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Episode 5: What happens when doctors make mistakes or have a bad outcome?
59 Plays2 years ago
The doctors chat about a viewer question regarding what do you do when you have a bad outcome with a patient? How do you best move forward clinically, professionally, and personally?
Stephy Steph and Bobby also discuss how to set yourself up with a group to help you get through tough times in practice.
The advice given does not constitute legal advice and Dr. McNeill represents his personal opinion and not that of the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Topic
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey there, guys. I'm Bobby. This is Steffi Steff. We are Between Two Teeth. Steffi Steff, what are we talking about today? Yeah, thanks, Bobby. What we're talking about today is how to handle complications and bad outcomes just from a mental health and wellbeing perspective.
Audience Question on Personal Struggles
00:00:17
Speaker
And specifically, this request came in from one of our viewers, one of our subscribers,
00:00:23
Speaker
Who was curious and just kind of made some comments about just personal struggle when things you know, maybe not They just don't go our way. How do you how do you deal
Importance of Connecting with Followers
00:00:34
Speaker
with that? We love hearing from our followers and it was a it was kind of a pretty impactful kind of ask out to us because I think part of what we do is We try to connect to others. This is a perfect way, but people reach out and say hey, here's what's on my mind Could you please do a show about it? We'll dig into
00:00:54
Speaker
Dig into the question. Yeah.
Common Bad Outcomes in Medical Practice
00:00:57
Speaker
And I would just start by we all have our hands dirty here. Everyone has bad outcomes. I always, oh yeah. Well, specifically, what are we talking about? This was a doctor that was talking about just kind of having negative outcomes, having
00:01:13
Speaker
Bad outcomes with a patient, whether that's a mistake, whether that's just where things just didn't go as planned. Right. So kind of what I'm talking about is whenever the first thing I always start with is everybody has bad outcomes and we've all had our hands dirty here. One of the things that I, I look at in cases like these is, you know, everybody wants a great outcome.
00:01:37
Speaker
It doesn't benefit anyone whether you're the provider or you're the person in the chair to have a bad outcome. No one wishes for that. We didn't become clinicians to have bad things happen. We want to help people. And I'm so happy that our subscriber kind of talked about this because they bring up an excellent point and we talk about sustainability and especially as providers.
Internalization of Failures by Healthcare Providers
00:02:06
Speaker
we have to kind of come up for air sometimes we take that burden personally on ourselves whether it's something that maybe we could have done better during the procedure or if it was just kind of the patient maybe had some some other issues going on that just complicated the healing process or maybe just you know stuff happens sometimes you just can't predict it
00:02:30
Speaker
So what happens when patient care goes wrong? And what I would say on that, if you're a doctor and we're dentists, you're a periodontist, I'm an oral max facial surgeon, and if you have not had bad outcomes of some sort,
00:02:49
Speaker
you have not been practicing long enough. If you haven't had a dental implant fail, for instance, you haven't placed enough dental implants. Right, and so part of this is also separating, it's kind of what Brene Brown talks about, guilt and shame. Guilt says that, or shame says I am wrong, or I am a bad person. Guilt says I did something wrong. And so a lot of times we have providers that really,
00:03:20
Speaker
internalize a failed implant. We'll use that as an example. And there's a range of examples, but they might look at it and go, how in the world? I have ruined this patient's life. It's terrible. And what makes it worse is the patient is also unhappy. And so it just tends to add a little extra on top of someone who's really feeling bad about this whole thing.
00:03:47
Speaker
I like what you talked about there, shame, because that is a difficult emotion to kind of work through, if you will. And part of it, I think, in I don't know exactly why the person reached out about this question. Well, I guess we do know it was something on on their mind.
00:04:10
Speaker
and i think everybody go i assume everybody goes in a sense of community is to say hey we're with you. Where you know where were in the trenches we have all had situations that happen i remember very early in practice i had a patient that was not a teenager removing wisdom teeth.
00:04:31
Speaker
You know, they were like late thirties where you can have challenges. Anyways, things weren't going well. Kept seeing the patient back week after week. I thought they were just clenching. Anyways, long story short, she ended up having a postoperative infection. It wasn't in the mandible. It was in the maxilla, kind of a crazy, weird, strange situation. Had to take her to the hospital. She had to get admitted to the hospital, had to take her to the operating room, didn't size and drain this.
