Most of us are motivated to have compassion for those in need, but sometimes it can feel like the tank is running on empty. In this episode, wellness expert Kim Bambach, MD gives insight into compassion fatigue and strategies to thwart it. Compassion fatigue is cumulative emotional and physical exhaustion stemming from exposure to the suffering of others. It is the “cost” of caring for others who are suffering. It leads to a diminished ability to manifest empathy compared to your normal baseline...
Jan 30, 2023•48 min•Ep. 96
Our guest today is Dr. Stephanie Pearson, founder and CEO of Pearson Ravitz , an insurance advisory firm that specializes in disability and life insurance for healthcare professionals. In this episode we break down disability insurance start to finish: what to look for in a policy, pitfalls and traps, the deal with disability coverage through work, the steps you need to take in order to collect disability, why insurance companies so often put up a fight in paying, and much more. Guest bio: Befor...
Jan 16, 2023•58 min•Ep. 95
Financial expert, raconteur, and finance CEO Vitaliy Katsenelson gives his approach to the scarcity mindset, personal finance advice that changed his life, key strategies for making a budget, why people argue about money, geofencing as a diet tool, and a Stoic take on social media. Guest Bio: V italiy Katsenelson was born in Murmansk, USSR, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991. After joining Denver-based value investment firm IMA in 1997, Vitaliy became Chief Investment Of...
Jan 02, 2023•42 min•Ep. 94
In a follow up to our episode on sleep , we break down five sleep tools we’ve tested, like, and are still using. For many of you, sleep can be a fraught landscape. This is doubly true if you are doing shift work, working nights, or even just getting home with your mind spinning. When you have built-in disrupted sleep, it is extra important to pay attention to how you go about getting as much quality sleep as possible. What’s discussed in this episode is 100% opinion and anecdote but hopefully th...
Dec 19, 2022•21 min•Ep. 93
Feedback comes in many forms and oftentimes we aren’t even aware that it’s happening. In this episode, communication expert Lon Setnik, MD breaks down the basics of feedback, why cloaked or hidden feedback can be so dangerous, and critical skills for both delivering and receiving feedback. Guest Bio: Lon Setnik, MD is a community emergency faculty at the Center for Medical Simulation. Mentioned in this episode: The Awake and Aware Physician conference sponsored by Wild Health. Jan 13-15 Sedona A...
Dec 05, 2022•59 min•Ep. 93
It’s a tough time to practice medicine, which makes paying attention to self-care even more important. In this episode, we break down three specific strategies for improving mental and physical performance during a long shift, sustaining shift endurance, and building a scaffolding for joy at work. For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event ⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025 , a game-changing 3-day workshop from...
Nov 21, 2022•27 min•Ep. 92
28 years ago, the die was cast for how emergency department encounters were documented. Since then, we've had note bloat, click fatigue, and too much attention placed on things that really didn’t matter. All of that is slated to change in 2023 with dramatic new documentation guidelines (that today’s guest calls ‘refreshing’) are implemented. When was the last time you heard the word ‘refreshing’ used when it came to charting? And a massive thank you and hat tip to my friend Matt DeLaney who now ...
Nov 07, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 91
Barry Kerzin, MD, the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, is back to dive deeper into: the difference between empathy and compassion, why compassion (versus empathy) is a critical aspect of medical care, generating self compassion, and answers to listener email. Guest Bio: Barry Kerzin, MD is a US born and trained family physician who for the past several decades has resided as a monk in Dharamshala, India — home of the Tibetan community in exile. In addition to serving as H.H. the Dalai Lama’s per...
Oct 23, 2022•55 min•Ep. 90
Verbal de-escalation is a tool that can be learned by almost anyone. In this episode, we learn from two masters in the art of de-escalating those who are agitated and upset: Jose Pacheco, RN, known affectionately to his co-workers as ‘The Drunk Whisperer’, and Dan McCollum, MD, emergency physician at Augusta University. The core of this conversation hinges around an approach to conflict resolution that evolved from the martial arts principle of using your opponent’s energy to resolve conflict, r...
Oct 10, 2022•57 min•Ep. 89
What happens at the end of an event can disproportionately impact our perception and memory of it. In this episode, we investigate the research behind the peak end pattern and how you can use this phenomenon to improve your own experience at work (and life). Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event ⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025 , a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. Space is limited...
