How 2 Train Heroes?

The countdown has begun: #smaccDUB registration opens next week!  The festival of the Free Open Access Medical Education Movement. At last the final countdown has begun with less than 7 days to go until registration opens for SMACC Dublin. Given the multitude of different time zones, the best way to be sure you don’t miss out is to synchronise your alarms with the countdown timer on the SMACC website www.smacc.net.au Information on the program, workshops, accommodation options, smacchandise, affiliated pre-SMACC meetings, the SMACC Kids club and registration pricing is all available now on the website – so check it out and be ready!

Check out this  NPR TED Radio Hour on Happiness and Success  on your commute. Harvard researcher Shawn Anchor flipped our paradigm on success. Being successful often times may not create happiness. But being happy always helps to create success. This NPR TED Radio Hour podcast build's on Shawn's lesson with more positive psychology wisdom backed by science. A great lift for any Cub's fan today!

If you teach, have kids, or just care about the future of innovation, then you need to watch this talk by Sugata Mitra.

Diving off the pier into the cold water at sunrise, we are truly alive. Good mornings and good lucks exchanged, bikes racked, equipment triple checked.  A brief calm develops in stark contrast to the effort ahead. Treading water waiting for the horn - We're off. Board is full at 6AM. Sigh of relief from the overnight doc. Careless bartending puts my kids through college, but chest pain, stroke, pneumonia,  cancer, and trauma surround me too.  "Hey Doc! Fat tongue and difficulty breathing just walked in...". Game on. Coach Wooden used the word Intentness to describe courage and resolve. Today we refer to this strength of character as Grit. In both sport and medicine, success always requires grit. There are no shortcuts. Show up prepared or stay in bed. Talented athletes and the topic experts make it look easy, only by completing ten thousand hours of deliberate practice before the big day. Cold water creates sensory overload - total immersion achieved insta...

Thought provoking podcast on Technology, Authenticity and Learning from Kevin Kelly on the Tim Ferriss Show : Creativity and Intentness (i.e. Grit). My current podcast line up: 1,  EMRap 2,  KeyLIME 3.  Tim Ferriss Show What's on your device?

Coach Woodenism for the Week: " Intentness, the willingness to persevere when hardship is forced upon you and those you lead." In this series, we're applying Coach John Wooden's Pyramid of Success to medical education. We began by discussing the foundation of Attitude, Effort, Friendship, Loyalty, and Cooperation. The second focuses on the mind, beginning with Self Control, followed by Alertness, Initiative, and now Intentness. The coach defined Intentness as 'a relentless pursuit of excellence'.  Whether this fire burns or build depends on a coach's and clinician's focus. Focus only on self, then you are finished. Focus on helping others, then you build everyone. In today's technology driven world, Intentness is more important then ever. Clinically, we are often tempted to cut to the bottomline by focusing only on the chief complaint in our busy ED's. If we just get the CT and get 'em out, we may miss the abuse that is real life threa...

We see that guy every morning when we walk into, or out of the hospital. The clinician who looks 20 years older then he really is, shuffling about, staring straight ahead, almost grimacing. When you say "Good Morning", he just looks the other way. He's the guys who has been here way too long, falling way too far down the rabbit hole of burn out. Let's face it, none of us ever want to become that guy. But on our worst days, many of us already have been. Myself for sure. Medicine is a tough game of paradoxes - exhilarating, exhausting, rewarding, and always demanding. So how do we instead become the guy? The clinician people gravitate towards at the start of the day, when help is needed to meet a new challenge, and at the end to review the day's success. In Academic Medicine Slavin describes Positive Psychology's PERMA model to preventing burnout in Medical Education. Positive emotions: Foster positive emotions by reducing unnecessary stressors and promoti...