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Beating Burnout by Becoming Antifragile - Top Reads

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Top Reads on How to Beat Burn Out by Becoming  Antifragile There is no one book, practice or philosophy. Each of the books below has provided me with a unique insight into the problem and potential solutions for the individual, clinical team, department, hospital, system, industry and ultimately society. Let me know if you have more to add to this initial list - certainly there are thousands more. The Chimp Paradox : Provides an easy to remember framework for understanding the complex neuroscience behind how your mind functions moment to moment. This understanding helps you to recognize your primitive mind's response to stress. Then utilize your higher brain to decide on the best response to a particular stimuli, stress, or situation. Trauma Stewardship: Explains why family, friends, staff and clinicians are all victims of secondary trauma, how we can recognize burnout, and provides a framework for approaching personal wellness. The Obstacle is the Way : Provides a daily p
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Building Resilience Together - Weekly Review

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Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values your destiny. Ghandi.  During a slow moment on a recent overnight, a senior EM resident and I discussed burnout and wellness in medicine. We talked through shifting our focus from "self help", to the personal and team QI process of continually building resilience together. One helpful method is a weekly personal review described by many leaders on the subject, adopted here for a physician's life. Weekend Review (Complete once on Friday - Monday, depending on your schedule) 1. Review calendar from week before. For each event, ask yourself: a. What am I grateful for?  b. How can I improve next week? 2. Review week ahead: a. Be sure not just work events are listed, but more importantly personal and family events are noted b. Visualize TTD in preparation for each.  3. Brief review of month ahead.  a. Scroll through the calendar, being sure that the big events, such as lectur
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Why you will fail to have a great career...

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Inspiring TED Talk by Economist Larry Smith on how to stop making "altruistic" excuses, live with courage, put both your family and yourself first, while having both a great career and a great life.
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Patient First Rules

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Great quote from Strauss and Mayer's Emergency Department Management on putting the patient's first. Rule #1: Always do the right thing for the patient. Rule#2: Do the right thing for the the people who take care of the patient.  Rule #3: Never confuse rule #1 and #2.  Brings me back two decades to medical school. Still the best days are when I live this mission, and the worst when I fail to. Altruism always brings mental clarity and an endless well of energy. The tribe mentality creates community with our staff and the patient's family. The last keeps our priorities correctly aligned. Timeless.
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Set Super Chickens Free - Transforming Leadership through Social Capital...

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Margaret Heffernan  former BBC lead, successful entrepreneur, and now management consultant wonderfully summarizes the new challenge of leadership today in this inspiring TED Talk . In education and medicine, the super chicken rules the roost, very likely at the cost of true professional growth, and even more tragically public health. To solve today's complex problems, we need to create the Successful Team Margaret and MIT researchers describes as having three key components: empathy, equal voice, and women members! Leaders need to move completely away from command and control top down model, to a providing "air cover" for the work of the team, ensuring the team is adhering to value behaviors, and helping one another develop great ideas through frequent conflict and open communication. I've listened to this TED talk three times this week and will undoubtedly be listening again soon right after I finish her book. So many great ideals - Thank you for your vision
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"Teach for Mastery Not Test Scores" from Khan Academy Visionary & How to Get Started in Med Ed...

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Check out this outstanding TED talk from Sal Khan. Provides an inspiring synopsis of where education is today, and where we must be tomorrow. We need to begin focusing not on test scores, but on motivation through learning ownership, followed by continuous mastery of fundamental knowledge and skills. How many ridiculous multiple choice exams do we have in education, especially medical education today? What does passing really mean? As a practicing clinician, bedside educator, and writer of such tests, I know first hand that yesterday's rites of passage have little external validity to patient care. Time to focus instead on teamwork with our trainees, engagement through clinical experience, and outcomes that make a difference to the patient. Review how to utilize simulation based mastery learning in your medical curriculum by reading this great article by Barsuk et al .
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Tough Week? Then check out this great weekend inspiration TED talk...

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