Sep 26, 2022•18 min•Ep. 88
We’re all guilty of it, basing decisions on the most recent event. It’s surely part of our wiring. The question is - what do we do about it? In this episode, Justin Morgenstern breaks down availability bias: what it is, how it shows up in life and medical practice, the difference between learning and bias, research showing availability bias happening in real-time, and ways to turn availability bias from a bug into a feature. Guest Bio: Justin Morgenstern is a community emergency physician with a...
Sep 12, 2022•37 min•Ep. 87
Specific strategies to improve workflow and manage overwhelm during an emergency department shift. Guest Bio: Landon Mueller, MD is an emergency physician and fellowship trained sports medicine specialist who gave the best talk I’ve ever seen on managing workflow in the emergency department. Now he's our guest on the show. Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event ⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025 , a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s...
Aug 21, 2022•37 min•Ep. 86
What does it mean to act like a true professional? I’m not sure it’s been fully fleshed out in medicine but I’ve met those who are exemplars of it. This pod is a conversation with my partner in hundreds of critical resuscitations, Ben Peery, MD. We talk about wins, losses, lessons learned and, even more than that, I get to introduce you to someone who, for me, was a role model in how to carry oneself as a physician. Guest Bio: Ben Peery, MD is a 20-year veteran of the emergency department, spend...
Aug 15, 2022•27 min•Ep. 85
An inside look at what it takes to launch a ketamine clinic including first steps, navigating hurdles, potential pitfalls, which patients benefit from ketamine, and an exhortation about why you should (and shouldn’t) go into this type of business. Guest Bio: Dr. Samuel Ko is a Board Certified Emergency Physician and medical director of Reset Ketamine in Palm Springs, California. In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Ko is Co-Creator of an online course - Ketamine StartUp - which teaches other...
Aug 08, 2022•59 min•Ep. 84
When you are at the lowest of lows after a devastating case, how do you recover in real-time ? It’s certainly not easy and it takes a clear plan of action to do it well. In this episode, pediatric hospitalist Sarangan Uthayalingam walks us through a difficult case where nothing was working. He felt frozen in inaction and the patient, a newborn, did not survive. Immediately afterward, he was in a deep emotional hole, profoundly self-critical, and still had his entire shift in front of him with ot...
Jul 25, 2022•41 min•Ep. 83
Have you ever had a situation where afterward you repeatedly questioned the choice you made at the time? You chewed on it, perseverated on it, kept coming back to it? If you are a clinician, there is an amplifier to this because someone else’s life is also involved - the patient’s. You worry about their health, you worry about whether they or their family may sue you - you worry worry worry. I think most of us have been there to varying degrees. In this episode, we will discuss one strategy to m...
Jul 11, 2022•13 min•Ep. 82
Medical Ethicist Abbott, MD walks us through her perspectives on myriad ethical quandaries including: How to approach discordance between a patient's written wishes and a family member who says do the opposite, the ethics of operating on demented patients who have an acute life threatening critical illness, a case of a young man with an unsurvivable brain bleed and whether or not to extubate him before the family enters the resus room, strategies to skillfully guide families through withdrawal o...
Jun 27, 2022•57 min•Ep. 81
There’s no denying that mistakes happen in medicine. When they do, what’s the next step? Business as usual is to deny and defend. Not only is this an adversarial and destructive process, it is also a lost opportunity to learn (and for the patient/family to fully understand what happened). In this episode, we explore a novel approach that shifts thinking from ‘risk management’ to ‘patient management’, which some argue is profoundly better for all parties involved in a medical error- clinicians, p...
Jun 13, 2022•36 min•Ep. 80
Sleep expert Mike Stone, MD joins us for a conversation about how to sleep well (and strategies to do it poorly!) We cover: how sleep cleans your brain, alcohol, caffeine, a pragmatic approach to wearables, light exposure, the villainy of devices before bed, cannabinoids, heat, room temp, and night shifts. Guest Bio: Dr. Mike Stone has been in medical practice for almost 20 years, and currently serves as the Chief Education Officer at Wild Health . Dr. Stone has held academic appointments at Har...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 79
None of us are immune from the Fundamental Attribution Error - chalking up the behavior of others to their character rather than the situation in which they find themselves. In this episode, we tease out the details of this common bias, its negative effects, and several strategies to address and work through it. Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event ⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025 , a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and loc...
