The SurgeonMasters Podcast

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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast physician leader and coach, Joseph M. Kaczmarczyk, DO, MPH, MBA.

Although crisis leadership and crisis management are often used interchangeably, there is an important distinction between the two. Crisis leadership is knowing the right things to do, while crisis management is knowing how to do things right. 

All physicians are leaders. There are six critical aspects of crisis leadership:

1. Sense Making
2. Decision Making and Coordinating
3. Meaning Making
4. Accounting
5. Learning
6. Preparing

What should a physician know about crisis leadership for crises you can’t predict? After a crisis appears to be “over” it’s not actually over until an AAR (After Action Review) is completed. This review dives into what was expected to happen; what actually happened; what went well; and what can be improved. 

What does Joseph suggest we do to practice good leadership in response to a crisis?

• Step 1 - Recall the Crisis. In the crisis, were you the crisis leader, crisis manager, or both? Did you perform any of the six crisis leadership tasks?
• Step 2 -  Ask Yourself the 4 AAR Questions. What was expected to happen? What actually happened? What went well? What can be improved?

Most importantly, PRACTICE crisis leadership!

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast Carla Smith, MD. Carla is an orthopaedic surgeon, educator, and coach.

As physicians, we talk a lot about having compassion for our patients but we don’t really talk about compassion for ourselves. It’s essential that we call attention to this compassion gap so we can improve our practices and our lives.

Carla has been through the SurgeonMasters Physician Coach Training program and is now working as a physician coach. The SurgeonMasters approach to coaching provides the opportunity to identify skills that we want to obtain or improve, with the ultimate goal of helping ourselves or others. 

What steps does Carla suggest we do to have more compassion for ourselves?

• Step 1 - Recognize how you’re reacting to things. This can be something as simple as failing to wake up early to exercise. Are you beating yourself up for small things like this?
• Step 2 - Take a beat. Don’t immediately jump into a negative headspace and beat yourself up. Take a moment to think about how you’re going to react.
• Step 3 - Show compassion to yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself! Give yourself grace.

 Most importantly, start to PRACTICE self-compassion! 

Guest: Carla Smith, MD
Carla is a fellowship-trained orthopedic trauma surgeon. She is also a surgeon educator and surgeon coach. As former chair of the department of surgery at a very large urban hospital, she saw firsthand how adverse events and lack of collegiality impact physicians, which steered her toward peer support and coaching. She views physician empowerment as a way to give back to her community and foster physician longevity. Balancing work with her passion for humanitarian service – both domestic and abroad – has been one of her most rewarding accomplishments. In her free time, Carla values spending time outdoors with her family. 

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast orthopaedic surgeon, Wendell Cole MD. Dr. Cole is also the host of the popular orthopaedic podcast, Nailed It Ortho. 

The Nailed It podcast grew from Dr. Cole's desire to learn more about various orthopeadic topics while in medical school. It has since grown into covering a wide range of issues that surgeons face - many of which are not explicitly taught in medical school.

Podcasting has become a great creative outlet for Dr. Cole. It has also helped him realize the importance of creative outlets. In the medical field, we're often fixated on the technical aspects of our work so much that we tend to ignore creativity.

What steps does Wendell suggest we do to nurture our creative outlets?

• Step 1 - Think back to what you enjoyed doing as a kid. For example, maybe you loved to draw.
• Step 2 -  Figure out a way to incorporate that into your life and career. If you loved to draw, think about how you can bring that into your work. 

Most importantly, start to practice your creative outlets!

Guest: Wendell "Cody" Cole MD

Wendell is a current Orthopaedic Surgery chief resident at Tulane University SOM. He started college at the age of 16 and started medical school when he was 20 years old. He graduated from Morehouse School of Medicine in 2018. He is also a best--selling author, having written "The Med School Survival Kit- How to Breeze Through Medical School WHile Crushing Your Exams", which currently has over 120 reviews and 5 stars on Amazon. He also is the co-host of Nailed It Ortho, a 5-star orthopaedic surgery podcast covering high-yield topics with more than 200 episodes published featuring experts from the field of Orthopaedic Surgery. He has also published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, has written multiple textbook chapters, and has presented his research at a national level. He is set to start a sports medicine fellowship in 2023 at NYU- Hospital for Joint Disease.

Find Dr. Cole at Nailed It Ortho. 

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast board-certified pediatrician and founder of Doctoring Differently®, Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid.

Doctoring Differently® is focused on teaching physicians that they can create the lives and careers that they deserve. Many physicians are unaware of the plethora of professional options available to them. We’re often taught that there are only a few career paths to choose from. But there are so many alternative options that can lead to better, more fulfilling careers.

What steps does Naomi suggest we do to build the careers of our dreams?

