Leading the Rounds

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Dr. Lindsey A. Criswell, is the director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Prior to joining NIAMS, Dr. Criswell was vice chancellor of research at the University of California, San Francisco.

She has a bachelor’s degree in genetics and a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.D. from UCSF.

As the NIAMS director, Dr. Criswell oversees the Institute’s annual budget of nearly $625 million, which supports research into the causes, treatment, and prevention of arthritis and musculoskeletal and skin diseases.

Between 1994 and the time she became NIAMS director, Criswell was a principal investigator on multiple NIH grants and published more than 250 peer-reviewed journal papers.

In this episode, we discuss her journey as a leader in medicine and science. Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

Questions We Asked:

When did you start to see yourself as a leader?
What experiences helped you build your leadership style?
When you stepped into your current role, did you feel ready?
What are the greatest challenges you face in your current leadership?
When do you know when a good opportunity comes along to pursue?
Were there things in your training that weren’t addressed?
How do you avoid being “scooped” in medical research?
How does one decide what leadership route to choose?
How has failure impacted you as a physician, scientist and leader?

Quotes and Ideas:

My leadership style reflects my own personality
“It really does take a team effort to be successful in science and medicine”
“There’s no one way to be an effective leader”
You can learn a lot by observing people you respect in positions of leadership
“I’m in a stage in my career where I really want to make an impact”
“As an investigator, if you can’t communicate effectively at the appropriate level… you’re not going to be successful.”
Most, if not all, of the impactful research done is a team effort
“Just say no”

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Dr. Daniel Dworkis is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at University of Southern California and a medical officer for the Indian Health Service.

He is the founder of The Lever institute, a virtual lab focused on building tools that help emergency departments become fulcrums for positive change in the communities they serve. His work focuses on the interface of emergency departments and population health, with an emphasis on geospatial analysis.

His mission is to help everyone perform better in times of emergency and crisis. To this end he created and hosts The Emergency Mind Podcast to bring lessons from the emergency department and beyond to you so you can apply knowledge under pressure and getting done what needs doing and done. He also wrote a book titled Emergency Mind: Wiring Your Brain for Performance Under Pressure

Questions We Asked:

Why did you feel the need to create The Emergency Mind?
Is poise under pressure a learned skill or innate?
What are valuable skills you have learned creating The Emergency Mind?
How does someone successfully improve through a performance loop?
What are ways to decrease stress while performing procedures?
How does the Emergency Mind address team dynamics?
How do you build a well functioning solid team?
How do you run a successful debrief?
Advice for medical leaders under pressure?
Book Suggestions?

Quotes & Ideas:

Applying knowledge under pressure is a separate learned skill
What happens when you are trying to intubate a patient and miss the first time? How do you recover and make the second attempt?
Prepare-> Perform-> Recover-> Evolve
“Create an environment that sets you up for success”
Experiment and be a scientist of yourself: Build->measure->learn
Exposing yourself to stressful scenarios outside of the hospital can help you build skills to help clinically
Use self-talk to help yourself manage acute stress
When debriefing, learn to separate outcome from performance. You can sometimes have a poor outcome with perfect performance and also a good outcome with poor performance.
Debriefs can use outcome vs. performance on a 2x2 matrix.
Never Waste Suffering. Both ours as providers and the patients.
Harness the wisdom in the room around you
Practice when you are outside of pressure and then slowly introduce it to stressful situations

Book Suggestions:

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel
Sources of Power by Gary Klein
- “A Failure to Disagree” paper by both
Ghosts of the Fireground by Peter Leschak

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Intro:

Dr. Thomas Varghese Jr. is the Associate Chief Medical Quality Officer and Chief Value Officer at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, and Chief of General Thoracic Surgery at the University of Utah.

Dr. Varghese is a national leader in minimally invasive applications for general thoracic surgery, recognized by Castle Connolly as one of America’s “Top Docs”, and is ranked in the top 10% of the nation by Press Ganey for patient satisfaction scores.

His research interests bridge the world of Educational Research and Health Services Research, specifically in the arena of optimizing performance at the patient, surgeon and system levels. He created the Strong for Surgery program, which is now a formal Quality Improvement program of the American College of Surgeons, and active at 331 clinical sites across the nation and 3 state surgical collaboratives.

Dr. Varghese holds national leadership positions in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Thoracic Surgery Directors Association, American College of Surgeons, and the Society of University Surgeons. Dr. Varghese is active on social media and is the Deputy Editor of Digital Media and Digital Scholarship for the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

Questions We Asked:

Where did your passion for leadership come from?
Who were your mentors and what made that relationship special?
Have you found your mentors formally or informally?
How can you create a good formalized mentorship program?
How do mentors effectively help their mentees find their career path?
How do you create a good mentor/mentee relationship?
How can those in the majority be allies to minority groups in medicine and science?
How do you be comfortable saying “I don’t know”?

Quotes & Ideas:

“Never stop looking for best practices”
You can and should have different mentors for the various areas of your life (academic, career, social, spiritual, etc.)
“Mentorship is someone with a particular knowledge or skills that shares them with someone else who does not have it on their own.”
“A mentor does not always have to be older than you.”
Identify OKR (objectives and key results) and set a time deadline for it
“An ally is someone who builds a culture of inclusion” and “A leader is someone who betters the culture of those they lead”. Leaders need to be allies.
“Are we better today than we were yesterday, and are we going to be better tomorrow than we were today and how do we achieve that.”
“Diversity doesn’t end because you hire the next diverse faculty. You have to make sure they thrive in their position.”
“You don’t know, doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t act.”
“MD means make decisions.”
“We are living in the greatest time in history.”
“Seek your tribe members”

Books Suggestions:

The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Sean Covey
Peter Drucker
Start With Why by Simon Sinek
Adam Grant

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COL (Dr.) Cristin Mount is an Army Critical Care Medicine physician currently stationed at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, WA. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Scranton and completed medical school at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland in 2003. She did an Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at Madigan and moved to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for Critical Care Medicine fellowship.

After fellowship, she returned to Madigan as the Director, Critical Care Services and promptly deployed with the 28th Combat Support Hospital to Baghdad, Iraq where she served as the sole Intensivist and the theater consultant for Critical Care and Internal Medicine. She is the only woman to serve as Chief, Department of Medicine and the Deputy Commander of Medical Services. Currently she serves as the Critical Care Medicine Consultant to the Army Surgeon General.

She is a Master of the American College of Physicians, and past Governor of the Army Chapter of the ACP. She is married to COL George Mount, an Army Rheumatologist, and they have three small boys under the age of 7.

Any views expressed during this interview reflect those of Dr. Mount and do not represent official views of the Army Medical Department, Department of the Army or Defense Health Agency.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss her journey through medicine and leadership as well as leadership in the ICU. Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

Questions We Asked:

How did you become involved in medical leadership?
How did you adjust to becoming a leader out of training?
What are some things that help you lead in stressful situations?
Can you discuss your article Ten Leadership Principles from the Military Applied to Critical Care and why you felt writing it was important?
What is unique about leadership in the Intensive Care Unit?
How do you develop a good care team?
How do you balance being firm in a stressful leadership moment vs. being aggressive and condescending?
How do you practice adaptive leadership?
Advice for medical leaders?
Books?

Quotes & Ideas:

When taking a new leadership position, “recognize that you’re going to feel overwhelmed, and then sit back, learn, and ask questions.”
In moments of panic, “put your helmet on, put your kevlar on, and march in a straight line.”
You can study leadership, but you also need to practice. Look for everyday small moments where you can practice your leadership skills so they are ready when you need them.
“Every day there's an opportunity to practice a leadership technique in your personal or work life.”
Ten Leadership Principles from the Military Applied to Critical Care
Leadership in the ICU: contrasts between problem solving without assessment of why things are happening vs. paralysis by analysis
To be a great leader in the ICU, you have to be able to make decisions without having all of the information.
“The success of the team means the success of the patient.”
In addition to placing yourself in stressful situations, you can rehearse in your mind what you would do if you would have been placed into that environment.
“As you are in a position to set boundaries to which work is not allowed, you have to set them.”

Book Suggestions:

Complications by Atul Gawande
We Were Soldiers Once and Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway
The Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson

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Intro: In this episode we interview Dr. Karla Williams and Dr. KeAndrea Titer. They are assistant professors of Internal Medicine at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. They are passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion and both work to design initiatives and curriculum focused on recruitment, education, and building community. This includes the AIRR initiative, which we discuss in the episode. In this episode, we discuss creating a welcoming culture in medicine and working to drive cultural change through seeking to understand others. Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

Questions We Asked:

What inspired you to develop the Clear the AIRR initiative?
What’s the difference between a macro and microaggression?
How should physicians deal with microaggressions?
What does your program look like practically?
How can leaders manage microaggressions?
How do you create a culture of occupational wellness?
What advice do you have for medical leaders?
Book suggestions?

Quotes & Ideas:

Microaggression initiative (AIRR): Assessing, Identifying, Responding and Reporting
As a leader, it is important to develop a culture where problems can be discussed openly and solutions can be made. As a trainee, it is important to seek out mentors who will feed into your career aspirations.
Diversity and Inclusion programs should highlight mentorship, sponsorship and support
“You have not been selected to this program because someone felt sorry for you. You have worked incredibly hard for this.”
Occupational Wellness: Being in a career that you enjoy, providing value to those you are serving, and having a space to balance your own self care
“You should work to see the best in everyone, but never be afraid to challenge them as well.” -Dr. Williams
Enter to Learn, Depart to Serve
Don’t be afraid to go against the grain and change the culture of medicine.

Books:

Dr. Williams & Titer suggested reading The Bible as a way to learn leadership
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey

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Today we have the privilege of having a panel of three guests for this episode. Today’s guests are the Chief Residents in Internal Medicine at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. They include John Blickle, Melanie Wiseman, and Rainey Johnson. All three of them have dedicated time to the study and practice of medical leadership and we look forward to following them as they continue to grow as leaders. In this episode we discuss the transition from trainee to leader, how to make leadership training a priority, and lessons from their time as chief residents. Welcome to leading the rounds.

Questions We Asked:

When did you first recognise the importance of medical leadership?
What valuable things did you learn from the leadership curriculum at Walter Reed?
What is something that you learned you were initially doing poorly?
What can someone do to improve as a leader if they don’t have a formal training program?
What surprised you transitioning into a leadership position as a chief resident?
What were the little things that you did to change the culture of your residency program?
What advice would you have for medical trainees?

Quotes & Ideas:

You won’t have extra time during residency for leadership training, you have to make the time -John
“To take care of our patients best, we have to learn these [leadership] skills.” -Melanie
Listen Aggressively -Melanie
The way that you set an example has an impact on the expectations of the group, even if they are not explicitly said - Rainey
Create a culture of feedback and make sure there aren’t barriers preventing you from obtaining honest feedback -John
When you get feedback, take a moment to accept it before you begin to defend yourself -Melanie
As leaders, we should continuously be looking for opportunities to grow -Rainey
A leadership training activity: contrasting a great attending and a terrible attending and reflecting on why
“Culture is difficult to change… because it’s changed by lots of little acts that show what the leadership values” -Rainey
- They chose the value that they were going to care
“If a message can be misinterpreted, it will be misinterpreted.”-John
“Don’t just do something, stand there.” -John
“You can’t change the culture if you don’t understand the people in it and what they value.” -John
“If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you.” -Jim Mattis

Books:

The Culture Code by Dan Coyle
It’s Your Ship by D. Michael Abrashoff
Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead by Jim Mattis

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James (Jim) Wright obtained his MD from the University of Alberta in 1968, his FRCP(C) in Internal Medicine in 1975 and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from McGill University in 1976. He is a practicing specialist in Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. He is also Co-Managing Director of the Therapeutics Initiative, Editor-in-Chief of the Therapeutics Letter and Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Hypertension Review Group. He sits on the Editorial Boards of PLoS One and the Cochrane Library.

Questions We Asked:
•How did you become involved with pharmacology and drug prescription?
•How would you define appropriate use?
•Does financial implications to the patient play into appropriate use?
•What do most physicians not know when they prescribe medications?
•How does overprescribing play into medical waste?
•Why is there a disconnect between systematic reviews and clinical guidelines?
•How does bias play into drug testing?
•How can we successfully collaborate with pharmaceutical companies without including bias into research?
•How do everyday clinicians decide how to treat patients based on guidelines vs systematic reviews?
•What makes a good systematic review?
•What advice do you have for trainees who want to do good for their patients?
•Book Suggestions?

Quotes and Ideas:
•Appropriate use of medications means that the benefits outweigh the harms of the medication
•Every time a patient takes a medication, they are reminded of their medical condition that needs treatment.
•Many psychiatric medications get onto market only due to short term medical trials, but many are prescribed for long term conditions.
•Leaders should push for non-industry funded trials that evaluate the long term effectiveness of medications.
•ALLHAT trial as an effectively run drug testing study
•We don’t want a situation where marketing is the driving force and not research
•Choosing Wisely Campaign

Book Suggestions:
•Sickening by John Abramson
•Our Daily Meds by Melody Petersen
•Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitakers

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Dr. Paul Thomas is a board-certified family medicine physician practicing in Detroit, Michigan. His practice is Plum Health DPC, a Direct Primary Care service that is the first of its kind in Detroit. His mission is to deliver affordable, accessible health care services in Detroit and beyond. He has been featured on WDIV-TV Channel 4, WXYZ Channel 7, Crain's Detroit Business and CBS Radio.