00:04:55
Speaker
This thing, the, um, the patient was under a lot of stress preoperatively. This didn't help with the stress. I figured she was clenching. That's why she couldn't open her mouth real big. Anyway, she was an, she was a malpractice attorney and.
00:05:09
Speaker
We had a successful outcome where she recovered after being in the hospital. There was no malpractice, no state board issues associated with it. Part of it was communication. Part of it was me saying, oh my gosh, this is unusual what's happened here. And my objective is to get you cared for. Yeah, that's a great example. And where my mind kind of goes with as I just kind of play off that is,
00:05:35
Speaker
Sometimes the psychology of people that go to dental school or med school, they tend to be not perfect, but in high school they make great grades, in college they do well maybe.
Perfectionism and Stress in Healthcare
00:05:50
Speaker
Perfectionists. Right, and so when they get out or they get into residency or they start practicing,
00:05:58
Speaker
It could be the first time that something just didn't go their way. It was out of their control. That's a struggle. That's a milestone in our development is trying to figure out where do we attach there? Do we really take these things to heart?
00:06:16
Speaker
It can definitely, here I'm just reading some of the quotes that have come in on this. Some of the quotes are, I personally struggle with this. Another, sometimes a negative outcome makes me feel physically ill. Another one came through was a bad outcome. If I have one, my mind will not leave it alone for weeks. Can I pause you there for a second? The physically ill resonates with me because I have had
00:06:48
Speaker
I've had patients that things are not going as well as I would like it to go, and you get worried about them. And so for me, it means I'm frequently bringing them in the office. Maybe it's the next day, maybe it's in two days. Things are not going as planned, and over a weekend, I really will feel ill.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, because of that. So I hear what you're saying. That's one of the you can feel ill if you are stressed out. Yeah. What was the second quote that you said there? The mind won't leave it alone. Oh, yeah. And then this is another one that came through. I'm terrible at that. My mind won't shift off that. Yeah. And another quote is a bad outcome makes me feel fearful of doing subsequent procedures.
00:07:37
Speaker
I get that. You touch the hot stove, you're like, oh, that stove was hot. Yeah, I mean, for me, I had a patient that there was a little bit more bleeding than I was expecting on this case. And I'm being a little bit more general on this case. But yeah, the next time I did the same procedure, I was a little bit more gun shy. And part of it's just,
00:08:03
Speaker
when you're doing something and you tend to have that, you know, just an ideal outcome, something that you just really weren't, weren't expected. Bleeding is a big issue. Yeah. And for both of us as surgeons, uh, you know, you think you're used to seeing a certain amount of bleeding and then you see something substantially more and it gets your heart rate up and all sorts of things. I know I've actually had
00:08:33
Speaker
I've had my staff come and get you in. Um, you helped me with a case where, uh, there was a pretty good amount of bleeding. It was nice to have a second surgeon there at, uh, just helping with things. And, uh, part of it too is, you know, when things aren't going great, it's nice to have, uh, another set of hand, another set of eyes, another mind there as well. So that's one of the blessing when you have people around you that you can talk to.
Trust in Doctor-Patient Relationships
00:09:02
Speaker
And I guess that's part of it.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, and also I think sometimes you can if you are a people pleaser mentality, you're, of course, you're like, what are they going to think? Right? What's gonna how do I even because the patient oftentimes is not awake during these procedures? And there's a patient in question where you helped me, I think he was awake during all of that, which made it even more interesting.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah. And a lot of, and that they can be awake for sure. And a lot of times they're not. So there's a trust factor there. And then you feel like you violated their trust and you, and you weren't doing anything wrong. There's just a bad outcome there. So let's talk about that because, and this is, well, one I'm dying to tell my joke. That's,
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, not real funny. Well, my joke that I love to tell, and it's not funny, is all bleeding stops eventually. More of a statement than a joke. I never tell that joke whilst bleeding is actively happening. But anyways, if we only had a laugh thing on the thing. Yeah, I think we can put that one in. But let me ask you this question. Well, let me
Mentorship and Learning from Failures
00:10:10
Speaker
back it up a touch. I'm going to make a statement. I think it's easier in some ways, because you were talking about trust and patient trust.