May 16, 2022•17 min•Ep. 78
Habit change doesn’t have to be grand, spectacular, or a massive shift all at once. In fact, it may be better to start small, tiny, you might say. In this episode, Scott Weingart and I break down the methodology from BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits and give real world examples as to how it works (and might not work). Tiny Habits was the selection for our most recent book club. We host these every few months and (free) tickets are available only to those on the mailing list . As you’ll hear us talk about i...
May 02, 2022•45 min•Ep. 77
Chances are that you have a robust inner critic. You might even believe that self-criticism and castigation are the only ways to excel. As a high-level performer, you are not alone. In this episode, we break down the nature of inner criticism and several ways to manage it. Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event ⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025 , a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. S...
Apr 18, 2022•25 min•Ep. 76
Finding time to debrief challenging cases can feel nearly impossible amidst the tumult and task saturation of medical practice. The reality, however, is that it’s a necessity, not a nicety. In this episode, emergency physician Stuart Rose and rescue specialist Ashley Liebig discuss two different approaches to immediate debriefs: INFO and the hot offload. Guest Bios: Stuart Rose is an emergency physician practicing in Calgary, Canada and lead author of the seminal debriefing paper, Charge nurse f...
Apr 03, 2022•38 min•Ep. 75
It doesn’t look like performance metrics are going away any time soon. So why not make them a feature instead of a bug? We discuss: reframing audits so they help elevate and don't feel punitive, why we're not good at self-assessment, creating clinician-relevant (and friendly) metrics, the best way to present metrics to providers, 3 high-yield metrics that make a difference. Guest Bio: Shawn Dowling MD is the medical director of The Physician Learning Program at the University of Calgary and Clin...
Mar 21, 2022•37 min•Ep. 74
There is no doubt that handing over care of a patient to another clinician is potentially fraught with peril. After all, it’s in the transitional moments when error is most likely to occur. But there’s a balance to strike here because there are also myriad upsides to signouts for both the patient and clinician. In this episode, Mike Weinstock, MD breaks down the arguments in favor of signouts, how to do them well, the big fat hairy signout pitfall, and why signouts might just be a key ingredient...
Mar 06, 2022•54 min•Ep. 73
It can be hard enough managing critical tasks in the best of times, but when things start to go awry, you need to focus even more to keep moving in a positive direction. Back by popular demand, Dan Dworkis (our guest on episode 57 ) walks us through: navigating uncertainty when under situational pressure, powering down at the end of the day, managing the physiologic response to stress, the most thoughtful procedural time out we’ve ever heard, and transparent team communication. Guest Bio: Dan Dw...
Feb 21, 2022•54 min•Ep. 72
A book I recommend to many coaching clients is “ Designing Your Life ” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I’ve even had a client use a several month coaching engagement specifically to focus on the exercises in the book. What makes it such a potent tool? Design thinking. What happens if we take the same principles that are used to create the fastest road bike or most efficient electric vehicle and apply them to help us live our best life? The concept was not only intriguing, it blew me away. In tod...
Feb 07, 2022•16 min•Ep. 71
Case studies using Nonviolent Communication in real world situations including: how to give a proper compliment, perils of bringing up past issues, emergency empathy when speaking to a consultant, receiving gratitude, point of care compassion, and the limitations of NVC in the resus bay. Guest bio: Scott Weingart is an emergency physician who went on to complete fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and ECMO at the Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. He is best known for his EMCrit Podcas...
Dec 27, 2021•44 min•Ep. 70
Nonviolent Communication is one of the most powerful ways of speaking with people that I have ever come across. It eliminates useless strategies like judgment and proving yourself right and instead gives you absolutely tactical techniques to get the things you need for happiness for yourself and your interlocutor. NVC is not a new, gimmicky set of dictum. It boils down the philosophies of Stoicism, the psychological approaches of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and cognitive psychology. Awak...
Dec 21, 2021•36 min•Ep. 69
Nobody goes into medicine hoping they can have a long career in data entry, but that’s how many feel when looking at computer screens more than patients during a work day. Documentation and the electronic medical record (EMR) are nearly ubiquitous sources of frustration in medical practice. In this episode we cover two solutions to make medical documentation, charting, and the EMR less onerous: a very specific way to interact with scribes and using technology that’s already in your pocket to cha...
Dec 13, 2021•45 min•Ep. 68
