In this episode, we celebrate the arrival of the first woman physician in Congress, Dr. Kim Schrier.   Woo hooooo!!!   As well as celebrating  over 100 women now representing us in congress (127 to be exact; 102 in the House and 25 in the Senate). 

We also ask you to consider looking for opportunities.  There are many places where you may feel powerless but may be able to start to take back your power.

References

Shanafelt TD, Dyrbye LN, West CP. Addressing Physician Burnout: The Way Forward. JAMA. 2017;317(9):901–902.

Shanafelt, Tait D. et al.  Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work-Life Balance in Physicians and the General US Working Population Between 2011 and 2014.  Mayo Clinic Proceedings , Volume 90 , Issue 12 , 1600 - 1613.

West CP, Dyrbye LN, Shanafelt TD. (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; and Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA, USA). Physician burnout: contributors, consequences and solutions (Review). J Intern Med2018; 283: 516–529.

Tait Shanafelt video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9rFduk1xqM

Physician Wellness Opportunities

Chief Wellness Officer course.  Application deadline January 20, 2019.

http://wellmd.stanford.edu/center1/cwocourse.html

American Conference on Physician Health. (AMA-Mayo-Stanford).  Sept 19-21, 2019. Abstract deadline March 29.  https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/american-conference-physician-health-2019

AAFP Physician Health and Wellbeing conference. June 5 - 8, 2019.  Phoenix, AZ.  https://www.aafp.org/events/fpwb-conf.html

Other Stanford WellMD opportunities

https://wellmd.stanford.edu/connected/classes-cme.html

In this episode we reflect on the past year and how to get the results we want in the New Year.  We reinforce, review, and build on some of the tools and information we have discussed thus far in the podcast and put them all together to purposefully create a great new year.

References

https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions

Xu JQ, Murphy SL, Kochanek KD, Bastian B, Arias E. Deaths: Final data for 2016. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 67 no 5. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018.

Yaghmour, N, Brigham, T, Richter, T; Miller, R, Philibert, I, Baldwin, D, Nasca, T. Causes of Death of Residents in ACGME-Accredited Programs 2000 Through 2014: Implications for the Learning Environment. Acad Med. 2017;92:976–983.

This episode also offers an opportunity to win $100 gift cards by leaving an itunes review and letting me know you did so by entering your information at empoweringwomenphysicians.com/reviews.

If you have any trouble accessing that site, just email me at [email protected].

In this episode, we discuss how you can apply the scientific method to your life.  As children we are natural scientists and experiment with the world to learn how things work.  As we physicians we are trained scientists. We want to cultivate that intellectual curiosity and start to apply what we have learned thus far about our power, our control, our choices, our ability to improve our own lives with purposeful experiments.  We then examine the results and move forward better informed.

Scientific Method 

1. Make observations. (Do background research)
2. Ask a question
3. Construct a hypothesis
4. Test (variable) with an experiment 
5. Gather data/results. Analyze data.
6. Conclusion: results support or do not support hypothesis 
7. Proceed further in an iterative fashion (use the results to make a new hypothesis or prediction, cyclical, feeds back into more questions, more hypotheses, more experiments)

Reference:

Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Janet N. Ahn, Jondou Chen, Fu-Fen Anny Fang, Myra Luna-Lucero. Even Einstein struggled: Effects of learning about great scientists’ struggles on high school students’ motivation to learn science.. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2016; 108 (3): 314-328.

We discuss how important it is to have control of our own narrative. We also discuss how cognitive psychology studies reveal that we notice things only when we purposefully focus our attention on looking for them.

We also look at what questions we are often asking ourselves, how our brain seeks to answer questions, and how we can utilize that to our advantage to ask more empowering questions to create better results in our lives.

References:

The Monkey Business Illusion (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

Book: Chris Chabris, Daniel Simons. The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions Deceive Us. 

Brancati FL. The art of pimping. JAMA. 1989;262(1):89–90.

Stoddard HA, O'Dell DV. Would Socrates Have Actually Used the "Socratic Method" for Clinical Teaching?. J Gen Intern Med. 2016;31(9):1092-6.

https://www.biography.com/people/socrates-9488126

This episode discusses how women can speak up and advocate for themselves by advocating for others (the mama bear effect).

We then discuss key take home points from a recent Women In Medicine conference that many women physicians could find useful.