00:10:16
Speaker
There's certain nuances that I'm going to face as someone who's been in practice for a while versus a newer practitioner. And I think the person in question who asked this initial question was a newer doctor. And what are the nuances there?
00:10:34
Speaker
From a newer doctor's standpoint, I'm going to answer that by reading another quote here. And it goes, in my most dramatic state, I question myself, should I even be in this field? Should I even be a provider, a surgeon? That's a tough question.
00:10:53
Speaker
I get that. Totally get it. It doesn't mean you weren't meant to be a surgeon, first of all. I was working at a Texas Mission of Mercy and there was a dental student there who really struggled with extractions, not being capable. I thought you were talking about me for a second, but I was struggling with extractions. You have helped me out at a Texas Mission of Mercy. I've said, no mas.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. And so this dental student, I told her, I said, man, it doesn't just because you don't. She had an issue with how it made her feel taking a tooth out of somebody's mouth. And she felt bad for the patient. She just felt bad about the whole thing.
00:11:36
Speaker
And she questioned, she goes, I don't even know if I should even be a dentist. And I go, look, I said, you are great at what you're doing. And I said, just because you have a kind of a, you're questioning a little bit what, you know, how you feel about this doesn't mean you're not cut out for it.
00:11:56
Speaker
And don't kind of lose faith so quickly there. So that leads me into saying we need each other, we need the support. And oftentimes you get, you know, dentistry is an isolated profession. And just because you struggle, I mean, you didn't like the sight of what is it blood at first, right?
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, I literally almost passed out before. But on your point, I want to mention that point that you just spoke of, the dental student, you helped her out at a charity event here we do in Texas, Texas Mission to Mercy. What I loved about that is you showed me the comment
00:12:31
Speaker
that she sent you. And I think we're going to try to post that on some of our Instagram things, Instagram B2Teeth, I was going to say dot com, but it's just B2Teeth. That made my day because she told you how what you did had a significant impact on her and changed her.
00:12:54
Speaker
And it made me feel good, you getting that message, just because it says a lot about her that she'd communicate that, she'd take in the mentor relationship.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. And so yeah, no, all of those things. And it's just, it's kind of tough. Like you, when I was applying to residency, for example, I don't come from a family of healthcare providers. And one of the things my mom asked me, she goes, are you even good at what you're going into? Like, why would you apply for residency if you're not excellent at it?
00:13:30
Speaker
My mom said, don't be a dentist. They won't need dentists anymore. And I told her, I was like, well, mom, that's kind of the point. It's more of what you're interested in. It's not about being great at it when you start. And that's kind of a theme. And so when I look at how I've gotten good at anything in life,
00:13:48
Speaker
I had to go through a lot of failures first. And the trick is, is the human nature, we're working on other humans. And so of course, there is going to be an emotional component to that.
Managing Patient Expectations
00:14:00
Speaker
We're not working on machines. We're not, you know, if we, if we do, if we make mistakes, the stakes are higher. Yeah. You know, we don't want to compare what we do to a barista at Starbucks, but how often do they mess up your Starbucks order?
00:14:18
Speaker
And we expect perfection out of ourselves. Our patients certainly expect perfection out of us. And we want to go for perfect. And there's many things that can come in the way of a perfect outcome.
00:14:34
Speaker
And kind of getting to like, well, what do we, how do you kind of sort through it? I see, I see females, especially female surgeons all the time get into no man's land of isolation and they feel just as bad as some of the male surgeons do, but they don't have the group dynamic.
