High demand jobs (like fighter pilot, emergency medicine, trauma surgery, etc.) require continued exposure to the field of operations for maintenance of top level sharpness. In today’s episode we explore the phenomenon of skill decay and ways to mitigate its effects. 

Guest Bio:  Joshua Russell, MD is clinician, writer, and educator.  Since completing residency training in Emergency Medicine, Dr. Russell has had a varied career including supervising PAs and NPs as a medical director for a regional Urgent Care network, contributing to various Hippo Education podcasts, and serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine (JUCM). Most recently, he has completed fellowship training in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

This episode is in support of World Bicycle Relief -- delivering specially designed, locally assembled, rugged bicycles for people in need. They’ve developed an efficient, innovative, and scalable model to empower students, health workers, and entrepreneurs in rural developing regions with life-changing mobility. Donate here. 

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

We discuss:  

• Skill decay sets in rather quickly following an absence from the emergency department [03:50];
• Motor skills, like riding a bike, decay much more slowly than cognitive skills [05:20];  
• The principles behind skill decay: cognitive load theory and cognitive overload [07:66];
• Strategies for combating skill decay [09:30];
• Rob’s approach after a short absence which centered around visualization [12:50];
• And more.