He has been a speaker at TEDxDetroit. He is a graduate of Wayne State University School of Medicine and now a Clinical Assistant Professor. Finally, he is an author of three books: Direct Primary Care: The Cure for Our Broken Healthcare System, Startup DPC: How to Start and Grow Your Direct Primary Care Practice, and Dressing for Medicine: what to wear for your medical school interviews and how to dress professionally throughout your career in medicine.

We hope you enjoy this episode with Dr. Paul Thomas about how to dress and present yourself as a leader.

Questions We Asked:

You just released a new book, Dressing for Medicine: what to wear for your medical school interviews and how to dress professionally throughout your career in medicine. What inspired you to write about this?
How should you dress for a medical school or residency interview?
How does virtual interviewing change things?
- How should you set up your background?
Where do you draw the line between standing out and blending in with your dress and attire?
How does appearance play into effectiveness leading teams and organizations?
Is there a way to dress well when you have to wear scrubs?
How do patient expectations change your dress?
How much of dress is reading the room vs. holding yourself to a higher standard?
You talk about house calls as a DPC physician, how does this change the interaction?
How did you learn how to dress and carry yourself well?
Book Suggestions?

Quotes and Ideas:

Medical School Interview: Blue or gray suit, white shirt with a colored tie. Leather shoes and a belt that matches.
If you have a choice between a solid or swivel chair, choose the solid chair so you don’t fidget.
Virtually: face a light, make sure the camera is eye level, set up and test your microphone. Make your tech setup pristine.
Sprezzatura: When everything is perfect, you can introduce a splash of personality that highlights a creative part of yourself
You should dress with the goal of looking professional so you can instill confidence and better care for your patients.
Wear clothing that makes you look mature and confident.
If you are a physician in a leadership role, you should take the time to dress well and change if needed.
“If you want to be a leader… you should look the part and lean into dressing your best.”
“If dressing well makes you stand up straighter, speak more clearly and develop trusting relationships with your patients, then do it.”

Book Suggestions:

Dressing for Medicine: what to wear for your medical school interviews and how to dress professionally throughout your career in medicine by Dr. Paul Thomas
Atomic Habits by James Clear

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Dr. Peter Pronovost is a world-renowned patient safety champion, innovator, critical care physician, researcher, and entrepreneur. His scientific work leveraging checklists to reduce catheter-related bloodstream infections has saved thousands of lives and earned him high-profile accolades, including being named one of TIme’s 100 most influential people
and receiving a coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2008.

As Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer at University Hospitals, Dr. Pronovost is charged with fostering ideation and implementation for new protocols to eliminate defects in value and thereby enhance quality of care.

Previously, Dr. Pronovost served as the Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine as well as the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

Dr. Pronovost was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2011, elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and has received multiple honorary degrees. Dr. Pronovost is an advisor to the World Health Organizations’ World Alliance for Patient Safety and regularly addresses the U.S. Congress on patient safety issues. In response to a White House executive order, Dr. Pronovost co-chaired the Healthcare Quality Summit to modernize the Department of Health and Human Services quality measurement s

Questions We Asked:
•How do you like the nickname Mr. Checklist?
•How do you inspire those on your team to believe in themselves?
•How do trainees fit into the safety paradigm?
•How do we make quality something that everyone wants to be a part of?
•What advice do you have for young leaders in healthcare?
•Book Suggestions?

Quotes & Ideas:
•“Stories are the most potent force for change in the world.”
•Steps that go before checklists: believing and belonging
•Everyone is a part of the healthcare team and involved in patient care
•“The secret of great care is love”
•“If you have to drive change you have to believe in people and you have to love people.”
•Stop believing that you’re just a _____ and start believing that you can make a difference
•Teams that make good decisions are diverse and have independent input
•Healthcare teams play “shorthanded” because we marginalize members of the care team
•Experiential wisdom or time with the patient is often inversely correlated to medical wisdom
•In 90% of sentinel events, someone knew something was wrong before the event happened
•Three ways we change behavior: Regulate it, use economic incentives, and use the network effect
•“Change progresses at the speed of trust, and trust grows when we do things with rather than to people.”
•As an executive, your job is to illustrate why we are doing something, and then inspire others to figure out how to do it.
•“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead
•Be scientifically sound and ruthfully practical
•Change is almost always transdisciplinary so it pays to be curious and learn about other fields
•Be humble, curious and compassionate
•Large scale change is half evangelism and half science. It pays to communicate and write well.

Book Suggestions:
•Love 2.0 by Barbara Fredrickson
•The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
•Multipliers by Greg McKeown and Liz Wiseman
•Everybody Matters by Bob Chapman and Rajendra Sisodia

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We wanted to start by saying thank you to all our listeners for their feedback and the comments over the past two years and everyone who has played a role in helping us launch and produce this podcast. This marks our 50th episode of Leading the Rounds and we couldn’t have asked for a better guest!

Today we have the Vice President of Performance Science at WHOOP, Kristen Holmes. Kristen drives thought leadership by engaging with industry leading researchers and partners to better understand performance data across high stakes verticals.

Before joining WHOOP in 2016, Kristen was a 3x All American, 2 x Big 10 Athlete of the year at the University of Iowa competing in both Field Hockey and Basketball and recently inducted into the Hall of Fame Class of 2021 and was a 7-year member of the U.S. National Field Hockey Team.Kristen was then Head Field Hockey Coach at Princeton University where she was one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history, having won 12 league titles in 13 seasons and a National Championship.

Kristen blends her academic and applied background in athletics, coaching, performance technology, psychology, and exercise physiology to drive research, partnership, and product development initiatives to strengthen WHOOP as a leader in Human Performance.

Please enjoy this wonderful discussion about health optimization, WHOOP’s work with front line healthcare workers and insights into maximizing human performance.

Welcome to Leading the rRounds!

Questions We Asked:

How did you transition from a player to a coach and leader?
Did you feel like creating team buy-in was something you could do naturally or have to learn?
What did you learn as a player and coach that has helped you now as vice president of performance at WHOOP?
What behavior have you found is most correlated with performance and health?
What are the biggest barriers to performance in front line healthcare workers?
Can you lead us through some breath work?
Have you studied cold immersion for autonomic health?
How can a resident physician optimize their sleep in a state of chronic sleep debt?
What is your goal with bringing WHOOP to healthcare?

Quotes and Ideas:

If you want to perform at your best, you have to know your physiology and what your body needs to be at its best.
For an athlete, it’s often not the 2 hours of training that determines next day training capacity, but what the athlete does within the other 22 hours of the day.
We will be much better as a society if we can understand our physiology and how we modulate stress.
Stability of sleep cycles may be the most important metric for health and recovery.
Leaders who are underslept lead teams who report poor psychological safety. Managers rated with higher psychological safety bring in an average of 4.3 million dollars more of revenue each year.
Breathing protocol for decreasing sympathetic drive “the physiologic sigh”: Two inhales followed by a longer exhale
You can see the benefits of cold immersion with only 12 minutes of exposure per week.
Tips for better sleep:
- Keep your sleep environment cold, dark, and quiet
- Avoid nigh time meals
- Avoid alcohol
- Keep a regular sleep schedule and nighttime routine
- Avoid blue light before bed

Book Suggestions:

Awareness by Anthony De Mello
Waking Up & Making Sense by Sam Harris
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

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Douglas Johnston, MD, is Vice Chairman, Program Director, and staff cardiac surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. He attended Dartmouth College where he was a Presidential Scholar, earning his degree in Anthropology and Classical studies with Honor and Distinction. In the process he performed field research in tuberculosis among refugee communities in India.Dr. Johnston then went on to complete his medical education at Harvard Medical School, where he was a Harvard National Scholar.

Dr. Johnston completed his clinical training in general surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was awarded the Edward D. Churchill Fellowship, the American College of Surgeons Resident Research Scholarship, and an NIH National Research Service Award for his research in the immunology of heart and lung transplantation.

Dr. Johnston then completed his training in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, including a focused fellowship in endovascular surgery and additional training in advanced 3-dimensional imaging techniques. He joined the cardiac surgery staff in 2008.

Dr. Johnston is the author of numerous articles and abstracts published in leading scientific journals. His research interests include high risk aortic valve surgery and interventions, hybrid approaches to complex cardiac disease, and transcatheter interventions for valvular heart disease. He is a member of the American College of Surgeons, the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, and the Society of Cardiac Computed Tomography.

An avid outdoorsman, Dr. Johnston enjoys hiking and sailing with his family during his time away from the hospital.

Questions We Asked:

Where in Cleveland do you hike and sail?
Did you always know you wanted to be involved in leadership?
What type of qualities do you look for in your team?
Why doesn’t everyone define leadership?
What makes a good leader in the operating room?
How do you develop calm in stressful situations?
Where do you draw the line with emotional behavior in the OR?
How do you recover from a leadership mistake?
What advice would you give to yourself at the beginning of training looking back now?
Favorite book and hike?

Quotes & Ideas:

“No matter what specialty you are in, you have teams of people working towards a common goal.”
“The best leaders are those who develop other members of the team to be leaders”
“Traditional residency training doesn’t address this [leadership]”
“A good leader will have the awareness to know the pulse of the room, but won’t try to control everyone.”
“When you achieve a state of flow, it’s probably leadership that led to that.”
“The best leaders I’ve seen are people whose energy level goes down in a crisis.”
As a medical student, be the quiet professional

Book Suggestions:

Turn This Ship Around by L. David Marquet
The No Asshole Rule by Robert L Sutton

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John Abramson served as a family physician for 22 years. And was voted “best doctor” numerous times. He is a Harvard Medical School faculty member, where he currently teaches health care policy. He transitioned to litigation as a consultant to the FBI and Department of Justice and served in many trials against big pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Abramson has appeared on more than 65 national television shows and podcasts, including the Today Show, the Joe Rogan Experience, Dr. Oz Show, Lex Friedman and now LTR.

His writing has been published in places like the New York Times, LA Times and he is the author of the national best-selling book Overdo$ed America.

Recently he published his second book Sickening and we are so grateful to have him here today to talk about how lack of transparency in pharmaceutical trials is impacting the healthcare system and what you as a future leader need to know about it.

Questions We Asked:

How did you transition from a family physician to litigation and writing work?
What inspired you to write your second book, Sickening?
What are a few examples of pharmaceutical case trials that have impacted patients?
How can doctors learn about how drugs are marketed and what the data shows?
Should there be a governmental body that vets clinical trial data?
How should physicians decide which drugs to support and give their patients?
How do we incentives caring for the patient?
What advice would you give your younger self?
Book Suggestions?

Quotes & Ideas:

Peer reviewers only get to see the submitted data instead of the raw data. This allows for cherry picking of data to prove effectiveness and maximize profits, not improve health.
Most medical journals profit from sending reprints to pharmaceutical companies which creates an incentive to make the pharmaceutical drugs look good.
Milton Freedman’s 3 roles of government, “It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property.”
US healthcare is alone in allowing commercialization permeate the healthcare system from drug advertisements to device sales and more
The US healthy life expectancy has decreased from 38th in the world to now 68th in the world
The system is designed to allow commercial interests to maximize drug companies profits instead of maximize the ability of physicians to deliver quality care

Book Suggestions:

Overdo$ed America and Sickening by Johnathon Abramson
How Markets Fail by John Cassady
Phishing for Phools by George Akerlof
Betrayal of Trust by Laurie Garrett

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Dr. Cam Patterson is a renowned cardiologist and healthcare administrator who currently serves as chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Patterson previously held numerous academic and clinical appointments at the University of North Carolina, including as physician-in-chief at the UNC Center for Heart and Vascular Care and executive director of the UNC McAllister Heart Institute.He was previously senior vice president and chief operating officer of New York-Presbyterian in New York.

Over the course of his career, Patterson has received more than $60 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles

His residency, including a year as chief resident, was conducted at Emory University Affiliated Hospitals. He was a research fellow at the Cardiovascular Biology Laboratory in the Harvard School of Public Health and a clinical fellow in cardiology at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas, where he joined the institution’s faculty in 1998.

His wife, Kristine Patterson, M.D., is an infectious disease specialist who is an expert in treating menopausal women with HIV. They have three children Celia, Anna and Graham.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss starting a new role as a leader, leading a medical system, and establishing an organizational vision.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions We Asked:

How did you come to be the chancellor of University of Arkansas Medical?
Was there something that surprised you about becoming chief resident?
How were you able to create a culture in your organizations?
How do you go from planning to implementation as a leader?
How are you able to see problems as opportunities?
How do you keep a pulse on your entire organization and know when to step in?
What do you use to guide decision making with limited information?
As a leader, how do you decide what challenges to take on first?
When do you work to create buy-in first vs making unwavering decisions?
What advice would you give someone interested in leadership?

