice that every time. And at the end they would 20:11 have us write down like something we could improve upon, something that we 20:15 didn't do too well, something that we did do well. And then at the beginning 20:18 of each session, we would revisit it and like add some stuff to it. And in the 20:23 moment, it was you're an overwhelmed first year trying to figure out how to 20:26 do med school and you're kind of like, ah, is this really necessary? But once I 20:30 like stepped foot in a clinic for the first time, it was like, oh yeah, it's 20:33 necessary. Oh, yeah. And especially we were with those groups 20:39 for the entirety of that semester and just off the bat having those 20:44 conversations I felt just put us in such a good spot to practice our conflict. 20:51 >> Yeah. And it's so cool because the best way to get better at managing conflict 20:57 is to practice it, is to roleplay apply it, is to get comfortable sometimes 21:01 giving uncomfortable feedback. You know, we talked about having uncomfortable 21:04 conversations. Well, how do you get better at those? You practice them. And 21:07 so, I love that you had an opportunity in real time to be able to do that and 21:12 do it in such a way that since you are with those people the entire semester, 21:16 you probably got to a point that you felt safe doing that. And I think that's 21:20 huge in terms of creating those safe spaces. 21:24 Do you think in medicine we're getting better at creating safe spaces for 21:29 learners where you guys really feel comfortable asking questions? Sometimes 21:34 questions that's like this might be a dumb question but I'm going to go ahead 21:37 and ask it or even sometimes you're the person who's being the voice of safety 21:42 for the patient. I mean sometimes that role does fall on the medical student. 21:46 Do you feel like we're getting better at creating that environment? 21:51 >> I absolutely think so. And kind of going back to what I was saying originally 21:55 about academic medicine versus maybe private institutions, I don't even 22:00 necessarily know if it's academic versus private, I think it's just the role that 22:04 I'm in. So whenever I was a tech, I was 18, so my co-workers were in their 60s. 22:09 You know, you're not going to communicate with me, a brand new 22:11 18-year-old in the ED, the same way that you're going to communicate with 22:14 somebody who's experienced. So I think kind of having this baseline we're all 22:19 in the same class together, everybody having the same expectations of what 22:23 their knowledge base is and what they're learning, then that just like 22:26 facilitates better communication because we know what the goal is. We know where 22:30 you are and so then we better know how to communicate for those situations. 22:35 Also, I just wanted to mention our clinical skills course at South Alabama 22:39 is like actually really incredible. I know like during the first two years 22:44 like whenever you're studying in the classroom it can be really hard to take 22:48 yourself out of that and go to clinic and you know do all these clinical 22:51 skills assignments and sessions and things but it builds upon each other. 22:55 like whenever you get to your third year, you're so much more prepared to 22:59 navigate situations with your peers and with your patients because we also had 23:04 sessions where it was like they would give a difficult clinical encounter. And 23:07 so then we'd have to discuss with our small groups like how we might attack 23:11 this and then later in your third year you'll have SP encounters, standardized 23:15 patient encounters where you'll actually go in independently and talk with the 23:20 standardized patient through an encounter like that. and then you watch 23:23 it on video, everybody critiques you. It's medical school. It feels like 23:28 you're under a microscope sometimes. I was really worried about that going into 23:31 my third year. But I think because feedback is so normalized, it's like 23:37 nothing at this point. Somebody saying something to me about my performance is 23:41 not a comment on myself. It's not a comment on who I am as a person. It's 23:46 just a comment on how I performed that day. And it really takes the pressure 23:49 off of it. I want to add on to that from the other side. Now, of course, I can 23:53 only speak for South, but South also emulates that what they want to see in 23:59 us as far as seeking out feedback goes. We at the end of every single module, 24:05 which I think this might be Rachel, did y'all do this the A&E feedback? Yeah. Oh 24:11 crap. Gotcha. At the end of each module, they send out this long survey. So, and 24:19 so they could say, "Here's what I thought worked. Here's what I thought 24:22 didn't work." And they may or may not change things. But from that, and then 24:26 also professors always saying like, "Let me know if this new format works. Let me 24:32 know what you think about it." That kind of thing. They're really good at 24:36 receiving the feedback as well as giving the feedback. So, I feel like they 24:41 really teach you how to do both sides and also 24:45 show us how to receive feedback with grace. So, you see this modeled as much 24:52 as you see this encouraged and taught. And that's really massive, right? You're 24:57 having this behavior modeled for them. It's not just being told this is we're
