Ordinary to Extraordinary - The Podcast

Today’s guest is Dr. Dan Buckland — an emergency physician and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine & Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and one of the leading thinkers at the intersection of human performance, medical risk, and space exploration. He has served as the Deputy Human System Risk Manager at NASA, helping shape how we keep astronauts healthy a...

Paul Vicary served for over 35 years in the British Army, including 22 years within UK Special Forces earning a meritorious medal for his service. He has operated in high-pressure environments worldwide, faced adversity head-on, and is one of the few individuals in the World who has walked to both the North and South Poles unsupported. His experiences prepared him for a second multifaceted career...

Sue Williams is one of the world’s most experienced hostage and kidnap negotiators. A former senior detective at New Scotland Yard, she led both the Kidnap Unit and the Hostage Crisis Negotiation Unit, advising UK Prime Ministers and international governments during some of the most complex and sensitive abduction cases of the last three decades.  Her work spans war‑zone kidnaps, maritime pir...

Nick Lopez is a professional baseball player for the Texas Tailgaters, competing in the rapidly exploding phenomenon known as Banana Ball—often called the “greatest show in sports”—where he’s established himself as one of the league’s premier hitters. Like Banana Ball, his journey there is anything but typical. Growing up, he had no collegiate offers out of high school. What he did have was relent...

We are delighted to welcome back Dr Andrew Petrosoniak, who we first interviewed on episode 22, when we explored the role of coaches in medicine. In this episode we will take a deep dive into decision making . Human are estimated to make approximately 35,000 decisions a day. Very few of us have received formal instruction in how to make decisions particularly when under pressure, but like many thi...

Richard De Crespigny is an expert in leadership, decision-making, and human performance under pressure. He is best known as the Captain of Qantas Flight 32, the Airbus A380 that suffered a catastrophic engine failure shortly after takeoff from Singapore on November 4th, 2010—an event that has since become one of the most studied and finest examples of effective CRM in aviation history. He has over...

Dr Jorian Kippax is an emergency medicine specialist based in Tasmania, Australia — but his work spans mountaintops, disaster zones, and deep wilderness. He’s a Retrieval Consultant with Ambulance Tasmania’s Critical Care and Retrieval Service, and a Trauma Specialist at the Royal Hobart Hospital. He’s also a veteran of international disaster response, having led medical teams in the aftermath of...

I was fortunate to be invited to an Upland Hills Health dinner to deliver a presentation focused on the lessons we have learned from our podcast guests, specifically with respect to how Healthcare might benefit from instruction in human factors and mental skills, and from formal coaching. Drawing from the stories and lessons learned from several of our impactful guests, I delve into how mental ski...

Keith Reesby is a personal development specialist with more than 25 years of experience in human performance and transformation. Combining contemporary psychology, ancient philosophy and lived experience, he has developed a proven 10-step process to help people discover purpose, build self-awareness, and achieve lasting behavioural change. Keith combines his lifelong passion and study of psycholog...

Imagine walking across the planet—28,000 miles, six continents, seven years—powered only by your own two feet and accompanied by your trusted companion, an Australian Shepherd dog. Our guest today did exactly that. Along the way, he faced exhaustion, illness, wonder, connection, and discovery. His new book, The World Walk , captures not only the adventure, but the preparation, mindset, and recover...

Dr. Phillip Lee is both a general practice doctor, and also a former Member of Parliament for Bracknell. He served as Parliamentary Under‑Secretary of State for Victims, Youth and Family Justice (Ministry of Justice) under U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May from July 2016 to June 2018. For almost 20 years he served as both a doctor and politician, until in 2019 he famously crossed the floor of t...

Zoran Stojkovic is a certified Mental Performance Coach and founder of Kizo Performance. He blends evidence-based mental skills with practical tools for confidence, focus and resilience. He has worked with over 2,000 clients, and has 10 years of experience as a Mental Performance Specialist helping amongst others, military aviators, professional athletes and executives. We continue our journey of...

Payar Pasha is both a Perfusionist at UW Health in Wisconsin where he is a vital member of the cardiovascular surgical team, and also an expert skydiver, wingsuit pilot and BASE Jumper, with over 1100 jumps. In today's episode, we explore the human factors that allow him to excel in both of these high stakes, high consequence and high stress environments. He will break down his approach to dealing...