Quotes & Ideas:

“You can create an environment where everyone complains to you, or one where everyone is understanding and happy.”
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
“Our goal is to help UAMS make Arkansas the healthiest state in the region.”
“As a leader, there should be moments where you have nothing to do, otherwise you’re doing someone else's job.”
“If you make a bad decision, move on fast and start making some good decisions.”
“Sometimes you have to trust your gut, and your gut works best when you have a strong moral compass.”
“Leadership is a job that should not have a reverse gear… The reason why you make a change is because there was a problem in the first place.”
“If life and work isn’t fun then is it even worth it.”
“You will be infinitely more happy finding and promoting the careers of people around you, than promoting your own career.”

Book Suggestion:

Music is History by Questlove

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Dr. Benjamin M. Scirica is a cardiovascular medicine specialist and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He is the director of quality initiatives at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s (BWH) Cardiovascular Division and a senior investigator at the Thrombolysis and Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Study Group, where he is director of the Electrocardiography Core Laboratory.

Dr. Scirica received his medical degree from HMS. He completed an internal medicine residency and a cardiovascular disease fellowship at BWH. He also completed a research fellowship in cardiovascular disease with the TIMI Study Group at BWH and received a master’s degree in public health from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Scirica is board certified in cardiovascular disease.

His clinical and research interests include assessing novel therapeutic agents and developing electrocardiography and cardiac biomarkers. As director of quality initiatives at the Cardiovascular Division at BWH, he leads projects to improve delivery of care and inter-disciplinary communications. At the TIMI Study Group, Dr. Scirica’s research focuses on improving risk stratification and cardiovascular disease treatment. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss disruptive innovations, change implementation, and teambuilding. Welcome to leading the rounds.

Questions We Asked:

Tell us about your NEJM article “Disruptive and Sustaining Innovation in Telemedicine: A Strategic Roadmap”?
How do we build sustainable systems to use innovative technology?
Have we been able to effectively evaluate telemedicine as a healthcare media?
What is your company CardioCompass?
What have you learned about leading diverse interprofessional teams?
What are your favorite books?

Quotes & Ideas:

Disruption theory by Clay Christensen
The Innovator's Dilemma
Cardiocompass
In order to create an innovation, you need to release a minimum viable produce and then refine and improve it based on feedback and inefficiencies
“What’s the job that needs to be done”
As a leader, “think out loud and let people into your thought process.”
“It’s almost impossible to over communicate, especially virtually.”

Book Suggestions:

Books about Abraham Lincoln

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Brian Ferguson has spent his career working in high-performance organizations, as well as learning from leaders and decision-makers in US national security, the military, and technology. He has used those experiences to build Arena Labs , healthcares first performance platform.

Brian is also a Partner + Co-Founder of the Liminal Collective, a unique company human performance focused company “enabling humanity’s boldest endeavors.” Liminal is currently working in civilian space travel, deep sea exploration, and the digital future of cyberspace.

Before founding Arena Labs & Liminal Collective, Brian served in the military as a Navy SEAL Officer. Prior to joining the military, he was a Presidential Appointee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and worked in the White House managing Intergovernmental Relations Brian serves on the Boards of GenNext, Seatrec, and The Honor Foundation. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee and is most proud of being a great father to his daughter.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss leadership as a Navy Seal, wearable devices, and high performance medicine.

Welcome to leading the rounds!

Questions We Asked:

Tell us about your time as a Navy Seal and how that has affected you and your outlook on life?
How have you been able to build mental fortitude?
How did you become involved in medicine and surgery?
Tell us about the name of Arena Labs and how the idea started?
What is high performance medicine?
What does Arena Labs track and how does it use the data?
How do you use wearables to improve performance?
What are the programs Arena offers?
What can performers do in the macro or micro scale to improve performance?
What makes a good surgical time out?
Book Suggestions?

Quotes and Ideas:

“[Military training] forces you to push up to your limit and then go a little further… and when you do that daily, you become a different person.”
“Mindset is trainable”
“From what I’ve seen, surgical residency and other residency are way more demanding [than the navy seals]”
Tools to improve your performance :
- Be aware of your stressors and learn how to react
- Improve your energy management
People in medicine are service archetypes: they do hard things, help people, and make an impact on the world
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly." -Teddy Roosevelt
There is a difference between endurance and performance. Endurance is repeated stress without recovery. Performance is repeated stressors with adequate recovery which leads to growth through hormesis.
Non-Sleep Deep Rest Protocols
“Don’t let your first time be your first time.”
In an acute stress situation, use two inhales through the nose and then one exhale out of the mouth to try to slow your heart rate down
“Is the surgical timeout an obligation, or an opportunity to improve team chemistry and performance.”
- Does it tap into the aspirational?
- Does it improve collegiality?

Book Suggestions:

Tribe by Sebastian Junger
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Nassim Taleb books

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Joel Bervell is a third year Ghanaian-American medical student at Washington State University.

Joel graduated from Yale University, where he served as an elected member of Yale student government, and director of a longitudinal mentorship program based in low-income neighborhoods. He completed a Masters in Medical Science at Boston University and spent a year working as a clinical research assistant at Providence Hospital.

At Washington State University, Joel served as Medical Student Council President and the co-founder and president of a chapter of the Student National Medical Association. He is also the founder and director of the Coug Health Academic Mentoring Program, a mentoring program dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented students interested in medicine.

He has been invited to speak to national organizations such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Clinton Foundation, Network of the National Library of Medicine. He has also spoken on well-known media outlets including Good Morning America, NPR, YahooNews and WebMd. He currently is working with the World Health Organization’s Digital Communications Team with a collection of health professionals combating the spread of misinformation on social media about COVID-19, and on a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion project with the VA Hospital systems.

Joel is committed to fighting health disparities in medicine through education and regularly shares topics about racial disparities/ biases in healthcare and other industries on his TikTok and Instagram (@joelbervell). Joel has been named by TikTok as the top 2021 “Voice for Change,” was featured by TikTok as one of 10 “Changemakers” on their inaugural Discover List, named as one of ten recipients of the 50K MACRO x TikTok Black Creatives Grant, and was a nominee for the AdColor Awards.

He is the recipient of the National Medical Association’s Emerging Scholar Award. Joel has served in an advisory role on the boards of multiple organizations including the National Student Response Network, Hope in A Box, and the Ron Brown Leaders Network Council.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions We Asked:

How did you get started using media platforms to promote change?
How have you been able to manage social media with being a 3rd year medical student?
Have you always been comfortable speaking in public?
How have you been able to use your voice as a medical student to affect change?
How have you felt being a young professional speaking to experts?
Have you struggled with imposter syndrome when speaking out for change?
What are biases that we see in medicine?
How do we discuss genetics vs race in medicine?
What is your outlook with our generation in terms of eliminating health disparities?
What advice would you have for trainees who want to create change?

Quotes & Ideas:

Use social media as an extension of yourself. Be true to who you are.
Medical students can make an impact on changing what we are taught in medical school
Medical students have been instrumental to rethinking pulse oximetry, eGFR, and diversity in medical imaging
Levels of bias in medicine:
- Medical education- Risk factors
- Systematic biases- Race based medicine, disease equations, etc.
- Educational materials- Dermatology textbooks

Book Suggestions:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Atul Gawande books
The Color of Law Richard Rothstein
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
How to be an Anti-Racist Ibram X. Kendi

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Intro:

Dr. Lauren Weber graduated from the University of Florida in 2003 and was commissioned into the U.S. Navy prior to attending medical school at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

She graduated medical school and departed to attend the Aeromedical Officer course. There she completed flight and aeromedical training in order to earn her wings and become a Navy Flight Surgeon. She received the Boeing Rescue Award for the first long range MEDEVAC in an Osprey.

After returning from deployment, Dr. Weber finished her training, was Chief Resident, then completed Cardiovascular Fellowship Program and stayed on to served as the Associate Program Director for the Cardiovascular fellowship program, Director of Echocardiography and Director of Advanced Cardiac Imaging.

Dr. Weber has been a student of leadership and followership, and was awarded the Lieutenant General Claire L. Chennault Award as the physician who most closely emulates the General's prominent personality traits: Innovation, Fairness, Teaching Effectiveness, and Leadership. She has given over half a dozen lectures and workshops on topics related to followership.

Dr. Weber is now practicing as a non-invasive Cardiologist for Confluence Health in Washington. In this episode we discuss her time as a flight surgeon and how followership can lead to successful leadership.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

Questions We Asked:

Tell us about your time as a navy flight surgeon?
What training did you have to prepare you for military trauma?
What is your advice for learning technical skills?
How have you helped your trainees jump into challenging opportunities?
What advice do you have for people who are afraid of failure?
Can you tell us about your idea of followership?
Do you think followership is the way to become a good leader?
How can somebody be a good follower?
What advice would you give to yourself at the beginning of your training?
What books have made an impact on your life?

Quotes and Ideas:

“Look out for folks who are interested, but quiet… and give them an opportunity.”
“Look at being wrong as an opportunity to relearn something or learn something completely new.”
“As a leader you sometimes have to make the unpopular choice… not necessarily what’s easy.”
1988 Robert Kelly article In praise the Followers in HBR
Chaleff’s Follower Archetypes:
- Individualist: The pessimist. Rarely accepting of new ideas and willing to challenge the group and leader. High challenge, but low support.
- Resource: Get work done, but don’t spur change or challenge the leader. Low challenge and low support.
- Implementer: Implement change, but often go along even if they thing change isn’t working. High support but low challenge.
- Partner (The Ideal Follower): Will work with the leader to come up with change ideas and challenge them if needed. Collaborate with the leader. High challenge and high support.
“I have yet to come across a situation where someone is being an excellent follower and no one knew about it.”
“Opportunity lies where responsibility has been abdicated” -Jordan Peterson
“We are building a toolkit for leadership and followership our whole medical careers.”

Book Suggestions:

Think Again by Adam Grant
The Courageous Follower by Ira Chaleff
Embracing Followership by Allen Hamlin
Athena Rising by David Smith and Brad Johnson

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James L. Madara, MD, serves as the CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association and adjunct professor of pathology at Northwestern University.

Dr. Madara has helped sculpt the organization’s long-term strategic plan. He also serves as chairman of Health2047 Inc., the wholly-owned innovation subsidiary of the AMA, created to overcome systemic dysfunction in U.S. health care.

Prior to the AMA, Dr. Madara spent the first 22 years of his career at Harvard Medical School, receiving both clinical and research training, serving as a tenured professor, and as director of the NIH-sponsored Harvard Digestive Diseases Center. Following five years as chair of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University, Dr. Madara served as dean of both biology and medicine, and then as CEO of the University of Chicago Medical Center, unifying the university’s biomedical research, teaching and clinical activities.

Dr. Madara then served as senior advisor with Leavitt Partners, a health care consulting and private-equity firm founded by former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

Throughout his career, he has published over 200 original papers and chapters and has served as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Pathology and as president of the American Board of Pathology.

Dr. Madara is consistently named one of the nation’s 50 most influential physician executives and on the nation’s 100 most influential people in health care. Some of his notable awards include the MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, the Davenport Award for lifetime achievement in gastrointestinal disease from the American Physiological Society, and the Mentoring Award for lifetime achievement from the American Gastroenterological Society.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions We Asked:

What led you to be CEO of the American Medical Association?
How did you develop the three arcs of the AMA?
What are some targeted things AMA has done to improve physician workflow?
What is the goal of Health2047?
What does the future of medical education look like?
How can medical trainees become involved in innovation in healthcare?
What are some book suggestions for medical leaders?

Quotes & Ideas:

AMA’s Three Strategic Arcs:
Improving physician satisfaction by removing obstacles that interfere with patient care;
Driving the future of medicine by reimagining medical education, training and lifelong learning and by promoting innovation to tackle the biggest challenges in health care; and
Improving the health of the nation by leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises
Dr. Madara’s AMA Startup Health2047AMA launches Silicon Valley integrated innovation company, Health2047
How the AMA works to support medical trainees: AMA announces new online education hub to support lifelong learning, Accelerating Change in Medical Education
The three legged educational stool: Clinical Science, Basic Science, and Health Systems Science
Establish your own personal guiderales. Dr. Madara’s include: always take the high road and don’t mistake a dropped ball for a conspiracy

Book Suggestions:

Nudge by Richard H. Thaler
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

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Intro:

Scott Tillema is an FBI trained hostage negotiator and active law enforcement officer. Scott teaches organizations how to use the power of life saving negotiation principles to enhance their work. He has developed a powerful model for safely resolving crisis situations, which is now being recognized and adapted by the private sector for use in sales, communication, influence, and leadership. He was invited to the most famous speaking stage in the world, TED, to share his approach to negotiation. His talk, "The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators" has amassed over one million views.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we talk about stress inoculation, reading people, and effective communication.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions We Asked:

How did you become involved in hostage negotiation?
What are the biggest challenges in being a hostage negotiator?
What are things that helped you go from training to practice?
How do you effectively communicate with someone very different than yourself?
How do you judge if a conversation is moving in the right direction?
What is your strategy when a negotiation is not working?
What is the longest negotiation you have been a part of?
What tips do you have for reading body language and voice inflection?
What would you tell yourself if you could go back to the beginning of your career?