Conflict Resolution as a Core Medical Skill 25:00 going to give you feedback and this is how the feedback's going to occur. 25:03 You're actually modeling how from somebody else is showing you how they 25:06 receive it with grace. That's incredible because that makes a huge impact on you, 25:11 but that's also going to create such a nicer environment for you guys to learn 25:16 in. It sounds like what you guys are experiencing as learners is this really 25:21 encouraging environment, but it's not one that's shielding you from conflict 25:26 or from feedback. You are living it and experiencing it in such a way that 25:30 you're actually learning how to work with it. That's huge. 25:35 >> So, I'm gonna ask you a question. What do you think would happen in the 25:39 United States if we taught conflict resolution just like we taught ACLS? 25:47 What if we actually had structured formuladriven curricula looking at 25:52 conflict resolution? How do you think that would change not only medical 25:56 education but how would it change medicine? I think if it were implemented 26:01 in a way similar to way that South does it like interactive and very safe 26:06 environment kind of way. I think that would be really useful just coming from 26:11 a hospital setting and seeing all the implementations of all the things that 26:15 were meant to be good. I always have hesitations about big sweeping things, 26:19 but I I really do think it would be a great thing if it were done the way that 26:23 South does it. I think a lot of it has to do with just your ability to reflect 26:28 on your own actions. And I don't know if we can necessarily teach people how to 26:35 resolve conflict because it's so individualized for every single 26:38 scenario. But if we're able to teach people how to analyze their own 26:42 behaviors and be able to reflect on them, then that can change how they 26:47 interact with conflict in the future. And also just the very basic just 26:52 exposing just putting conflict in there on the same stage as all the content 26:58 that you're learning just automatically says this is important this is just as 27:04 important as all the material that you're learning to you becoming a doctor 27:07 and just putting it out there as something with value I feel like also 27:12 starts to drive it home. >> That's awesome. No, I love how you guys 27:16 are talking about that it's very much a part of your curriculum. It's not hidden 27:21 in the curriculum, but it's not a kind of here's your lecture on conflict 27:25 resolution. It's not that at all. It's something that's very embedded in what 27:29 you're doing and it's embedded in every part of that curriculum from first year 27:34 professional identity all the way up through your clinical education and even 27:39 in doing your clinical diagnosis classes. It's embedded. It's not 27:43 something that's taught separately. And I think that's really cool because 27:47 again, it's giving you lots of practice in the different ways you're going to 27:50 encounter it. But it's also, you said something really awesome, Rachel, and I 27:53 want to go back to this is this idea of it makes you more self-reflective as a 28:00 human being and then as a professional. >> It's given you the tools to actually be 28:05 very meta about your behavior and how you interact with people. And the true 28:11 blessing of learning how to manage conflict well is not that it makes us 28:15 just better doctors, but it makes us better people. I've always said one of 28:19 the greatest things I got from my conflict resolution of education is 28:21 actually made me a better wife and mom because it actually gave me the skills 28:25 to do those things where I had never had those things modeled for me before. And 28:29 I think that makes a big difference in terms of how you guys are getting this. 28:33 It's really very beautiful. Let's say you've got somebody who's in college and 28:39 you're mentoring them and it's like, "Hey guys, I think I want to go to 28:42 medical school and I'm very excited about this. Tell me one thing I can 28:47 start doing now that's going to make me a more peaceful, more engaged medical 28:54 student and ultimately physician." >> I'm going to go ahead and assume that 28:58 they're seeing patients in some way, shape, or form 29:01 >> and that you got to shadow. You've got to have experience in some sort of way. 29:05 Honestly, this is more just a health care professional piece of advice. It's 29:09 just that you're going to be going into a high stress setting more than likely. 29:13 And in your training, you will absolutely see some high stress 29:17 settings. And sometimes when in high stress, people say things that maybe 29:25 they mean in the moment, but are just not what you would expect a professional 29:30 person to say. and going into it with the understanding that it is high stress 29:37 and that people are going to say and do some things that are just not quite 29:41 aligning with what you'd expect. And already internalizing that and 29:46 recognizing it when it happens and allowing yourself to take a second away 29:52 from that person or whatever, regulate your own emotions and not respond with 29:57 the same high caliber or whatever. I haven't been in the hospital at South 30:01 yet. And I imagine that everyone is very kind and stuff, but like I've yet to see 30:07 anybody who doesn't have their breaking point and who doesn't eventually snap or 30:12 yell at somebody or something along those lines. And just acknowledging that 30:16 it's going to happen and that you were in charge of your reaction 30:22 and you were in charge of your emotions to go ahead and regulate, go ahead and 30:26 have those tools on board. and coming back to it from a professional response 30:32 is like the best way and processing it if you have a therapist 30:38 processing it later like out loud with your partner with your therapist or 30:42 anything like that so that resentment doesn't build up because that's 30:45 something that I saw a lot too was a lot of resentment towards each other and 30:48 then people can't work together and you definitely don't want that. 30:51 >> That is amazing. What a beautiful thing to tell somebody to help them before 30:56 they embark on that journey. I love that so much. Rachel, what would you share?
