Ordinary to Extraordinary - The Podcast

Dr. Ron Roessler is both a board certified emergency medicine physician and CEO and Founder of “Elite Latin Coaching”. After graduating from Princeton University he embarked on his medical career, and has now over 20 years experience working in a busy urban emergency department. 

His roots though lay in the study of The Classics and teaching, and in his spare time he has been instrumental in developing the Latin curriculum at his local high school for it to become one of the top 5 programs in the country. In 2018, his Wisconsin Certamen team won a National Championship. He launched his company, Elite Latin Coaching and published his first book, Arbor Medicinae, in January of this year. All this while continuing to save lives on the front lines of the emergency department.

In this energetic conversation with Dr. Roessler we talk about his journey and highlight the human factors involved with having life goals and their pursuit, qualities of a great mentor, getting the most out of life, preventing burnout, and how he became a business owner and author.

https://www.elitelatincoaching.com/

Ron's book: Arbor Medicinae: https://henschelhausbooks.com/product/arbor-medicinae-latin-roots-of-medical-terms/

Available on Amazon

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"Adventure Psychology helps people and organizations survive, cope and thrive during change, challenge and uncertainty." 

https://www.paulareid.com/

Paula Reid is the world's first Adventure Psychologist. She has skied to the South Pole, sailed around the world, "the wrong way", canoed up the Mekong River in a dugout canoe, and cycled across the breadth of Europe. And that's just scratching the surface of her over 120 awe-inspiring adventures.

Paula has learned to develop the mindset to thrive and perform in the toughest of conditions. She draws on her extreme endurance experience, business acumen and Masters in Positive Psychology to help individuals and organizations survive and thrive in challenging conditions.

This episode explores 2 of Paula's most iconic adventures, and discusses the human factors that allowed her to accomplish such feats, and what lessons she has leant that we can all use in our own lives whatever our "adventure".

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Dr Andrew Petrosoniak is an emergency physician and trauma team leader at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada. He is also the Medical Director of the Unity Health Toronto Simulation Program.

In 2020 Andrew co-founded Advanced Performance HealthCare Design - a company focused on using simulation, behavioural psychology and clinical expertise to enhance high performance teams in healthcare.

https://advancedperformance.ca/

Dr Petrosoniak is the principal investigator of the TRUST study (Trauma Resuscitation Using in Situ simulation for Team Training) that includes a partnership with human factors experts to evaluate systems and processes during high-stakes trauma simulations. He is an invited speaker both nationally and internationally on the topics of trauma, simulation and procedural skill acquisition.

Over the last several months, we have outlined why we believe Medicine and other industries need to follow in the footsteps of elite sports and utilize performance coaches. Dr Petrosoniak has helped create an "ED CPR" coach model, that brings a coach to the bedside to try and deliver the highest quality cardiac arrest care.

On today's episode, we delve into how he was able to do this, and the benefits his team are seeing with this intervention. We discuss decision-making and bias, as well as how to provide and seek feedback from teaching.

As we always say; these lessons are not just for those in medicine. The concepts that we discuss can be used in many different environments and industries and help us all along the pathway from ordinary to extraordinary.

X: @petrosoniak

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Adam Spink works as an air traffic controller at Heathrow, the busiest 2-runway airport in the world, where he is also an instructor, supervisor, watch training officer and an examiner. He also works in ATC operations, developing new procedures and equipment. Adam represents NATS (National Air Traffic Services) and the UK on the global stage on subjects including low visibility operations, ground radar and GPS navigation systems.

Adam teaches CRM (crew resource management), and sits on the UK Human Factors incident reporting program.

In 2008, Adam played a crucial role in the British Airways flight 38 crash at Heathrow airport. As the control tower supervisor, his quick thinking, preparedness and leadership were vital to the management of the Boeing 777 crash that resulted following sudden loss of power to both engines while on short final approach to the runway.

Adam is the deputy manager of the volunteer ATC team that controls The Royal International Air Tattoo which is the world's largest military air show and attracts over 250 aircraft from 30 countries.

In today's episode we talk to Adam about his journey into the world of ATC, explore its complex high-stress environment and the skill sets required of those who work within it, discuss his team's management of flight BA38, and how he and his colleagues come together once a year to control the world's largest military air show. Adam is a human factors expert and this is packed with information relevant to all who wish to take ordinary to extraordinary.

NATS: https://www.nats.aero

NATS Airspace:

London airspace in 24 hours: https://vimeo.com/1044641389

UK 24: A typical day in UK airspace: https://vimeo.com/1044641237

ATC audio from flight BA38 crash: supplied by Adam Spink, with permission.

ATC audio track marked at: 57min 12sec

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We are so grateful to the 18 extraordinary guests who have helped create our first year of this podcast. We sit down and reflect on a few of the human factors lessons learnt from these incredible people this year, and look forward to more in 2025.

2024 Episodes:

1. Introducing Ordinary To Extraordinary - The Podcast
2. Neil Laughton
3. Supt. Adam Gallop
4. Prof. Mark Wilson
5. Kev Sutton
6. Dr. Jason Brooks
7. Dr. Claire Park, MBE
8. James Geering
9. Dr. Dale Carrison
10. Neil Jeffers
11. Martin Withers, DFC
12. Capt. Hutch Stilgenbauer
13. Dr. Aman Hussein
14. Mitchell Daly
15. Liz McConaghy
16. Alan Stein Jr.
17. Capt. Sam Soderberg
18. Mandy Hickson
19. Dr. Mike Abernethy

Instagram: @ordinary2xtraordinary

X: @Ordinary2Xtra

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Mike Abernethy, MD, DRTM, first joined Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health as a Med Flight physician and ED attending in 1992. He has been full-time EM faculty, a Clinical Professor, and has served as Chief Flight Physician since 2008. With over 30 years continuous experience and thousands of patient transports, Dr. Abernethy is one of the World’s most experienced helicopter flight physicians.