Quotes and Ideas:

The people that are effective communicators are curious about those they are communicating with, and work to find a common bond.
Hostage Negotiation Framework:
- Understanding: Try to understand the situation
- Timing: Actively listen before making requests
- Delivery: How you speak is just as important as what you say
- Respect: Mutual respect drives good negotiation
“We make our decisions based on emotion, not because we are using reasoning and logic.”
When a negotiation moves from a monologue to a dialogue, it is moving in the right direction.
FBI Behavioral Change Stairway Model
Paul Ekman Resources on Micro Expressions
Logotherapy: a therapeutic approach that helps people find personal meaning in life.
“We feel empowered when we have a purpose, vision, and mission.”
Scott’s Mission, “To inspire people of all backgrounds to be great negotiators.”
Advice to younger self, “Don’t be afraid.”

Book Suggestions:

Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance by George Kohlrieser
Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as you Negotiate by Roger Fisher

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Dr. Ely is the Grant W. Liddle Chair in Medicine, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine and co-director of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship (CIBS) Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also a practicing intensivist with a focus on Geriatric ICU Care.

Dr. Ely’s research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with ICU-acquired brain disease His team developed the primary tool by which delirium is measured in ICU-based trials and clinically at the bedside in ICUs worldwide. Dr. Ely has over 400 peer-reviewed publications and recently published a highly acclaimed book titled Every Deep Drawn Breath. All net proceeds from his book are going to patients and their families.

Despite his many accomplishments he will be the first to say that his most amazing accomplishments are his three daughters, Taylor, and twins, Blair and Brooke.

We hope you enjoy this episode with @weselymd where we discuss clinical research, creating change, and humanism in medicine.

Questions We Asked:

How did you become involved in clinical research?
How do you “live at the edge of mystery”?
How do you lead a large research lab effectively?
How do you create buy-in to change clinical practice once you have made a discovery?
What do you mean by “malignant normality”?
How have you been successful in changing people’s minds?
How have your relationships inspired you in your work?
Was your passion for story the reason for writing EDDB?
What does every person is a world mean to you?
How has the pandemic affected your practice in medicine?
How do we keep medicine human?
How will technology influence our ability to maintain humanism?
What are some books you would suggest to medical trainees?

Quotes & Ideas:

Rules for designing a clinical research project:
- Study what you have a lot of
- Create a study where either answer matters
As a leader, one of the most important goals should be maintaining a human connection with everyone in your team.
Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point idea of Mavens, Salespeople and Connectors
Malignant Normality: we tend to think the way we do things is the best way to do things
We need to use the power of story to change peoples minds
Cada Persona Es Un Mundo, “Every Person is a World”
“Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes.” by John Steinbeck in East of Eden
Everything in medicine comes down to “Humility, Glory and Wonder”
“If I think it’s just my job to take care of the MATTER, then I am missing ⅔ of that human being.” -Wes
Always ask patients, “what matters to you?”

Book Suggestions:

My Own Country & The Tennis Partner by Abraham verghese
In Shock by Rana Awdish
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

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Intro:

Hey everyone and welcome to this episode of leading the rounds, where we look to inspire physician leaders through conversations about personal growth, leadership education, and health systems literacy.

As always, if you like what we’re doing at Leading the Rounds, give us a positive rating on Apple Podcasts, Connect with us on Social Media, and you can now support us on Patreon.

In today’s interview, we speak with Dr. Joshua Liao. Dr. Liao is a board-certified internal medicine physician and Associate Professor in the UW School of Medicine, where he is also the Associate Chair for Health Systems and the Medical Director of Payment Strategy. He is a national expert in health care payment and delivery policy. Dr. Liao's scholarship focuses on how systems of financing and delivering care work together with human behavior to affect health outcomes. He has published 200+ articles, including over 150 in peer-reviewed medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association. His ideas have also appeared in outlets such as the Washington Post, Forbes, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, NPR, and the Hill. We hope you enjoy this episode with Dr. Joshua Liao where we discuss health systems science and physician payment models.

Questions We Asked:

How did you become involved with health systems science?
What is your role as professor of health systems science?
Can you tell us some history of payment models in the US?
What will be the tipping point to changing from FFS to PFV payment models?
Have there been studies that prove PFV is superior to FFS payment?
How can we provide better care for lower cost to marginalized groups?
Where does the transition to Pay-for-Value start?
How do physicians get paid under Pay-for-Value?
Who defines positive outcomes?
Does Pay-for-Value incentivize selecting healthy patients?

Quotes and Ideas:

The transition from Fee-for-Service to Pay for Value
A transition to Pay-for-Value will not fix all the issues we see in health care
Capitation model: a fixed fee per patient do deliver care throughout the year
“The alternative to mandates is not nirvana, the alternative is how it’s always been.”
“Payment is a powerful motivator”

Book Suggestions:

“The Long Fix” by Vivian Lee

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Intro: Colonel Joshua D. Hartzell serves as the Program Director of the National Capital Consortium Internal Medicine Residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Dr. Hartzell attended the Uniformed Services University (USU) School of Medicine and then went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for his residency in Internal Medicine.He served as Chief Resident until starting his Infectious Diseases Fellowship. He has also served in the United States Army for 19 years, which included deployment to Afghanistan as a Battalion Surgeon. He completed an assignment as the Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency, Assistant Chief of Graduate Medical Education, and Army Intern Director at Walter Reed prior to joining the Uniformed Services University in 2016. There he served as the Assistant Dean for Faculty Development. He was responsible for the professional development of over 4000 faculty and delivered over 100 faculty development workshops. He holds the rank of Professor of Medicine at the USU. He is a graduate of the Stanford Faculty Development Facilitator Course, a Harvard Macy Graduate and now Faculty in the Harvard Macy Leading Innovations Course. Dr. Hartzell also completed a Masters of Science in Health Professions Education at Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions in 2017. Dr. Hartzell’s academic interests include faculty and leader development. He developed LEAD (Leadership Education and Training) 2.0 curriculum for graduate medical trainees at Walter Reed. Dr. Hartzell also teaches Leadership and Organizational Change and Advanced Readings in Leadership for the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions Master’s program. Dr. Hartzell is committed to improving healthcare and personal well-being through developing leaders.

As always, if you like what we’re doing at Leading the Rounds, give us a positive rating on Apple Podcasts, Connect with us on Social Media, and you can now support us on Patreon.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

Questions We Asked:

How do you define physician leadership?
What is the best way to develop a medical leader?
Will making STEP1 allow for more leadership development opportunities?
What has the uniformed services done to build leadership into medical training?
What do you do in the hospital to help build your team?
How should someone learn about leadership on their own?
Why has leadership taken a backseat in medical training?
What outcomes would you look at to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership training?
What do physicians specifically have to add to the leadership conversation?
Why should trainees care about leadership?

Quotes & Ideas:

“Leadership is using your influence to help accomplish the mission or task, while you’re taking care of the people you’re leading.”
“Leadership development begins way before medical school.”
“We can learn a lot about leadership if we’re looking for it.”
“No one cares how much you know till they know how much you care.” -Teddy Roosevelt
“It’s not about being in charge, it’s about taking care of those in your charge.” -Simon Sinek
“If I really care about someone, I have to hold them accountable.”
“That’s a leadership issue.”

Book Suggestions:

“Drive” by Daniel Pink
“The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” by Edmund Morris
“Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink
“The Leadership Challenge” by Barry Posner
“Athena Rising” by David G. Smith
“The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle

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Today we spoke with Dr. Brent Lacey. He is a gastroenterologist by training who has a passion for financial management and career coaching. He is the founder of The Scope of Practice in which he runs a podcast, blog, and personal coaching service surrounding physician finances. He has spent hundreds of hours coaching and teaching these principles to people at all stages of their career. He hopes to continue to help others experience the joy of achieving financial independence and success in managing their clinical practice.

As always, if you like what we’re doing at Leading the Rounds, give us a positive rating on Apple Podcasts, Connect with us on Social Media, and you can now support us on Patreon.

We hope you enjoy this episode with Dr. Brent Lacey about personal and professional finance, from medical school to building a practice and having financial freedom.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

Connect with Dr. Lacey:

Website: www.thescopeofpractice.com

Podcast: www.thescopeofpractice.com/podcast

Brent’s Upcoming Summit “Marriage and Money MD” on November 15-17th

Questions We Asked:

How did you learn about personal finance and start coaching physicians?
Did you always see yourself building a business around finance?
What advice would you give to medical students about learning finance when they don’t have any money?
What are your thoughts on the government repayment bailouts and deferment plans?
How should trainees factor in buying their first home?
What are common mistakes people make once they start earning a physician salary?
When and what should physicians invest in?
When can you begin to think about starting a business?
Is there a place for leveraging other people’s money to gain wealth?
What are the different types of insurance that physicians should consider?
What are books to learn about finance?

Quotes and Ideas:

“People come out of medical school and residency as excellent physicians but they’re not very good at business.”
“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” -Charlie Tremendous Jones
“80% of personal finances are behavioral choices.”
“I know people who were spending $1,500 a month on eating at restaurants. That’s why you don’t have a 401k, because you’re eating it.”
“Come out of medical school with as little debt as possible, and have a plan to attack it with a vengeance.”
“Relying on government programs for your future is a really hazardous approach [to loan repayment].”
“NOW IT’S MY TURN is the most hazardous phrase that I hear.”
When you become an attending, don’t say “I have a lot of money now… you have a great income, but you’re probably deep in debt.”
Invest with The Tax Efficient Waterfall
Brent believes that physicians should be investing 18-20% of their income each year
“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” -Sun Tzu
Every physician needs: term life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, homeowners insurance, disability insurance, and malpractice insurance

Book Suggestions:

Dr. Lacey’s Reading List

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Intro:

Matt Abrahams is a passionate, collaborative and innovative educator on organizational behavior, communication, and speaking at The Stanford University School of Business. Specifically, he teaches Effective Virtual Communication and Essentials of Strategic Communication. Matt is also Co-Founder and Principal at Bold Echo Communications Solutions, a presentation and communication skills company based in Silicon Valley that helps people improve their presentation skills. Matt published the third edition of his book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, a book written to help the millions of people who wish to present in a more confident and compelling way. He also hosts the Stanford Graduate School Business Podcast called Think Fast Talk Smart. And, he curates the NoFreakingSpeaking.com website.

We hope you enjoy this episode with Matt Abrahams where we discuss why public speaking is so difficult, effective tools for communication and how to present better both in real life and virtually.

Questions We Asked:

•How can we manage our anxiety when speaking?
•Do you still have anxiety with speaking?
•How can we obtain a flow state during speech?
•How can you feel confident when speaking to experts in a given field?
•What are things people can do to become more spontaneous with their speech?
•How can we use strategic pauses and tone to engage an audience?
•How can you train out using filler words?
•How can we use speaking structure to improve our communication?
•What are some tips to improve communication over zoom?
•Book suggestions for improving speaking skills?

Quotes and Ideas:

•Ways to address speaking anxiety in the moment: Control symptoms [take a deep belly breath (double the exhale to the inhale), hold something cold in your hands] and sources [control anxiety by becoming present oriented (exercise, music, count backwards by a number)]
•Matt’s way to hack his anxiety: take a deep belly breath, remind himself that he has valuable things to say, and say tongue twisters
•“Dare to Be Dull”
•Improving spontaneous speech: practice in low stakes environments, pay attention to what others do with their conversation to build tools in your toolkit, associate practice with prior habits
•To get rid of filler words: end every sentence when you’re completely out of breath. You can practice with your calendar every day.
•Interesting research: With young kids, filler words (like, um) signal that something important is coming. With adults this changes and it now becomes distracting.
•The way to get good at speaking: Repetition, reflection, and feedback
•“Whenever you are communicating, you are a tour guide for your audience. The number one place that communicators lose their audience is when they move from one place to the next. In the transitions.”
•Speaking structure ideas:
oWhat-> so what?-> now what?
oProblem-> solution-> benefit
•Tips for zoom communication:
oTips for presence: improve posture on screen (big, balanced, and still), look directly at the camera, vary your voice
oImprove engagement: stimulate multiple modalities (use polls, videos, questions, calling on people) and use linguistic engagement (use the word “you”) with analogies
oBest way to practice: record yourself
•“Attention is the most precious commodity we have in the world today.”

Book Suggestions:
•Speaking Up Without Freaking Out by Matt Abrahams
•Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath

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Dimitrios Tsatiris, MD is a practicing board-certified psychiatrist specializing in the field of anxiety management. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of psychiatry at Northeast Ohio Medical University. He studies and writes about the interface of anxiety and achievement. His popular Psychology Today blog “Anxiety in High-Achievers” is viewed by more than 20,000 readers per month. He is passionate about empowering people to break free from the shackles of anxiety and develop a healthy relationship with achievement. His writing has appeared in Psychology Today, PsychCentral, NAMI, ThriveGlobal, KevinMD and the White Coat Investor, among other publications. Dr. Tsatiris enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children. He also keeps close ties with family in Greece and has fond memories from his childhood there. We hope you enjoy this episode of leading the rounds where we discuss the intersection of anxiety and performance.