Advice for Future Medical Students and Closing Remarks 31:01 Now that I'm in my third year and I guess I don't have as much autonomy over 31:07 my time. I'm kind of given a schedule and told where to be. Sometimes missing 31:11 out on important life events or things like that. just understanding that 31:16 medicine like your medical education is temporary and just trying to find and 31:21 build relationships with people at your medical school who will help support 31:25 you. I remember it was a huge transition going from weedout classes at Auburn in 31:30 an auditorium to medical school where the faculty actually care about you and 31:34 want to see you succeed. So really just choosing a school that fits your values 31:40 and has support systems in place to be able to support you because 31:45 I mean the time is going to pass anyways but you are setting yourself up to miss 31:50 out on a lot and yeah you're trading it for a much greater goal but kind of 31:54 understanding the sacrifices that you're going to make going into it and then 31:58 identifying people in your life to kind of help you navigate the situations. 32:02 Yeah, you definitely need people who are going through the same thing for sure or 32:06 at least something similar because I've tried to confide in people going through 32:10 grad school and stuff and like don't get me wrong, they're having a hard time but 32:13 they don't get it. I think that's such powerful advice and what a great thing 32:18 to build your Dr. Risa Lewis who's an ER doc has a book called Micros. She's a 32:24 friend of the podcast, but one of the things she talks about in her book is 32:26 having her personal board of directors, which is your people that you can call 32:31 and I have them in my phone and they are a bunch of physicians and physician 32:36 adjacent people, but they are the people that I can text or call and go, "Hey, 32:42 this happened." Or, "Hey, can we talk about so building that skill set now as 32:47 a medical student is going to serve you very well when you're in residency and 32:50 practice. I am so thankful that you guys are going to be my colleagues someday. 32:56 You guys are going to bring so much to your patients and to the community and 33:02 it's really awesome and I'm so grateful that you guys are getting this kind of 33:07 education now and that you have the awareness 33:12 to see the value of it, but also too that you've taken the time to share this 33:17 with our listeners. And I would also encourage you, Caroline, because you 33:21 were talking about this and I really loved this. You were talking about 33:24 emotional regulation and being able to respond and not react. There is an 33:27 episode of this podcast which is called Spark, which is a system that I use when 33:32 I teach conflict resolution. So, we will put that episode in the show notes, but 33:37 I have a bracelet that actually has the acronym on it that reminds me of what I 33:41 need to do in that situation. So, if you guys want them, I'll mail you some. So, 33:46 you can keep that around. Student Dr. Hawkins, student Dr. Carter, thank you 33:51 so much for being here. It's been a pleasure. 33:55 >> Thank you so much for having us. I'm so glad we got to see you at the 33:57 conference. >> Me, too. This was great. For all of our 34:02 wonderful peaceful warriors who have joined us today on the scalpel and 34:05 sword, thank you so much. And until next time, be at peace. 34:14 Every episode [music] is an invitation to speak, to negotiate, to choose. I'm 34:20 [music] Dr. Lee Chararma. Join the dialogue by subscribing to Scalpel and 34:25 Sword. Until next time, peaceful [music] warriors. May your choices be sharp and 34:31 your voice be even sharper. [music] 34:37 This podcast is a reflection of lived experience [music] and research in 34:40 conflict resolution. The scalpel and sword is not intended as [music] medical 34:45 or legal guidance. For personal matters, please consult a qualified professional.
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