00:14:54
Speaker
To discuss it and get through it. I'm glad. Oh, sorry. Yeah, and I saw that in a real way we had I was part of a Harvard surgical leadership course and we were doing the London section of our cohort and in London a lot of small groups were formed and some of those small groups had people we discussed these things and you had people break down and have really
00:15:20
Speaker
big emotional reactions to something they had not gotten off their chest in years. They felt terrible about things. Like what kind of things are you talking about? Just really bad patient outcomes? Yeah, just really bad patient outcomes. You wouldn't think about it. So you have, you know, whether it's a colorectal surgeon or you have a cardiac surgeon or
00:15:38
Speaker
you know, even, you know, someone, you know, OB kind and then not, you know, I'm here on the dental side of things saying, Oh, you know, that's, that's tough. And at the same, and none of these, by the way, were deaths. That's a whole different ballpark. These were, Oh, I stitched together the wrong thing on my first day. Yeah. The need for re operation is like, that's kind of a, during my residency,
00:16:02
Speaker
you know, general surgery. Yeah, you go back to the OR and take a little looksy and things aren't going well and let's open things back up. And there's no malice here. That's the thing. And there's no it's not that they weren't paying attention. Their eyeballs were wide open. They were trying. And at the same time, especially on the medical residency side of the equation, they have these big discussions, M&M, morbidity and mortality conferences where residents have to stand up and say what was done and what went wrong. And those can be
00:16:32
Speaker
pretty brutal, but in private practice, you're just so isolated. And what I noticed is that there, and there were a lot of, there was a lot of men and women at this program, but what I really noticed is that the women just didn't have the group dynamic that they had in this program back at their hospitals and especially not during residency. So if they made something like that or something happened, which it happens to everybody,
00:17:00
Speaker
Imagine going through something emotionally challenging where you you didn't do anything you did something wrong cuz you had a negative outcome but it wasn't it's it's a nuance it wasn't your fault like you can hear your new surgeon of course that's gonna happen but you gotta go through it on your own.
00:17:18
Speaker
I think the biggest thing, what goes through my mind as you talk about that, you know, we know that smoking's bad for you. We know that alcohol can certainly be bad for you and drugs can be bad for you. There's good data out there now about not being connected to others can be as dangerous, especially from a longevity standpoint. With this kind of thing, if you are isolated,
00:17:40
Speaker
as a practitioner and you've got no one to talk to.
Peer Support and the Hippocratic Oath
00:17:44
Speaker
And I think it's helpful to have someone who is in your immediate peer group. Someone who's your same age-ish, kind of doing the same thing that you're doing. And it's also helpful to have someone who's a couple years ahead of the game that can see the forest for the trees on some of this stuff.
00:18:03
Speaker
Right. And that's part of the Hippocratic Oath. And part of the trust, part of the patient-doctor relationship is you are trusting. You're not saying that your doctor is not human. That is not part of the oath. What you're saying is that you're trusting that your doctor is going to show up ready to go. Do no harm.
00:18:24
Speaker
And the other thing is, you know, we're in, we're on the dental side of things. What we do, our operations happen in the mouth. Just because the patient goes home doesn't mean they stop using their mouth. And I've seen- You've asked me to stop using my mouth fairly frequently. I digress. I've seen patients that'll leave after a large bone graft
00:18:45
Speaker
in their mouth and then on the way, I see them lighting up a cigarette as they're getting in their ride's car. Lighting up a cigarette or say, don't pull your lip. Right, yeah, don't pull your lip and they're already looking at it. They're like, I've been looking at this for the past 48 hours and every time I pull my lip out. Right, and it's not, I get the curiosity, but then when they don't have the ideal outcome, aye aye aye, I mean, you can only do what you can do.
00:19:12
Speaker
So we've talked a little bit about some solutions. Were there more quotes that you wanted to talk about from this individual? The one thing I wanted to really hit on was
00:19:27
Speaker
This individual is saying in their in their lowest state They question if they should even be doing what they're doing and I think that is the magic here and the opportunity is of course you should you are well trained you are great at what you do and Even if you had a bad outcome that is okay what we do as providers is
00:19:52
Speaker
Invasive and it's it ultimately helps people that's the idea But we are we are human and we also can't control everything.