Questions we asked:

It seems paradoxical that high performers struggle with anxiety. What do you think is the root of the intersection of performance and anxiety?
Can you speak more about the biological roots of anxiety?
Why might the people who we often believe have everything together be struggling with anxiety?
How can someone balance chancing excellence but being okay with failing?
How do we build a society that doesn’t overvalue perfection?
How would you define stress and how can leaders work to manage stress?
Can how we look at stress impact how it affects us?
What do you see is the role for exposure therapy in the management of anxiety?
How have you as a provider been able to manage your stress through the pandemic?
What is the relationship between grit and anxiety?
What is the difference between the experience of anxiety and clinical anxiety?
What would you tell future leaders about managing their anxiety throughout their training?

Quotes & Ideas:

“To have anxiety is to be human”
“Pressure is fuel for anxiety”
Anxiety often is the fear of being vulnerable. This can manifest as fear of danger or fear of being ostracized from the group.
“What excellence does is it allows you to have a growth mindset.”
“One can try to strive for perfection but it is an unattainable and unsustainable expectation.”
Affect forecasting: We pursue things that we believe will make us happy. We often assume that success and money will make us happy.
“We combat perfectionism by combatting the myth associated with personal success. Success does not equal personal happiness.”
“If you’re under constant stress, that is not healthy.”
“Let’s face your fears at your own pace… exposure is gradual steps towards reaching and conquering your fear.”
A challenge of the pandemic has been maintaining safe distancing, but also recognizing the physical and mental benefits of physical connection.
Ways Dr. Tsatiris manages his mental health: Regular exercise, gratitude meditation, connection with others, and taking moments to pause
“Yes you can be gritty and also have anxiety.”
“An anxiety disorder is when it begins to affect your day to day functioning.”
“The goal is not the absence of anxiety, but making it manageable.”
“When we have anxiety, we are not being present in the moment… what meditation does is it brings you back to the present by focusing on your breath.”

Book Suggestions:

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

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Elisabeth Rosenthal is a physician and journalist who is currently working as the editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News. She graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed residency and worked as an Emergency Physician before she began working for the New York Times as a reporter. In 2017, she published a book titled, “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back”, which looks at the American healthcare system and how financial incentives have impacted it. We hope you enjoy this episode where we talk about healthcare costs, physician payment models, strategic billing and more.

Questions we asked:

What led you to make the switch from being a physician to being a journalist?
What do you mean by “health insurance as the original sin” in healthcare?
What are your thoughts on alternative models such as Direct Primary Care or Concierge Medicine?
Do salary based physician payment models improve overtreatment and overbilling?
Could whole genome sequencing further unnecessary medical care and treatment?
What are other countries doing to better align healthcare cost and effectiveness?
What can the next generation of physicians do to cure this American Sickness?
What books would you suggest to medical leaders?

Quotes & Ideas:

Paying Till it Hurts column by Dr. Rosenthal
Insurance separates the consumer from the true cost of medicine which allows for business to increase pricing.
“When you receive a ER bill for $17,000 and you’re out $3,400 for a COVID screen... that’s not skin in the game, that’s like having a kidney in the game.”
Patient’s can’t shop around for healthcare prices if they don’t know the prices.
“Why does it cost that much? Because it’s legal and people can.”
“Salary based physician payment often becomes salary plus incentives for revenue generation.”
“The goal of the physician and nursing workforce is to deliver good care to patients… The goal of the business side of healthcare is often to generate revenue.”
Kaiser Health News Bill of the Month
Bad medicine is often good business.
“People say pharma’s bad or PBM’s are bad, but It’s the way the system interacts with itself that is the problem.”
“If physicians don’t bring in patients, these hospitals are nothing.”

Book Suggestions:

An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal
The Price We Pay by Marty Makary

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In this episode we interview coach Mark Dantonio. Coach Dantonio is the former head coach of the Michigan State University football team. He was the coach for 13 seasons and was the winningest coach in Michigan State history with 114 wins. He had an impressive career as head coach where he led his team to three Big Ten Championships, Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl victories, and an appearance in the 2015 College Football Playoff. In addition to his success on the field, he also was a leader off of it. He helped organize events to raise funds for Lansing Promise, Sparrow Hospitals Children's Center, and led trips for his team to visit schools in the surrounding areas of Michigan. He was given the Gene Stallings Award, which is given to head coaches who are humanitarians and promote healthy, vibrant communities around them. We hope you enjoy this episode where we talk about building a winning culture, creating buy-in, and overcoming obstacles.

Welcome to leading the rounds!

Questions we asked:

What was it like being a part of “the ball is free” MSU vs. Michigan game?
What makes a good coach?
What were your goals when starting as a head coach in 2007?
How do you maintain your established culture with changing players?
How were you able to create such buy-in with the fanbase and those outside the program?
How did you choose who to empower around you? And how did you make everyone within the team feel valued?
What made your players that were chosen as captains good leaders?
When you were in a tough stretch, what helped you keep your team on track?
How did you stay balanced when you’re coaching 80-90 hours a week?
What made you the coach who could outperform expectations?
What advice would you give to yourself if you could look back to 2007?

Quotes & Ideas:

“When everything starts to fall down around you, which it’s going to.... You have to be the guy that steadies the ship.”
“Regardless of the plan you have, it will not survive contact.”
His model for team building:
Build relationships
Educate yourself
Define a win
Choose to be a light
Go to work
“Usually when there’s a problem, it’s because of a lack of communication.”
“People understand the product, but they don’t understand the process.”
“You earn the jersey that you wear.”
“Water your crops”
“Any time you put all your eggs in one basket and if you don’t win, you fail, you’re in for a tough landing.”
“Sometimes it is better to be fresh than ready.”
“Strive forward and dream big.”
“If we can all go in one direction, we can be extremely successful.”
“Do your job and usually you’ll get a bigger role.”
“I want to be defined not so much by the wins that we had, but who I was.”

Book Suggestions:

Chase the Lion by Mark Patterson
Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life by James Kerr

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Dr. Gregory Corradino is a neurosurgeon by trade, a business owner, and most recently an author of the book, “Beyond Medical School: secrets of successful doctors”. He is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and the North American Spine Society. He is also the Vice President of East Tennessee Brain and Spine. Dr. Corradino also enjoys painting, traveling, and spending time with his wife and children.

Welcome to leading the rounds!

Questions we asked:

How can trainees learn about business, finance, and leadership before they begin practicing?
How should medical schools be educating future physicians about these topics?
What are your tips for choosing a medical practice?
Why do you think doctors, who are trained on empathy, historically poorly treat their staff?
How do you hire the right people?
What would you tell new physicians about hiring great accountants, advisors, lawyers, financial planners, insurance agents, mentors?
How do you build a great team to work with?
Can you explain what a mastermind group is?
How can we become better communicators?
As an owner of a private practice, how do you not let the business affect your relationships with patients?

Quotes & Ideas:

The culture within an organization trickles down directly from the leader. Poor leadership within a medical practice will lead to employees who treat patients poorly and represent the practice poorly.
“If you don’t treat people well… they are going to figure out a way to treat you poorly.”
Your level of competence and prestige never gives you the right to treat people poorly.
“One of the best ways to get proper advice is to ask around.”
“If you think you can do it alone, you’re going to waste a lot of time, money, and emotional stress.”
“You’re the sum of the 5 people that you spend the most time with.” -Jim Rohn
“Do you want a culture of design or a culture of default?”
Mastermind Groups
“You have got to be able to get your point across effectively”
Important facets of building a medical practice:
- Business/Marketing
- Operations
- Human Resources/People/Staff
- Finances

Books:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Trust Based Marketing by Dan Kennedy
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

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Dr. Colin West is a professor of Medicine, Medical Education and Biostatistics at The Mayo Clinic. His research focuses primarily on physician well-being, evidence-based medicine, biostatistics, and medical education. He has won numerous awards for work and is a thought-leader in these fields. Dr. West has developed and evaluated a comprehensive evidence-based medicine curriculum for Mayo Medical School and enacted change at the national level in the internal medicine resident career plans and current education climate.

Today we further our conversations we’ve had previously about wellness and burnout by taking a magnifying glass to the role of the patient-doctor relationship and how this helps us as trainees and physicians find purpose and passion in our career.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions we asked:

Why did you start doing “wellness Wednesdays” on Twitter?
Are patients more aware of physician burnout now more than ever?
In the airline industry, there are stories of pilots cancelling flights due to fatigue and to promote safety. How would that play out in the healthcare system?
How has Mayo Clinic been able to build in layers of backup to improve work environment and give trainees more time off?
What are ways that residency programs can support residents long term fulfillment?
Are medical students more resilient than the general public?
How do we break the cycle of burnout being passed onto new trainees?
How does Mayo Clinic’s values mitigate bullying in training?

Quotes and Ideas:

“We’re taught not to show our patients and our communities the stresses we are experiencing... but healthcare professionals are shockingly human first.”
“Healthcare professional and physician burnout is not the patient’s responsibility.”
M.V.P.’s of Healthcare = patients
- They give us Meaning, Value, and Purpose
“Dehumanization and depersonalization is one of the hallmarks of burnout.”
“In our current training, we have to have layers of safety built in.”
- Swiss cheese model of avoiding errors
“Our own professionalism is used sometimes in a perverse way to say that you will step up; you will always step up.”
“We forget why we’re here.”
“Despite having higher burnout rates… physicians also have higher levels of resilience than the general public.”
Primary value at Mayo Clinic, “the needs of the patient come first”
Jobs, demands, resources model= “distress and burnout result when the demands of a job chronically exceed the resources available to meet those demands.”
“We work in healthcare teams, and the best team players lift those around them up.”

Book Suggestion:

The House of God by Samuel Shem

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Welcome to this episode of leading the rounds where we interview Dr. Lauge Sokol-Hessner.

Dr. Sokol-Hessner, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and the Associate Director of Inpatient Quality Improvement at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also faculty for the IHI Virtual Expedition: Is Your Organization Conversation Ready? which educates on end of life conversations with families and patients.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss the importance of Quality Improvement for medical leaders, difficult conversations, and more.

As always, if you like what we’re doing, give us a positive rating on apple podcasts and connect with us on social media.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions We Asked:

As you developed as a leader, what sparked your interest in quality improvement?
Who should know about quality improvement science?
What is the best way to learn quality improvement?
What is different about medical QI and industrial quality work?
How can we make quality improvement and change something that people want to do instead of another requirement that people grumble about?
Is there a benefit of being an innovator or a lagger with technology?
How did you become involved with the Conversation Ready Project?
How do you deal with difficult conversations with a dying patient’s family?
When does standardization take away from the humanism of medicine?
What suggestions do you have to avoid moral distress as physicians?

Quotes & Ideas:

“Anyone in healthcare who provides care should know the general principles of quality improvement and why they are important.”
Innovation/Adoption curve
Questions for starting a QI project:
- What is the problem?
- Is it really a problem for those involved?
- Is this something that we can fix?
- How can we fix it?
- Is our change better?
“You will go much further, much faster if you are doing it with other people.”
Joshua Lakin article, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2715161
“We are all hoping that your loved one gets better, but we are worried that will not happen. Would it be okay if we talk about a plan B if that doesn’t happen?”
“The purpose of learning the skills is so that they are in your toolbox, and you can use them at the right moment.”
“We encounter moral distress… when we have cognitive dissonance between what we believe is the right thing for a patient, and what is actually happening.”

Book Suggestions:

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter
Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson

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In this episode, we interview Nobel Laureate Dr. Robert Lefkowitz. Dr. Lefkowitz is an internist and cardiologist who is best known for his novel work in the discovery of GPCR’s. This discovery has led to the production of numerous life saving medications. He is currently an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Medicine at Duke University.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss the serendipity of life, pursuing excellence, the importance of mentorship and more.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds!

Questions we asked:

What do you mean when you call yourself an “accidental scientist”?
How do you balance enjoying control vs. recognizing the serendipity of life?
What do you ask yourself to live a meaningful life?
What does it feel like to be a Nobel Laureate?
What is the real value of rewards?
How have you been able to pursue excellence while still holding other aspects of your life together?
How do you approach building relationships?
When experiencing struggles, when do you decide to keep persevering vs. moving onto something else?
What are your favorite books?

Ideas:

The Road Not Taken
“Try as you might, you can’t control everything.”
“Serendipity blesses each of us… the question is whether you recognize it at the time and take advantage of it.”
“Every day… I have the sense that something big is coming.”
IKIGAI
“I never felt like I was going to work, I was just doing what I do.”
“I love the challenge of finding out how to motivate and mentor a trainee.”
“The goal for my trainees… is to have them experience what it feels like to work right at their potential.”
“If you look at any really successful scientist, they trained with successful scientists.”
“Mentoring is about transferring ways of working and values that can’t be written down in a protocol book.”
“If half of everything I’m trying to do is working, I’m not working on challenging enough projects.”