In 2023, Mike was suddenly faced with his own emergent medical condition, and underwent cardiac bypass surgery. He made an amazingly fast recovery, and was back in the skies working just 9 weeks later.

We sit down with Mike to delve into the lessons he has learnt from his many years as a helicopter and emergency medicine doctor, and also his experience of being on the other side of healthcare as a patient undergoing major surgery. Mike shares his extraordinary story so that others may benefit in the future.

https://emed.wisc.edu/people/michael-abernethy/

X/Twitter: @FLTDOC1

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"Mandy Hickson has over 30 years experience within aviation. She joined the RAF in 1994, and was the first woman to fly the Tornado GR4 on the front line, where she operated in hostile environments, including patrolling the "No Fly" zone over Iraq. Since leaving the RAF, she retrained as a facilitator and coach in human factors where she draws on her experience of calculated risk-taking, decision-making under pressure and the critical role of the human in the system, to transfer vivd lessons from the cockpit to management and leadership contexts.

Mandy is now a highly demanded keynote speaker, and has been invited to share her insights with some of the most successful organisations across the World."

We sit down with Mandy and dive into her stories of entering the RAF in the 1990s and how she followed her pursued her passion of flying to secure a front seat in the RAF's frontline fast jet, the Tornado GR4. We discuss resilience, leadership, debriefing, decision making under pressure, situational awareness and much more.

Mandy Hickson website: https://www.mandyhickson.com/

Mandy Hickson book: "An Officer, Not a Gentleman: The inspirational journey of a pioneering female fighter pilot."

https://www.mandyhickson.com/aboutd55661df

Acronyms from the Podcast:

TDODAR Decision Model

Time

Diagnosis

Options

Decide

Act/Assign

Review

NUTA Situational Awareness

Notice

Understand

TA Think Ahead

Facilitative words for debriefing:

Use: why, what, where, when, how

Avoid: who

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Captain Sam Soderberg is an F-35 pilot with the Wisconsin Air National Guard 115th Fighter Wing. This 5th Generation fast jet is the World's most technological advanced fighter, and requires elite level performance skills to be selected to operate it.

In this episode we sit down and talk to Sam about his journey from flying in a Cessna as a kindergarten kid, to joining the Air National Guard and working his way to the iconic F-16, and then onto the F-35. As a pilot of this incredible jet, he shares his thoughts on operating in complex, high stress, high stakes environments; preparation, nerves, confidence, managing a saturated cognitive bandwidth, the use of simulation, and debriefing. The concepts and lessons we discuss are generated from Sam's world of precision combat flying, but can be extended to all of us, whatever we do, in our quest to go from ordinary to extraordinary.

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Alan Stein, Jr. is an experienced keynote speaker and author. At his core, he’s a performance coach with a passion for helping business leaders change behaviors. He spent 15+ years working with the highest performing basketball players on the planet (including NBA superstars Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant). Through his customized programs, he transfers his unique expertise to maximize both individual and organizational performance. Alan is a dynamic storyteller who delivers practical, actionable lessons that can be implemented immediately. He teaches proven principles on how to utilize the same approaches in business that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level.

https://alansteinjr.com

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Liz McConaghy was the longest serving female crewman on the Royal Air Force Chinook Fleet spanning a 17-year career flying on the aircraft.

Originally from a small town in Co. Down Northern Ireland she attended RAF Cranwell on her 19th birthday to begin her exciting career thereafter on Chinook Helicopters. She was the youngest aircrew to deploy to Iraq aged just 21 and also the only female crewman on the Chinook wing for 4 years, so her story is completely unique. Her career saw her amass 2 deployments to Iraq and 10 deployments to Helmand Afghanistan in support of Operation Herrick which gave her an insightful and very personal perspective on war.

Upon leaving the RAF in 2019 Liz slowly became unravelled after a series of traumatic events that compounded her PTSD. This led to her trying to end her life in Aug 2020. She survived and went into the Veterans Mental Health care system to help her deal with her demons and finally lay the images she had seen on the battlefield to rest. During this time she began writing poetry and subsequently an autobiography to help her get her thoughts out of her head.

Chinook Crew Chick was released in Sept 2022 and went to an Amazon Bestseller within 3 weeks. It is an honest and humorous account of her ‘best of times and worst of times’ and how her experiences flying on the Chinook have changed and moulded her into the woman she has become. From dodging bullets to saving soldiers and witnessing the brutality and loss of war, she writes how she found herself bringing the battlefield home, despite her fighting days being over. Liz’s story offers hope to those who have also found themselves in the darkest of places, who are looking for the tools within themselves to begin to rebuild a pathway to a new life. She is now an ambassador for mental health and specifically PTSD with Veterans. Liz stands as an example that PTSD does not have to be your identity, it can simply be a chapter of your life that can be learned from and most importantly moved on from.

Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/chinnychick

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chinookcrewchick

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chinookcrewchick

Website: www.chinookcrewchick.co.uk

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