How 2 Train Heroes?

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.

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.

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...

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 .

Thought provoking TED Talk by Charles Leadbeater on the potential of disruptive informal education in the world's slums and hopefully elsewhere. Is it time to abandon the teacher centered push of the traditional curriculum, and instead begin to utilize a student centered pull? The Pull begins with Motivation, which must be Extrinsic i.e. actually matter to the student's life now, and intrinsic i.e. interesting and fun. Start with a question from a group of students, add technology, and always keep it practical. What will this mean for the increasingly expensive, and yet outdated, factory model of our "modern" education world?

Fascinating TED Talk by Seema Bansal on creating effective educational change with limited resources. Simple texting creates communication creates powerful change. Outstanding example of getting to the factory floor, discovering the real problems, and moving beyond the all pervasive fundamental attribution error.