Books:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm: The Adrenaline-Fueled Adventures of an Accidental Scientist by Robert Lefkowitz
The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson
The Language of God by Francis Collins
Plato's Republic
The Citadel by A. J. Cronin
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

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In this episode we interview Dr. Tait Shanafelt. Dr. Shanafelt is a Jeanie and Stewart Ritchie Professor of Medicine, Chief Wellness Officer, and associate dean at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is the co-author, with one of our former guests Steven Swenson, of “Mayo Clinic Strategies to Reduce Burnout”. He is credited for bringing physician-burnout to the forefront of healthcare discussion. He is a leader in the field of physician wellness and healthcare team efficiency. He has published numerous works in the field of physician well being and his studies in this area have been cited by CNN, USA Today, and The New York Times.

We hope you enjoy this episode where we talk about his book, why wellness initiatives often fall flat, and how we can build a positive work environment.

Welcome to leading the rounds

Questions we asked:

How has the pandemic changed the ideas you wrote into “Mayo Clinic Strategies to Reduce Burnout”?
What systemic issues in healthcare wellbeing has the pandemic shined a light on?
What were some of the processes that your team at Stanford implemented to fight the pandemic?
Are financial constraints a valid argument for not prioritizing healthcare wellness?
What makes a good wellness initiative?
What would you say to a medical leader who is making excuses for not prioritizing physician wellness?

Quotes:

”The culture of our organizations is the foundation of wellbeing and professional fulfillment.”
"It’s about organizational change, systems change, and culture change, not tips and tricks for personal resilience.”
”Our goal is to fix a broken work environment, not teach and train physicians to tolerate a broken work environment.”
Ask your team, ”What do you need from your leaders that you’re not currently getting? What have your leaders done that has been effective?”
”Probably the most important thing we can do [is] listening.”
”When organizational wellness efforts are either lip service, or manifest as yoga and granola and learn how to practice mindfulness… they will fall flat.”
”Physicians have higher resilience than the general population.”
”Even physicians with the highest scores on resiliency… have high levels of burnout.”
”Our efforts are focused on improving the work environment.”
”The purpose of the leader is to accomplish the mission and attend to the welfare of the soldiers.”

Book suggestions:

Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by Edgar Schein
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan

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In this episode we interview Dr. Roxana Doneshjou. She is a clinical scholar in the department of dermatology at Stanford School of Medicine. She is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and was the Stanford Medicine TEDMED Student Ambassador in 2015. She is interested in bridging new technologies such as genomics and machine learning with clinical medicine. She is also interested in the use of Twitter for scientific communication and medical education. You can follow her on Twitter: @RoxanaDaneshjou.

We hope you enjoy this episode of leading the rounds!

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

Questions:

How did you develop your leadership philosophy?
Have you always been a team player or did you develop it?
What is your take on STEP1 being pass/fail?
How did you develop your career in medical technology?
How will artificial intelligence fit into medicine in the future?
How can we avoid bias seeping into medical technology?
How do physicians balance promoting their brand on social media and not spreading misinformation?
How do you balance being yourself and maintaining your professionalism on social media?
How do you balance social media with your patients?
How can you thrive at virtual conferences?

Ideas:

“Artificial intelligence technology has the capacity to offload some burdens within medicine and to provide decision support tools to physicians.”
Bias may sneak into AI algorithms
“The pace of innovation often outpaces moral obligation.”
“We build things, but we don’t always think about the consequences.”
On Twitter, “false news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories are.”
“If you are are trying to go viral, that is antithetical to science.”
“To me, science should always be about promoting the truth.”
When using humor, “Never punch down.”

Books:

We Are Water Protectors by Carol Lindstrom (children's book)
Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington
Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares by Aarti Namdev Shahani

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In this episode, we bring back a guest from season 1 and interview Hamza Khan. Hamza is a multi-award winning marketer, best-selling author, and global keynote speaker whose TEDx talk “Stop Managing, Start Leading” has been viewed over a million times. He is also the author of two books, The Burnout Gamble and his most recent book, Leadership Reinvented. If you want to learn more about Hamza, check out his website hamzakhan.ca.

In our episode with Hamza last season, we talked about his leadership experiences, challenging the status quo, as well as his take on burnout being a leadership issue. In today’s episode, we focus on his new book, Leadership Reinvented and go through his belief that Servitude, Innovation, Diversity, and Empathy (SIDE) are the key to 21st century leadership. We hope you enjoy this episode with Hamza Khan.

Welcome to Leading the Rounds

Questions we asked included:

Tell us about your new book?
What does it mean to you to be a servant leader?
How do you look at innovation?
How do you reorient yourself to stay on the cutting edge?
How can you cultivate diversity if you yourself are not “diverse”?
Why is empathy important for leadership?
What would you add as an addendum to your book?

Our favorite Ideas:

SIDE (Servitude, Innovation, Diversity, and Empathy)
“The dark triad of leadership [narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic] is officially dead”
“Become so good, that you can inspire other people to be better than you” -Hamza
“[As a leader] you are at the center of the organization radiating outwards.” -Hamza
“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” -Jack Welch
“Tap into very inspired and wise younger people” -Hamza
“What we are striving for is diversity of background, experience and perspective.” -Hamza

Check out Hamza's new book, Leadership Reinvented online, or at your local bookstore.

Leadership, Reinvented: How to Foster Empathy, Servitude, Diversity, and Innovation in the Workplace

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Jonathan Burroughs is President and CEO of The Burroughs Healthcare Consulting Network, Inc. He works with some of the nation’s top healthcare consulting organizations to provide ‘best practice’ solutions and training to healthcare organizations throughout the country.

Dr. Burroughs serves on the national faculty of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Association for Physician Leadership, where he has been consistently rated as one of their top speakers and educators.

He is the author or coauthor of many books on healthcare leadership including, Redesign the Medical Staff Model - A Collaborative Approach, which was the winner of the 2016 James A. Hamilton Award for Outstanding Healthcare Management Book of the year.

Dr. Burroughs received his bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins University, his MD from Case Western Reserve University, and a healthcare MBA with honors from the Isenberg School of Management.

We hope you enjoy our conversation where we talked about knowing yourself, the importance of physician healthcare executives, and following the money in medicine.

As always, if you like what we’re doing give us a positive rating and follow our social media pages for more content.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading The Rounds.

Questions we asked included:

How did you develop your leadership philosophy?
Tell us about Burroughs consulting?
How do we follow the money in medicine?
How do trainees learn the business of medicine?

Our favorite quotes:

“Learn from every single patient. That’s why they call it the practice of medicine”
“Look in the mirror and see who you are… then exploit the strengths and minimize the weaknesses.”
“If you don’t learn the business, you are going to be delegated to the assembly line.”
“Doctors who only know how to diagnose and treat patients will be treated as a commodity in the coming century.”
“He or she who controls the money, controls the system.”

Book Suggestions:

French’s Differential Diagnosis
Introduction to Healthcare Finance by Carlene Harrison and William P. Harrison
Essential Operational Components for High Performing Healthcare Enterprises by Don Burroughs
The Innovator's Prescription by Clayton Christensen and Jason Hwang

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In this episode, Peter and I put together the culmination of our first season of podcasting. We took lessons from leaders in medicine, business, and the military to bring you 5 rules for leadership.

This episode contains lessons from previous guests including Drew Dudley, Dr. Ed Creagan, Dr. Simon Fleming and more.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading The Rounds!

Rule 1: Chase Purpose

“Leadership will always start from the inside out. The leader that you are is honed and developed well before a leadership appointment.” - Hamza Khan
“Leadership is spending just as much time, and just as much energy and resources setting and chasing goals for your character.” - Drew Dudley

Rule 2: Bend, Don't Break

“You somehow have to find a way to embrace failure and learn tremendous lessons from it that make you instantly better than you were before.” -Steve Stylianos
“As your body acclimates… you become more comfortable being uncomfortable.” -Dr. Edward Barksdale

Rule 3: Be Curious

“Ask questions, be curious, keep learning and you’ll never get old.” - Steve Swensen
"Ask them about their pets." -Dr. Ed Creagan

Rule 4: Cultivate Empathy

“I try to interact with everybody assuming that not a single person has been nice to them all day" - Drew Dudley
“Unless we are sick in our life, we know nothing.” - Dr. Ed Creagan

Rule 5: Change the Culture

“Better cultures get better outcomes… toxic cultures directly kill and harm patients.” - Dr. Simon Fleming
“It’s not weird to want what is right and to fight for justice.” -Dr. Ijeoma Opara

Our Book Suggestions:

Caleb:

Mindset by Carol Dweck
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
An American Sickness by Elizabeth Rosenthal

Peter

Start With Why by Simon Sinek
Essentialism by Greg Mckeown
Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

Big thanks to everyone who helped make season one possible. We appreciate all of the leaders that have helped make this possible.

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

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In this episode we interview Dr. Edward Barksdale. He is the newly elected American Pediatric Surgery Association President. He is also the Division Chief of Pediatric General Surgery and Thoracic Surgery at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.

He recently Launched the Anti-fragility Initiative, which takes a unique approach to addressing Cleveland’s teen poverty challenge and has already received over $2 million from the Governor of Ohio.

We hope you enjoy our conversation where we talked about living in the moment, committing to excellence, leading from a place of purpose, leading as an introvert and the difference between success and significance.

As always, if you like what we’re doing give us a positive rating and follow our social media pages for more content.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading The Rounds.

Questions we asked included:

You met Dr. MLK when you were a child. Tell us about that story and how it impacted you?
How do medical trainees work to live in the moment?
What advice would you give to someone struggling to find their purpose?
What does excellence look like for you?
How do you know if you are adding value to interactions?
How can someone overcome their introversion as a leader?
What are some of your favorite books?

Our favorite quotes:

“It doesn’t take wings, a halo, or anything from divinity for you to a leader and have tremendous impact”
“Don’t look back, you’re not going that way”
“History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” -James Baldwin
“[Don’t] be a human doing, but strive to be a human being”
“Success is the pursuit of maximizing your talents to the best level you can, and then giving that away.”
“A smooth seas never made a strong sailor” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Hope… is the ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance that it will succeed” -Václav Havel
““If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” -Seneca
“You’ve got to get your boat in the water”
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” -Ernest Hemingway

Book suggestions:

Altruism, by Matthieu Ricard
Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
The Second Mountain, by David Brooks
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

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In this episode we interview Dr. Jeffrey Upperman. Dr. Upperman was recently appointed as the Surgeon-in-Chief of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. Prior to that, he served at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and received recognition as an expert in trauma, disaster preparedness, and injury prevention.

Upperman is a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Army Medical Corps and was chief of surgery during operation Iraqi Freedom 2. He serves as a sworn member of the National Advisory Committee for Children in Disasters.

Upperman has published over 180 peer-reviewed publications, 200 abstracts and 20 book chapters. His research includes sepsis, inflammation, trauma and disaster preparedness.

He is happily married to his wife of 26 years who is also a physician and has three sons.

In this episode we discuss his background playing sports, his journey to pediatric surgery, excellent performance, disaster preparedness, and more.

As always, if you like what we’re doing give us a positive rating and follow our social media pages for more content. You can also follow today’s podcast guest on Twitter @PedsTraumaMan.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading The Rounds.

Questions we asked included:

How did your background in athletics influence your mindset as a surgeon?
How are surgery programs working to balance hard work vs overworking/burning out?
How has your background in the military influenced your leadership as a physician?
How did you become involved in disaster preparedness?
Has this background affected how you view the pandemic?
What could we have done differently in the pandemic?
Should information be censored to promote positive communication in pandemics?
What are some of your favorite books?

Our favorite quotes:

“You can’t hurt me”
“When you look at NFL, college, and high school football teams, they do more film review than surgeons do.”
“You control your lifestyle, but you don’t get to make boatloads of money and also sit at home all the time.”
“My life's mission is to improve the health of people”
“When you’re in certain environments, you need to learn how to make lemonade.”
“They were just unprepared because they didn’t want to read.”
“I am sick of lessons learned”

Book suggestions:

Philippians
Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Gary Hamel
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

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In this episode we interview Dr. Ijeoma Nnodim Opara. Dr. Opara received her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) and completed a Med-Peds Residency at the Detroit Medical Center where she served as Chief Medical Resident. Currently, she is a double-board certified and an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.

She is the Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency, and attending physician with Wayne State University Physician Group.

She is certified in Clinical Teaching by the Stanford Clinical Teaching Program and an inaugural fellow of the Academic Leadership Academy of Wayne State University. She is passionate about mentorship and medical education.

She is the founding director of an innovative residency curriculum called “Health Equity and Justice in Medicine”, and co-founding director of Wayne State University Global Health Alliance program and co-created and co-directs the Global Urban Health & Equity curriculum .

Her areas of academic interest are in health equity, justice, social and structural determinants of health, global health, and inter-professional education.

She has a long history of leadership in service to the African immigrant and African American communities and co-founded Africans in Medicine, whose mission is to unite African medical professionals to further the health interests of Africans living on the continent and in the Diaspora.