Learning from Negative Outcomes
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's a great point on the end there to put my regulatory hat on somewhat I'm a board member with
00:20:14
Speaker
the state board here in my state, and I'm saying all of these things as my personal opinion, not represented by the state board. But we see negative outcomes all the time. There's, you know, no one writes us a letter and says, hey, things went great. And it is
00:20:30
Speaker
one of the most humbling things in the world to have to sit on the other side of the table. And you go through the plethora of facts about a case you often hear from the patient and then the doctors on the other side of the table. And from my perspective, I can fully appreciate, hey, chairs can be switched here and I can be on that other side. But then my obligation is to protect the public
00:21:00
Speaker
my obligation is to figure out how do we ensure that the doctor has learned from this experience. And it's a tough deal because things are not perfect.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah. And a lot of times I also, as we start talking about strategies to kind of, we've kind of outlined, well, what are we talking about? And as we kind of segue into some of the regulatory environment and strategies to deal and cope with some of this stuff in a positive way, in a sustainable way, you can start with prevention and you can start by not
00:21:35
Speaker
necessarily promising anything. I know young docs eager to get patients to sign on the dotted line say, Oh my God, yeah, it'll be great. It'll be fine. They've done it. They've done it maybe five times and they haven't done it enough to see a failure yet. And they get into hot water because you have a patient who is asking something ridiculous.
00:21:56
Speaker
I love that you said that. And we've talked about it before on some of our YouTube videos that we've done. It's an expectation management issue. And I think it's so tough, as you said, as a new practitioner, you want to help people as best you can. And you want them to know that you're competent. You really don't want to say, I don't think I can do that. I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think I'm the doctor for you.
00:22:25
Speaker
I can't meet your expectations. Right, and it's super tough because if you're trying to grow a practice and you turn half the patients away because
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah. When you start in practice, there's absolutely somebody better out there. I just send the tough patients to you. It's tough. You have to err a little bit on the side of building yourself up.
Advice for New Practitioners
00:22:50
Speaker
And that's why, I don't know, when I got out of residency, my director talked to me about our entire program. He goes, start with the basics.
00:22:58
Speaker
Do not do the big cases right off the bat. Get your feet wet. And after five years, when you see what goes wrong with the basics, then start to segue. It takes a while to really kind of get your feet, your legs under you. It really does. And that's where having people that you're connected to.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, I actually I enjoy talking about when patients are like, they're like, Oh my gosh, this is this is gonna work, right? 100%. And I actually enjoy saying, there is nothing in this world that's guaranteed. I love saying there is no such thing as a simple procedure. Yeah, that's a good one, too. And, you know, in residency,
00:23:38
Speaker
saw a horrendous case of the person survived, but a simple procedure of a lipoma removal from someone's back just almost took the person's life. And it was bad, bad things happen. And the practitioner involved was not a resident
00:24:00
Speaker
And it was a senior staff doctor that really spiraled into a negative mental health space because of that negative outcome. And it was really, really tough because you get isolated so easily. And that gets to some of the solutions that we have talked about talking to a colleague. You've got to find somebody that you can talk to. Maybe it's going to your local dental society and
00:24:26
Speaker
reaching out and asking for input there. We think of everyone as competition. If I have a patient that's going awry and I'll usually get you in the room for a variety of different reasons just to make sure, okay, you take a look at this with your own eyes without me biasing you and then we have a discussion.
00:24:44
Speaker
But I'm also okay sending it off to a another practice and I'll call the other surgeon and say, this isn't going the way I expect it. I want you to take a look at this part of it is patients lose trust in you. But part of it is, you know, don't keep digging the hole deeper.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah, knowing knowing when to quit is a good idea. And yeah, it just really gets back to trying not to promise. Don't over promise expectation management is getting back to the state board side of the equation. A lot of state board. And also because of that. Yeah. And also just trying to realize you're not alone in kind of what you're going through.
00:25:23
Speaker
I know that we get overworked as providers and just kind of knowing your limits there. It's so tough to keep those emotions in check. So as I kind of just unpack some of the stuff we've talked about, I really like to lean in to find a group of colleagues.
Support Networks and Shared Experiences
00:25:42
Speaker
It's nice to kind of have it diversified too by having someone who has been there for a while and has seen some stuff.
00:25:48
Speaker
But it is also great to have someone your age who's in your same neck of the woods, who's in your same kind of niche group of procedures that you that you provide, because they're going to know, you know, even if I'm talking to the complications that might happen with, you know, a colorectal doc are a little different from what may happen with mine. It doesn't make mine invalid. It's just they're different.