Hudson Brown is the author of Landing Gear Down (publ. Newman Springs 2020) , a gripping thriller that follows Graham Stone, a young detective in the Memphis Police Department’s Violent Crimes Task Force. Before turning to writing, Hudson served as a police officer himself with the Memphis police department until after 7 years of service he suffered a career ending injury. His firsthand experience...

Jonathan Viscosi is a Canadian professional soccer player who currently plays as a goalkeeper for Valour FC in the Canadian Premier League. He began his career with Ottawa South United before playing college soccer at the University of Rio Grande and later the University at Buffalo. Since then Jon has played for numerous clubs from the UK to Sweden, Finland and the USA. Jonathan earned a Mast...

Dr. Richard Harris is an Australian anesthetist, aeromedical specialist, and expert cave diver with over 35 years experience. In 2018, Dr. Richard "Harry" Harris was getting ready to embark on a diving holiday, when he was urgently requested by the Thai government to assist in the rescue mission of 12 Thai schoolchildren and their soccer coach, who were trapped deep within the Tham Luang caves by...

Josh Sweeney enlisted in the military after high school, joining the United States Marine Corps. After earning the esteemed title of Marine Corps Scout Sniper, he was deployed with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines to Nowzad, Afghanistan, where he sustained life-altering injuries from an IED on October 28, 2009. Undeterred by this setback, Josh discovered a new passion for Paralympic sports, quickly...

Dr. Ron Roessler is both a board certified emergency medicine physician and CEO and Founder of “Elite Latin Coaching”. After graduating from Princeton University he embarked on his medical career, and has now over 20 years experience working in a busy urban emergency department.  His roots though lay in the study of The Classics and teaching, and in his spare time he has been instrumental in...

" Adventure Psychology helps people and organizations survive, cope and thrive during change, challenge and uncertainty."  https://www.paulareid.com/ Paula Reid is the world's first Adventure Psychologist. She has skied to the South Pole, sailed around the world, "the wrong way", canoed up the Mekong River in a dugout canoe, and cycled across the breadth of Europe. And that's just scratching...

Dr Andrew Petrosoniak is an emergency physician and trauma team leader at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada. He is also the Medical Director of the Unity Health Toronto Simulation Program. In 2020 Andrew co-founded Advanced Performance HealthCare Design - a company focused on using simulation, behavioural psychology and clinical expertise to enhance high performance teams in healthcare. ht...

Adam Spink works as an air traffic controller at Heathrow, the busiest 2-runway airport in the world, where he is also an instructor, supervisor, watch training officer and an examiner. He also works in ATC operations, developing new procedures and equipment. Adam represents NATS (National Air Traffic Services) and the UK on the global stage on subjects including low visibility operations, ground...

We are so grateful to the 18 extraordinary guests who have helped create our first year of this podcast. We sit down and reflect on a few of the human factors lessons learnt from these incredible people this year, and look forward to more in 2025. 2024 Episodes: Introducing Ordinary To Extraordinary - The Podcast Neil Laughton Supt. Adam Gallop Prof. Mark Wilson Kev Sutton Dr. Jason Brooks Dr. Cla...

Mike Abernethy, MD, DRTM, first joined Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health as a Med Flight physician and ED attending in 1992. He has been full-time EM faculty, a Clinical Professor, and has served as Chief Flight Physician since 2008. With over 30 years continuous experience and thousands of patient transports, Dr. Abernethy is one of the World’s...

"Mandy Hickson has over 30 years experience within aviation. She joined the RAF in 1994, and was the first woman to fly the Tornado GR4 on the front line, where she operated in hostile environments, including patrolling the "No Fly" zone over Iraq. Since leaving the RAF, she retrained as a facilitator and coach in human factors where she draws on her experience of calculated risk-taking, decision-...

Captain Sam Soderberg is an F-35 pilot with the Wisconsin Air National Guard 115th Fighter Wing. This 5th Generation fast jet is the World's most technological advanced fighter, and requires elite level performance skills to be selected to operate it. In this episode we sit down and talk to Sam about his journey from flying in a Cessna as a kindergarten kid, to joining the Air National Guard and w...