• Step 1 - Understand that there are no rules for a career in medicine! The traditional career paths are not the only ones available. 
• Step 2 -  Survey your career options. This can include opportunities inside and outside of medicine. Explore what others have done and even what no one has done before.
• Step 3 - Begin the process that will create the career that you want. Take action and pursue the career of your dreams.

Most importantly, begin to PRACTICE doctoring differently!

Guest Bio: 

Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid, M.D. is a board-certified pediatrician and founder of Doctoring Differently®, a company uniquely centered around educating and supporting physicians in their pursuit of unconventional clinical and non-clinical career paths. Dr. Lawrence-Reid created this platform after personally exploring many of the flexible and lucrative job opportunities that physicians are not taught at any point in medical education. She now utilizes her unique methodology to educate physicians on creating careers that prioritize their individual interests while promoting lifelong curiosity, creativity, and satisfaction in medicine.

Dr. Lawrence-Reid is a proud Boston-area native now warmly based in San Diego, California. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and she completed pediatrics residency at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore/Einstein in Bronx, New York. She has served as a staff physician at Rady Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, and various other southern California hospitals. In addition to Doctoring Differently®, Dr. Lawrence-Reid is owner and medical director of NLR Med Aesthetics and she remains a vocal advocate for health and safety policies that protect the children of San Diego county.

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

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Jeff welcomes to the podcast Retired US Navy Captain and New York Times Bestselling author, David Marquet.

David was a nuclear submarine commander who came up through an organizational structure that rewarded knowing the right answer and following orders. In many organizational structures, people are often biased towards doing what they’re told, even if they sense it may not be the best course of action. 

The best way to get out of this organizational mindset is for the leader to not make any decisions, but instead let their team come to them with solutions. 

What steps does David suggest we do to improve organizational design?

• Step 1 - Invite dissenting opinions. Even after a decision has been made, ask your team if it was the right call and how things could have been handled differently.
• Step 2 - Stop requiring permission. Instead have team members actively verbalize actions before they take them. This allows the leader to stop any actions, while empowering team members to take ownership of their actions.
• Step 3 - Lean back and let your team come to you. This will make your team feel more valued and lead to better decision making and organizational design. 

Most importantly, practice organizational leadership!

Guest: David Marquet

Wall Street Journal Best-Selling author David Marquet was assigned to command the nuclear-powered submarine USS Santa Fe, then ranked last in retention and operational standing. He “turned the ship around” by treating the crew as leaders, not followers, and giving control, not taking control. This revolutionary approach not only took the Santa Fe from “worst to first” in the rankings, but also created more subsequent leaders than any other submarine. Captain Marquet is the author of Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders. Fortune magazine named it the #1 must-read business book of the year, and USA Today listed it as one of the top 12 business books of all time. Next came the newly acclaimed book, Leadership is Language. It is time to ditch the Industrial Age playbooks and learn that choosing the right words can improve team decision-making and execution. Leadership is

Language is featured in The Wall Street Journal’s Top 10 Best-Selling Business Book List, and was named the Book of the Month for the Financial Times. David Marquet is here today to deliver the powerful message that in highly effective organizations, leadership is not for the select few at the top. 

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

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Jeff welcomes to the podcast orthopaedic trauma surgeon and founder of SIGN Fracture Care, Dr. Lewis G. Zirkle.

SIGN is a humanitarian organization that builds sustainable orthopaedic capacity in developing countries by providing relevant education to surgeons, then manufacturing and donating the instruments and implants needed to treat fractures. Dr. Zirkle was inspired to create SIGN after treating Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam war.

Throughout his long career in medicine, Dr. Zirkle has learned the value in looking at things through new eyes. Often in orthopaedics, we just do what has been done before. But looking at things with new eyes is important because you can develop instruments and find new discoveries because you’re not hampered by the established way.
Dr. Zirkle consulting with SIGN Surgeons.

What steps does Lew suggest we do to look at situations through new eyes?

• Step 1 – Don’t just accept that the established method is the only way to do things.
• Step 2 – Seek out different perspectives.
• Step 3 – Try new things and see if there is a better way to approach a particular process.

Most importantly, PRACTICE  looking at your situation through new eyes!

Guest: Lewis G. Zirkle, MD, President and Founder, SIGN Fracture Care International

Dr. Zirkle founded SIGN in order to bring healing to the injured poor in developing countries. Today, he gives mentorship to SIGN Surgeons at each hospital, reviews patient cases, and inspires new, innovative design ideas. 

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better… Jeff welcomes to the podcast SurgeonMasters collaborator and physician coach, Dr. Errin Weisman. Burnout is a common topic in the medical community. It’s been a topic of discussion for so long that some physicians […]

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

Send us Fan Mail

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

Send us Fan Mail

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!

Send us Fan Mail

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians. 

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more. 

PRACTICE Your Best!