00:26:15
Speaker
And so trying to find someone for me that would do the same procedures is helpful. And Stephanie, part of our why of doing this channel is because we have a local study club with doctors that is a pretty diverse group as far as ages and male and female and specialists and general dentists.
00:26:38
Speaker
And we have a blue couch that is kind of the meeting before the meeting we've got this super comfy blue couch in the office and people come and hang beforehand and that's really where. The good stuff gets discussed and that's where you talk about having challenges with your kid or having trouble with staff and all that sort of thing.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, what Bob's talking about is we kind of just we generalize some of these issues to you know every because everyone kind of deals with well not everybody but a lot of people deal with kind of trouble with kiddos or Trouble with like a spouse or trouble with just kind of being alone and and it's I think it's it's so important
00:27:16
Speaker
to to be heard, be understood and to have people say, I know what you're talking about. And for me, it was always kind of helpful to see people that were 10 or 15 years down the road in practice to say, oh, yeah, man, that happened all the time. And then finally things changed and got better or I changed and kind of how I manage that. But but taking taking care to get connections and kind of having that
00:27:45
Speaker
is so critical. What else can people do? I think we hit on the main ones.
00:27:51
Speaker
The other one that I would say, and we talk a lot about just what can you do for your own mental health? Yes, you have something bad happens. You're going to have a hard time stopping thinking about it. But doing some other things, making sure you're exercising, making sure you're eating well, making sure if you have practices that kind of decrease your stress like meditation, whether it's yoga, whether it's contemplative prayer,
00:28:16
Speaker
whatever works for
Stress Management and Coping Tools
00:28:18
Speaker
you. And this is where it's super helpful to have a bunch of tools in your toolbox before a bad thing happens. Sure. And yeah, just from a, just from a female's perspective, uh, learning how to form those bridging networks and also those, um, kind of feeling networks as well.
00:28:36
Speaker
And there's a difference. And so with bridging, it has to do with networking or kind of making connections with other men or women in your field that can lead to other jobs, maybe more patient referrals. And then there are kind of the feeling networks where it's a safe space and they can pick you up when you've kind of gone underwater and you need to come up for air. How does one foster a safe space?
00:29:07
Speaker
I think having a safe space is about having someone that you trust that is not going to go and share some of your deepest, darkest stuff with just anybody. And this is a person or a group of people that don't necessarily have to have a lot in common with you, but it tends to gravitate towards that.
00:29:32
Speaker
And it's about who can you be vulnerable with? And if you can't be a lot of this, a lot of the comments that were came from this prompt were they're vulnerable. They were definitely something where I felt like, you know, a safe space was trying to be created. I love, I love what you said right there because the person who asked this question had sort of the confidence, but also just
00:30:01
Speaker
knowing that they wanted to get this out there and truly get some input. So I love they asked the question because that says an awful lot about them. I love that they asked you the question because it says an awful lot about you.
00:30:18
Speaker
Kind of like that other person, the dental student making the statement to you of, oh my gosh, you really had a significant impact. Why don't we, why don't we do more things like that? Why are people not kind of like, Hey, thanks for helping me. Or, you know, I need some advice on something. Is it ego? Do we get in our own way?
00:30:37
Speaker
I get it my own way. Hard to say, yeah. Well, it's not that hard to say. I think a lot of times because we're like, okay, I'm a doctor. I'm in charge of this and this and this. I have to be perfect, which we've talked about as far as perfection.
00:30:55
Speaker
I don't know. I lost my train of thought there. I feel like I get reach outs from people on stuff, not necessarily exactly like this, but I think this is probably where
00:31:09
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe you create a safe space. No, maybe I don't create a safe space. No, I think you do. But I think it does come from it's potentially maybe women. This is something where women are better at this. I don't know where they're better at knowing what emotion does to you when you internalize it.
00:31:28
Speaker
versus trying any way you can, whether it's through journaling, meditation, physical activity, or just talking to someone. I think women might be a little bit better at that than men who might tend. There's always exceptions to these things, but men who probably tend to compartmentalize. I agree with that, and I think men, as a man, because I'm a man,
00:31:52
Speaker
We hold ourselves back so much that we are not open to things.