References

Book: Friend & Foe: When to cooperate, when to compete, and how to succeed at both by Adam Galinsky.   Summary of his Ted Talk:  https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-speak-up-for-yourself/

Conference: Southern California Women in Medicine  https://www.socalwomeninmedicine.com/

In this episode, Dr Sunny Smith describes how she quite literally fell into a situation that left her realizing she didn't really HAVE to do all the things she usually did that kept her so busy. We make choices about our lives every single day without even realizing it.  We all have much more power than we have ever realized to make choices to create our lives more intentionally. 

Just as we are used to making an assessment and plan in medicine, we are going to talk about making an assessment and plan for your life. This episode encourages women physicians to set goals, decide what results they'd like to see in their lives, then commit to creating their life with intention.

This episode describes how to separate facts from the stories we are telling ourselves about them. It helps us identify the narrative and empowers us to CHANGE the narrative. In medicine we have subjective versus objective sections of our notes for a reason.  Let's apply the same logic to our lives and see where it takes us.

This episode talks about the need to become aware of your thoughts about your life right now. There are perhaps some things you love, some things that are okay, and things that you'd like to change. In medicine, our first step is to take a good history before we make an assessment.  An accurate and well informed assessment is necessary before embarking on making a plan.  We will use the same format in our coaching work and begin with taking an assessment of where you are right now. 

Images referenced in this podcast

Norman Rockwell images of doctors

https://www.nrm.org/

https://www.wikiart.org/en/norman-rockwell/doctor

Detailed image of a medical visit drawn by and 8 year old girl in the era of the Electronic Health Record.  The physician faces away from the family and the patient, looking down at a keyboard.

Toll E. The Cost of Technology. JAMA. 2012;307(23):2497–2498. 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1187932

In this episode, we'll talk about a little bit about the context in which we current practice medicine, history, the Hippocratic Oath, and what you can do to start maintaining the utmost respect for your OWN human life and its quality.

References discussed in this podcast

Desai T, Ali S, Fang X, et al.  Equal work for unequal pay: the gender reimbursement gap for healthcare providers in the United States.  Postgraduate Medical Journal 2016;92:571-575.

Jena AB, Olenski AR, Blumenthal DM. Sex Differences in Physician Salary in US Public Medical Schools. JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(9):1294–1304.

Ly DP, Seabury SA, Jena AB. Characteristics of U.S. Physician Marriages, 2000–2015: An Analysis of Data From a U.S. Census Survey. Ann Intern Med. ;168:375–376. 

McMahon G.  Managing the Most Precious Resource in Medicine.  N Engl J Med 2018; 378.

Guille C, Zhao Z, Krystal J, Nichols B, Brady K, Sen S. Web-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention for the Prevention of Suicidal Ideation in Medical Interns. A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry.2015;72(12):1192–1198.

Mata DA, Ramos MA, Bansal N, et al. Prevalence of Depression and Depressive Symptoms Among Resident Physicians.  A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA. 2015;314(22):2373–2383. 

Linzer M. Clinician Burnout and the Quality of Care. JAMA Intern Med. 2018;178(10):1331–1332.

Dyrbye, L.N., T.D. Shanafelt, C.A. Sinsky, P.F. Cipriano, J. Bhatt, A. Ommaya, C.P. West, and D. Meyers. 2017. Burnout among health care professionals: A call to explore and address this underrecognized threat to safe, high-quality care. NAM Perspectives. Discussion Paper, National Academy of Medicine, Washington, DC. 

ACGME Physician Well Being Initiative:  https://www.acgme.org/What-We-Do/Initiatives/Physician-Well-Being

Bodenheimer T, Sinsky C. From triple to quadruple aim: care of the patient requires care of the provider. Ann Fam Med. 2014;12(6):573-6.

AMA Women in Medicine month: 

https://www.ama-assn.org/about/women-medicine includes their video Women in Medicine by the Numbers:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEFnCpraCQI&feature=youtu.be

Helpful website by AAMC that is kept up to date with new emerging research on medical student, resident, and physician wellness   https://www.aamc.org/initiatives/462280/well-being-academic-medicine.html

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is a VERY helpful resource.  They are truly the expert guides for us in medical student, resident, and physician burnout, depression, and suicide prevention.  Please refer to information at this link https://afsp.org/our-work/education/healthcare-professional-burnout-depression-suicide-prevention/#section2 

If you are struggling, you are not alone.  There is hope.  Really.  Things can and do get better.  No matter what, it's okay to take a break for self-care.  Click on the link above for more information and don't be afraid to call the national suicide prevention hotline for help if you think you may need it.  1.800.273.TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741