Dr. Opara is committed to activism, advocacy and clinical care for disenfranchised populations and works vehemently to uplift them. She is recipient of “Most Engaged Physician” award given by the Detroit Medical Center in recognition of her excellent track record in community service, collaboration, and advocacy. She has also received “Faculty of the Year” award.

In this episode we discuss her immigration from Nigeria, her role as the Ada, the importance of relationships, and her passion for global health. This interview is great for anyone looking to learn about culture, community, and the health of the world.

Questions we asked include:

What was it like moving to the US and adjusting to a different culture?
How has your culture affected how you look at leading others?
How has being the Ada influence your leadership?
What is your method of self-reflecting and personal growth?
What would you tell someone who is looking to be a leader in global health in the future?
Favorite books?

Our favorite quotes:

“I value relationships over efficiency”
“Business becomes much richer when it’s grounded in a trusting relationship”
“Hubris is always a risk”
“Self-awareness is one of the most important traits of anybody”
“Everybody is a leader… it’s just a question of if you have a title or role.”
“When you see your sister hurting and you help her feel better, that is leadership”
“You’re a leader way before you get the title”
“[Representation] doesn’t just matter, it is everything”
“It’s not weird to want what is right and to fight for justice.”
“There is a lot that we can learn from the rest of the world”

Book Suggestions:

Caste by Isabele Wilkerson
Stamped from the beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Black Detroit A People's History of Self-Determination by Herb Boyd

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

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In this episode we combine with another podcast to interview. Dr. Stephanie Faubion M.D. She has practiced in the Women's Health Clinic at Mayo Clinic for over 10 years. She has a broad interest in women's health and her research encompasses sex- and gender-based differences in disease, menopause, hormone therapy, healthy aging, and sexual health and dysfunction in women.

In her roles as the Penny and Bill George Director for Mayo Clinic's Center for Women's Health and medical director for The North American Menopause Society, Dr. Faubion is acutely aware of the need to improve the evidence base for medical practice. Her role in the research community is guided by the need to develop research strategies that will improve the clinical practice as many research questions come directly from the clinical dilemmas faced every day in medical practice.

Dr. Faubion's research group has developed a clinical database: the Data Registry on Experiences of Aging, Menopause and Sexuality (DREAMS). This database, developed in 2005, already has extensive longitudinal data with over 7,000 patients and has facilitated multiple research projects. In this context, Dr. Faubion has encouraged and directed strong research collaborations with established clinical and basic science researchers within the institution.

We are also joined today by Aleesha Kotian and Charlotte Thill of From Skirts to Scrubs, a podcast that intersects gender studies, history and medicine. For more information we encourage our listeners to visit their website or check out their social media. In this episode we talk about how to be an authentic leader and why we need to move to a place where gender isn’t a qualifier for leaders in medicine.

Questions we asked include:

What is her leadership background?
How has being a woman shaped your leadership abilities?
How can we address equality from a top down and bottom up perspective?
Will this problem fix itself over time or do we need to do more?
How can there be more support for women entering back into the workforce after taking time off for family?
How can we support and normalize men taking time off for raising children, family, etc?

Our favorite quotes:

“You are a woman leader, but you lead regardless of your gender. For you being a woman is both critical and unimportant.”
“Being a woman is not important when I’m leading a team… it doesn’t factor into my decisions.”
“If you’re not authentic to yourself, you’re not going to be a good leader.”
“The definition of a leader means people are following you”
“Do we have the right person for the job, or are we just picking the next white male candidate?”
“We have to rethink how we are cultivating leaders and engaging people”
“If you’re climbing a ladder, you need to be bringing at least two or three people up with you.”
“Lose your self limiting beliefs”

Book suggestion:

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

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In this episode we interview Dr. Ed Creagan. Dr. Ed was first board-certified in medical oncology with a focus on malignant melanoma and lung cancer. He then transitioned into a career in hospice and palliative medicine.

He was the Mayo Clinic president 1999, 2000, 2001. He was responsible to the Mayo Clinic CEO who directed answered to the internal board of governors and the external trustees. He believes that this gave him a fascinating insight into what he called the Masters Of The Universe.

On a local as well as an international platform. He was able to see the skill set of those who were incredibly effective leaders and those who were not. Every effective leader he noted was an effective communicator.

If you want to connect with Dr. Creagan, you can find him at his website or at @EdwardCreagan on Twitter, IG, Linked In.

In this episode we talk about bringing humanity back to medicine, his perspective as a hospice physician, and how he copes with the inevitability of death.

Book giveaway congratulations to Jenna Dabaja who won a free copy of Dr. Steve Swensen’s book “Mayo Clinic Strategies to Reduce Burnout - 12 Actions to Create the Ideal Workplace” from our last book giveaway. Congratulations Jenna!

In addition, we are going to do another book giveaway for this episode. We will be giving away a book from one of my favorite physician authors. We are going to give away Atul Gawande’s book “Being Mortal”. This is a book that both Peter and I loved reading ourselves and our guest for today’s episode suggested as well. Check out our social media pages for the details. Questions we asked include:

How did you get involved in hospice medicine and leadership?
How can we be more human in medicine?
What can death teach us about living a good life? What are a couple of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from it?
What is something you never understood about dying until you experienced it at the bedside?
As someone who stands at the bedside and cares for those who are dying, do you ever feel anxiety with your own mortality?
How do you balance your creative passions with your clinical work?
What are some great books on end of life care?
What are great books on leadership?

Our favorite quotes:

“It’s easy to sit on the sidelines or in the bleachers and criticize leadership, but when the buck stops with you... it’s a whole different ball game.” -Dr. Ed
“The most significant factor in effective leadership is the ability to communicate” -Dr. Ed
"The common man goes nowhere. You have got to be uncommon." -Herb Brooks
On empathy, “Unless we are sick in our life we know nothing” -Dr. Ed
“At the bedside, I never see patients talking about their achievements… what I do hear about is regrets and remorse and missed opportunities.” -Dr. Ed
“If we are not dead fit… we ain’t gonna go the distance in the current world.” -Dr. Ed

Book suggestions:

Anything by Ira Byock
Anything by Atul Gawande (check out our social media for a chance to win!)
When Breath Become Air by Paul Kalanithi
So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

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In this interview, we talk to Dr. Stephen J. Swensen. He is dedicated to the support of thoughtful leaders who aspire to nurture fulfillment of their staff. He is a recognized expert, researcher and speaker in the disciplines of leadership and burnout.

Dr. Swensen serves as Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, where his focus is Joy in Work. He works as the Leadership Theme Leader for NEJM Catalyst.

For three decades he served patients at the Mayo Clinic. As Director for Leadership and Organization Development, he co-led the Professional Burnout Initiative and oversaw the development of 4,100 physicians and 232 key leaders.

As Chief Quality Officer, he established the Quality Academy wherein 37,000 colleagues were certified as Fellows during his tenure. As Chair of the Department of Radiology, he and his team used their Value Creation System to improve the welfare of both patients and professionals.

As professor in the Department of Radiology, he was Principal Investigator of two National Institutes of Health grants and has authored three books and 207 articles.

He was honored with the Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award, served as the president of two international societies and founded the Big Sky Group. Dr. Swensen has been married for 43 years, has two children and has completed 39 marathons

In this episode we discuss his book "Mayo Clinic Strategies To Reduce Burnout: 12 Actions to Create the Ideal Workplace" which YOU CAN ENTER TO WIN by joining our email list. This contest will run until January 11th!

We also discuss the MAYO clinic model of care, creating a culture of espirit-de-corps, and the importance of curiosity in medicine.

Questions we asked include:

Tell us about how you came to write this book?
What is espirit-de-corps and how did you arrive at it?
Why did you use the paradigm shift of "work life integration" instead of "work-life balance" in your book?
Can you introduce us to that and tell our audience what are some of the things that are different at MAYO?
Why don’t you think this model has spread everywhere else?
What traits do you think physician leaders should work on cultivating?
What advice would you give to physician leaders?

Our favorite quotes:

“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without strategy.” -General Norman Schwarzkopf
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” -Angela Davis
“[In healthcare], we have a shared responsibility to do our work, to improve our work, and to care for each other.” -Dr. Swensen
“The needs of the patient come first” -MAYO Clinic Mission
“You change culture one behavior at a time” -Dr. Swensen
“In order to teach something you have to understand it at a different level and be able to communicate it in a way that’s understandable.” -Dr. Swensen

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

Mayo Clinic Strategies To Reduce Burnout: 12 Actions to Create the Ideal Workplace (Mayo Clinic Scientific Press)

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In this episode, we interview Dr. Steven Stylianos. Dr. Stylianos serves Columbia University as the Rudolph N Schullinger Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery. He is currently the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital/New York Presbyterian.

A graduate of Rutgers University and the New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Stylianos completed his general surgical training at Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center. He subsequently spent two years as the Trauma Fellow at the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute in Boston and then completed his formal pediatric surgery training at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Stylianos joined the faculty of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Children’s Hospital of New York in 1992. He organized and directed the 50-member team of physicians and nurses who separated conjoined twins in 1993, 1995, 2000 and 2020. These conjoined twins separations attracted the attention of the national media, including Dateline NBC, CBS 48 Hours and Fox News.

Throughout the years, Dr. Stylianos has served as Chairman of the Trauma Committee for the American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) from 1997–2002 and authored the APSA position paper supporting all measures to reduce the toll of firearm violence in children. He also served as the Co-Principal Investigator of the U.S. Department of Health, Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s grant to APSA “Partnership for Development and Dissemination of Outcomes Measures for Injured Children.”

Currently, Dr. Stylianos is a site verification officer of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma and was recently elected to serve on the American Pediatric Surgical Association Foundation’s Board of Directors. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pediatric Surgery Case Reports, Associate Editor of the Journal of Pediatric Surgery and served on the Executive Board as a founding member of the Pediatric Trauma Society. Dr Stylianos recently received the prestigious American Pediatric Surgical Nurses Association’s 2016 Champions Award and the American Trauma Society’s 2016 NY State Trauma Medical Director of Distinction.

And most importantly, Dr Stylianos and his wife Joann are proud first-time grandparents to to their grandson Nico.

In this episode, we discuss what it was like to lead a team who separated conjoined twins, how he handles leadership in the OR, and his experience in the epicenter of COVID-19 in New York.

Questions we asked include:

What are your current leadership roles and what do you feel were the experiences that led you to them?
What was it like to lead the team that separated conjoined twins?
What is your mindset in the OR when things don’t go as you planned?
Tell us about the first few days of the pandemic for you. What was it like to be presented with this challenge?
Were there any lessons you took as a leader in the OR to role as a leader in administration?
What are your pieces of advice to developing medical leaders?
What is your process of reflecting on failure?
What two of your favorite books that you would recommend to young medical leaders?
- His suggestions: "Farsighted" by Steven Johnson & "The Splendid and the Vile" by Eric Larson

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Inside-Out Leadership: Human Leadership and Mental Health with Dr. Alison Van Dyke

Erratum: Dear listeners, we wanted to correct information from this episode. The NCI SEER Cancer Registries ascertains over 500,000 cancer cases not 500 million as mentioned .

Dr. Alison Van Dyke joined the Data Quality, Analysis, and Interpretation Branch of the Surveillance Research Program (SRP) as Director of the SEER-linked Virtual Tissue Repository (VTR) Pilot Studies. For the VTR Pilot Studies, SRP works with SEER registries to obtain custom annotations of detailed treatment data for pancreas and female breast cancer cases which may have biospecimens available. The goal is to match unusual survival cases with more typical survival controls. Dr. Van Dyke also directs the Residual Tissue Repositories (RTRs). Operated by the SEER registries in Hawaii, Iowa, and Los Angeles, the RTRs collect tissue being discarded by hospital laboratories once the minimum requirement for retaining diagnostic tissue blocks, as set forth by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), has been met.

Dr. Van Dyke earned her MD/PhD from Wayne State University School of Medicine in 2011 with graduate training in cancer biology. She completed postgraduate medical residency training in anatomic pathology at Yale-New Haven Hospital and surgical subspecialty training in thoracic pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In addition to being board certified in Anatomic Pathology by the American Board of Pathology, she is a Fellow of the CAP and serves as the SEER Liaison to the CAP Cancer Committee, which determines what and how tumor information will be reported in pathology reports.

Dr. Van Dyke completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics (DCEG). Working with Drs. Jill Koshiol and Eric Engels in DCEG, Dr. Van Dyke's postdoctoral research focused on the incorporation of surgical pathology in epidemiologic research. She utilized data from the NCI Cancer Cohort Consortium to investigate the epidemiology of biliary tract cancers. She was also the first researcher to use the digital slide collection from the National Lung Screening Trial to investigate the relationships between lung scarring characteristics and lung cancer development. In addition, she established pathology tissue collection and evaluation methods for Dr. Koshiol’s Chile Biliary Longitudinal Study (Chile BiLS). She is completing a NAACCR project examining biliary tract cancer incidence trends in the United States.