Gender Differences in Networking and Coping
00:31:57
Speaker
Now I look at myself before, before I did that integrative medicine fellowship, and I know you've done it too. I wouldn't think of myself as someone who would take time to meditate. And I had, I was terrible at it at the start. I had to use the headspace app to help me out, but it has helped me function.
00:32:18
Speaker
so much better than if I didn't do it. It decreases my stress. It is a tool in my toolbox. If I am having trouble getting things out of my mind, it is a helpful thing for me to have.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, and we've talked a little bit about reaching across the aisle and understanding, realizing as a human, at some point or another, you realize you are predisposed to certain types of personality traits, certain types of emotional capacities, and recognizing, hey, I have a lot of emotions, or hey, I compartmentalize really well.
00:32:56
Speaker
uh knowing that you can reach across the aisle and with uh you know tools that you develop throughout life and when the time comes to compartmentalize something you can do it but when the time comes to be vulnerable and express some of those emotions you also reap the benefits of that and and that kind of goes into that the duality of networking whether it's for bonding or whether it's for bridging and i think
00:33:23
Speaker
There's some data on this through some of the Harvard surgical business courses I was taking. They had data that men tended to be better at bridging networks, which tended to showcase their ability to compartmentalize and get down to, okay, well, what are we doing? Emotion doesn't even come into that. And women just naturally gravitate towards, well, how does this make you feel?
00:33:47
Speaker
And the tricky part in health care is there are pockets of health care that just tend to be dominated by men. There are pockets of health care that tend to be dominated by women. And it's just figuring out which, where do you find yourself and how do you relate and knowing that you can absolutely take advantage of both types of connection. Yes. And what I would say as far as to wrap
00:34:15
Speaker
To wrap it up, if you don't have some tools in your toolbox and bad things happen, then it's pretty easy to fall into isolation, fall into despair, lean on things like alcohol and drugs, and we see that certainly from a state board. We call them non-sustainable coping mechanisms.
00:34:38
Speaker
So I guess what we do is push you to connect with others and start that connection now. Yeah. So what we're going to do real quick is we're going to play. Is this going to be an exercise? It's going to be a little game that's going to kind of test Bobby and my ability to think on our feet. Oh, so we are doing improv classes. Is that where this is coming from? So here's the prompt. It's going to be sustainable coping mechanisms. Now that's a really long prompt.
00:35:07
Speaker
It's pretty simple. What's a good way to cope with stress? Okay. Okay. And so Bobby, you want to start us off? We're just going to go back and forth till we run out of ideas. So are we doing the, you start because I don't know where we go with this. So meditation. Breathing exercises. Journaling. Exercise.
00:35:29
Speaker
He said exercise is twice relative. Oh, I did. It's okay. Then he said, um, breathing exercises, which Oh yeah. Well, breathing exercise is different than exercise. I am breathing pretty heavily breathing exercise and then exercise talking with a friend. Contemplative prayer, putting on makeup, getting your haircut.
00:35:56
Speaker
Drawing. Don't say painting. Painting. What did you say? I said painting. Cleaning your dwelling, your place of residence. Going for a drive. Getting an extra nap in. Ooh, I like that. I don't know.
00:36:25
Speaker
No, you can't pass it. Okay. I guess I'm done. I'm done. Those are all positive things. And I think our push for our listeners is to start doing some of that stuff before, before things do get tough, because it will happen.
00:36:41
Speaker
Life will throw things at you. Human nature will find a way to let some of that stuff kind of come out and eke out. And so set your expectations appropriately. Find a small group. You've got to have people that do what you do.
00:36:58
Speaker
that can be there for you. And sometimes that is a challenge to find. Sometimes it's a needle in the haystack. If you're in a department at a hospital and you're the only female there that has, you know, is your, is that your status? Go to a, find a way to connect with someone at a different hospital or outpatient clinic that does what you do. And, and that's going to be your, the source of your strength. Cause I'm telling you what I know what it's like to be in a male dominated residency program and be left out.
00:37:28
Speaker
And it's super tough. Well, listen, guys, thank you for listening to us to our subscriber follower. Thank you for the question. We love questions. And it was a great idea. And soon as we saw it, we're like, oh, we've got to do something on this. So if you like what we're talking about, please hit the subscribe. Thanks, y'all.