In this episode we discuss her path to being a MD/PhD, some of the projects she is working on currently at the NCI, the lessons she learned from living with Bipolar Disorder, and her experience as a woman in STEM.

Questions we posed include:

What it means to you to be a physician-scientist and why you chose this path?
How does balancing these two professional identities affect your leadership philosophy?
What things outside of medical school, research, and residency have you done that most impacted your leadership development?
What are some Challenges/barriers that you faced?
Why do you still think there is still such a stigma surrounding mental health?
What needs to be emphasized during the training of young medical and scientific leaders in order to improve the culture?
Do you have any personal stories where you felt that you were discriminated against by your peers for your gender?
What message do you want to send to our listeners that may feel discriminated against based on their gender, race, etc?
What are your favorite books?
What advice do you have for medical trainees?

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“As long as we make leadership something bigger than us… we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it every day, from ourselves and from each other.” -Drew Dudley

In this episode we interview Drew Dudley. Drew has been called one of the most inspirational TED speakers in the world, and he is on a mission to help people unlearn some dangerous lessons about leadership.

As the founder and chief catalyst of Day One Leadership, he has helped top organizations around the world increase their leadership capacity. His clients have included McDonald’s, American Express, JP Morgan Chase, the United Way, and more than 100 colleges and universities.

Prior to this, Drew spent eight years as the director of one of Canada’s largest leadership development programs at the University of Toronto. Drew is also the bestselling author of This is Day One: A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters that debuted at #6 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list.

As a speaker, Drew has delivered keynotes to more than 250,000 people across five continents.

His TED talk “Everyday Leadership (The Lollipop Moment)” was voted “one of the 15 most inspirational TED talks of all time”.

In this episode we discuss his idea of day one leadership, his experience on the patient side of healthcare, as well as leadership lessons from the pandemic.

If you want to learn more about Drew or his work, you can visit his website, https://www.drewdudley.com/

As always if you enjoy our content and want to support us, please subscribe to our podcast and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us on social media or at leadingtherounds.com

Welcome to Leading the Rounds.

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"Simon Fleming is a trainee Trauma and Orthopedic surgeon from the United Kingdom who has developed a national, and growing international reputation, for his campaigning work to drive cultural change in the NHS and other healthcare organizations.

He has spoken widely across the UK and abroad – including delivering a TEDx talk – around his award-winning #HammerItOut campaign aimed at tackling bullying and discriminatory behaviors in the NHS to create positive and empowering workplaces and to improve patient care.

Simon has received over 15 awards for his work in improving standards in medical education and shining the spotlight on the need for cultural change in healthcare organizations. These include being the first man to receive Honorary Membership from the Medical Women’s Federation."

In this episode, we discuss bullying in medicine, driving cultural change, as well as his believe that one person can change the world. We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading the Rounds.

If you want more information about Simon and his work, you can visit his website https://simonfleming.co.uk/

If you like what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, please subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can learn more about us at www.leadingtherounds.com

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In this episode, we interview Hamza Khan. Hamza is a multi-award winning marketer, best-selling author, and global keynote speaker whose TEDx talk “Stop Managing, Start Leading” has been viewed over a million times. He is a top-ranked university educator, serial entrepreneur, and respected thought leader whose insights have been featured by notable media outlets such as VICE, Business Insider, and The Globe and Mail.

He empowers youth and early talent through his work as Managing Director of Student Life Network, Canada’s largest and most comprehensive education resource platform, which reaches over 2.7 million students. From TEDx stages and international conferences to MBA classrooms and Fortune 500 boardrooms, Hamza is invited regularly to deliver keynotes and workshops around the world. His clients have included some of the world’s most dynamic companies and organizations, including PepsiCo, LinkedIn, Deloitte, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Trivago, and over 100 colleges and universities. Learn more at hamzakhan.ca.

In this episode, we talk about his leadership experiences, challenging the status quo, as well as his take on burnout being a leadership issue. We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading the Rounds. If you want to learn more about the various topics we covered, listen to this episode or view are social media pages for a more detailed breakdown of our discussion.

If you enjoy what we're doing at Leading the Rounds, subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also connect with us at leadingtherounds.com and on social media.

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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling retiring from the US Army in January 2013 and recently served as Senior Vice President at Florida Hospital. He is now an advisor to the Advent Health Leadership Institute, where he designed and teaches a physician and healthcare strategic leadership development program. His book, Growing Physician Leaders, was published in May 2016. Mark served in the US Army as the Commanding General of the US Army Europe, after leading over 60,000 soldiers and partnering with the Armies of 51 other nations. He served a total of 38 months in combat, including a tour Commanding the US Army’s 1st Armored Division and Task Force Iron in Northern Iraq for 15 months during the surge. He was also the First commander of the Army’s Initial Military Training Command, where he revamped basic training for incoming soldiers, and he also commanded at each of the Army's three training centers. Among many of Mark’s awards and decorations are the Distinguished Service Medal, several Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart, the Parachutist Badge and awards from international governments including Romania, Poland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

In 2019, Mark received a Doctorate in Business Administration from the Crummer School of Business at Rollins College, where his thesis addressed the efficacy of formalized leadership programs for physicians and healthcare administrators. After retiring from the Army, LTG Hertling was appointed by President Obama as one of 25 members to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sport and Nutrition. Mark serves as an advisor to the non-profit organizations “Mission: Readiness” in California, “Operation Gratitude” in Washington DC. He is an adjunct scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute, serves as an executive member of the Dean's Alliance at the School of Public Health of Indiana University, and is an adjunct professor of strategic leadership at the Crummer School of Business at Rollins College. He is the senior military and national security analyst for CNN/CNN International. Mark is married to his best friend, Sue and they have two sons, and five grandsons.

If you want more information about us or our podcast, you can visit leadingtherounds.com

Growing Physician Leaders: Empowering Doctors to Improve Our Healthcare

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In this episode we interview Dr. Brent James. Dr. James has been a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is also a Senior Advisor at the Leavitt Group and a Senior Advisor at Health Catalyst, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He holds faculty appointments at the Stanford University School of Medicine and at several other universities. He was formerly the Vice President and Chief Quality Officer at Intermountain Healthcare.

He has been honored with many awards for quality in health care delivery, including the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety & Quality Award, The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum, The C. Jackson Grayson Medal for Distinguished Quality Pioneer, The Joint Commission Earnest A. Codman Award, The National Committee for Quality Assurance Quality Award, and the American College of Medical Quality Founders' Award.

For 8 out of its first 9 years, Dr. James was named among Modern Physician's "50 Most Influential Physician Executives in Healthcare." In Modern Healthcare, he was named among the "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" and "25 Top Clinical Informaticists." In this episode, we discuss his leadership background, value based medicine, as well as his outlook on the future of medicine. We hope you enjoy this episode of Leading the Rounds.

If you want to learn more about us or our work, visit www.leadingtherounds.com

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It’s the proverbial question. Starting from the first time you utter an interest in medicine. Your parents, your friends, your mentors, your teachers, admissions committees- everyone asks you, “Why do you want to be a doctor?” This is not just a question you should think about before medical school, but one to revisit throughout your career. In last week's episode we introduced one facet of Victor Frankl’s idea of tragic optimism. Another part of this idea is with respect to finding your purpose. Frankl’s basic tenet is that those who are driven by purpose, rather than the pursuit of happiness, are more able to weather the storms ahead. Physician burnout is an example of one of those storms, and leading yourself and others from a place of purpose can help overcome it. In this episode we explore how to find your “why?”, what it means to be purpose driven and how to lead from a place of purpose.

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As a growing part of the healthcare team, we have seen it first hand. The medical students who gather in the cafeteria over lunch to complain about their instructors, but don’t take action to improve the curriculum. The surgeons who congregate in the lounge to grumble about how the scrub nurse wouldn’t hand them their instruments in the correct direction, but don’t work with the scrub nurse so that she can improve for the next surgery. The nurses who continually chat about the patients and physicians who are rude. As a community of healthcare workers, complaining is not just common, it’s endemic. Medicine is difficult and we’re not perfect, but that doesn’t mean that a culture of complaining should be the only way we share our dissatisfaction and identify problems in the healthcare system. These tendencies may be perceived as positive coping strategies to deal with the challenges of working in healthcare, but we believe this has unintentional negative consequences on the professional culture in medicine. In the first of our two part series on Tragic Optimism, we dissect the culture of complaining in medicine, and try to make the case for tragic optimism as a mindset that can improve your satisfaction as a member of the healthcare team.

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The United States Ranks #1 in Healthcare spending, reaching nearly 18% of our GDP or $3.8 trillion. There are a number of reasons for this huge spending and we hope to explore this further in our episodes on the business of healthcare. Today we’re talking about waste in healthcare delivery. It is estimated that 25% of healthcare spending can be attributed to one form of waste or another. Today we talk about what medical waste looks like, what others have suggested as solutions, and why it's important- as medical trainees- to be on the lookout for areas of waste or inefficiency.

If you want more information about us or our podcast, you can visit leadingtherounds.com

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In this episode we interview Dr. Tom Hustead.

Tom graduated from West Point in the top 3% of his class and then from Case Western University School of Medicine. As a retired Army Colonel, highlights from his distinguished career include being awarded Flight Surgeon of the Year for his service in combat, Outstanding Faculty of the Year for his medical teaching, and board selection as Department Chair for a family medicine residency department.

As a result of his appointment by the Army Surgeon General to be the “face of military medicine” to recruit and share the Army Medicine story, Tom recognized a need and developed a passion for teaching physicians across the country to be effectively engaged leaders. In his final appointment in the military, Tom was the commander/CEO of a NATO military medical facility at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Belgium.

With an emphasis on servant leadership, Tom’s core conviction is that effective leadership is never about the leader, but is focused in creating a culture where those being led can flourish. In 2018 he co-found The Referent Group, a team seeking to develop better medical leaders through longitudinal workshops, programs and coaching.

In this episode, we discuss his journey to becoming a leader, as well as why he believes leadership development is crucial for the medical community to thrive in the future. We hope you enjoy this discussion with a leader in medicine, Dr. Tom Hustead.

If you want more information about us or our podcast, visit leadingtherounds.com

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As medical students and physicians, we are constantly pushed to take on more responsibilities, add more things to our CV, do more research, and see more patients. While this constant pressure to add additional responsibilities to our lives may seem like the road to success, the disciplined pursuit of less can actually allow us to make a more substantial impact and lead fulfilled lives. In this episode, we take a look at Greg Mckeown's book Essentialism, take a dive into the culture of “more” in medical training, and work to convince you that the disciplined pursuit of less may actually allow you to contribute more in your medical training and practice.

If you want more information about us or our podcast, visit leadingtherounds.com

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Dr. Paul Thomas is a board certified family medicine physician and founder of the Direct Primary Care clinic Plum Health. Dr. Thomas has won numerous awards, has been an invited speaker for Tedx, and has written two books on Direct Primary Care. In this episode we discuss typical Fee-for-Service medicine and how alternative models like Direct Primary Care could be the fix for our broken healthcare system.

If you want more information on Plum Health or Direct Primary Care, you can go to: plumhealthdpc.com or startupdpc.com

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Cal Walters is a major in the US Army, Lawyer, and host of the Top Management Podcasts: Intentional Living & Leadership. In this episode we discuss his leadership training, being an intentional leader, and things that we can do in our medical training to become better leaders.
If you want to connect with Cal further, you can check out his podcast or visit his website: calwalters.me

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While often overlooked as a leadership and personal development tool, our mind holds the key to how we see the world. With the myriad of troubles and challenges that we will face as physicians, a strong mind imperative to our success. In this episode, we discuss the growth mindset and how it is able to move the needle both for our personal development and ultimately our ability to lead others.

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In our inaugural episode, we spend a few moments discussing the goal of this podcast and our vision for the future. This introduction will discuss our three episode types: Inside-Out-Leadership, The Main Course, and Healthcare 101. We hope you will take this journey with us. We look forward to challenging ourselves and our ideas to improve our leadership abilities. If you like our mission and vision, please subscribe and give us a positive rating. You can also reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at leadingtherounds or you can email us at leadingtherounds@gmail.com

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Professional development is a long road wrought with many decisions we sometimes don’t feel equipped to make. Having a trusted network of people, especially people who have walked the path you’re walking is imperative to personal and professional development. Mentors not only provide a source of knowledge, they can also be someone who motivates you, keeps you accountable and can advocate for your success. On the other hand, being a mentor can be an incredible growing experience and awesome way to help others who could benefit from your knowledge and experience. In this episode we explore what mentorship is and isn’t, how to find a good mentor, what it takes to cultivate a good mentor-mentee relationship and how to become a mentor.

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As physicians in the US, many of our patients will use some form of medicare or medicaid. We believe that medical students and residents should have a base understanding of what each of those are before they enter the workforce. In this episode, we give an introduction to Medicare and Medicaid, and discuss how it may impact you as a physician.

Leading the Rounds: Recent Episodes

Caleb Sokolowski & Peter Dimitrion

Leading the Rounds: Recent Episodes

Caleb Sokolowski &amp; Peter Dimitrion

Caleb Sokolowski & Peter Dimitrion