Real MD

Joseph Grenny is a mentor and friend. His work as a researcher, author, and business owner has helped countless professionals level up their abilities to lead teams, navigate conflict, and influence change. In this episode, we talk about his career path, two of his books (Crucial Conversations and Influencer), and thinking at scale which means having a belief or calling that as individuals we can...

Elorm Avakame is a wonderful pediatrics fellow, colleague, and friend. I am lucky to work with him each year at the RISE conference. I will let him introduce the specifics about himself. This episode is about mindset and also keeping who you are, the natural abilities that you see early in life alive in the current work you are doing. In Elorm’s case his experiences in athletics transfer into the...

Drs. Adam and Emily Spivak are the definition of making life and career work. I will not use the word balance because that is not how medical careers work, but, making space for each other and their passions as well as their family is their way of making it all work. I loved talking about their career paths and life in general. Most of all my takeaway was the value of tuning into past experiences...

Medical school moves very fast and it is great when we can take a moment and process the experience. In this episode, I sit down with second year medical students, Blake Findley and Alizah Folau, they also both serve as RealMD leaders. We talk about what it’s like for them right now in med school, how their reasons for pursuing medicine have evolved, keeping their “why” alive, and a national confe...

This episode is a rebroadcast of an interview from the AAMC's Learn Serve Lead Conference in Nashville last November, 2022. It features a conversation between Dr. Adina Kalet, the Director of the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for Transformation of Medical Education at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Dr. Tom Hurtado from the University of Utah.

Dr. Adam Stevenson serves as the Associate Dean of Student Affairs at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah and as a Pediatrician at Primary Children’s Hospital. Adam talks about his journey into medicine, how he has been at U since medical school, how he navigated the unexpected, and became an educator as well as an amazing mentor/coach. Having navigated his own stru...

Storytelling is a basic need and central to community building. Medical education can be pretty selfish in that people have to focus on building themselves, but being a medical care provider is fairly selfless in that you're caring for whomever might come before you. RealMD brought storytelling to the University of Utah to create a space to practice some of the listening that medicine requires...

Dr. Sara Stern wears a lot of hats and enjoys having a wide of variety of roles. In addition to being a Pediatric Rheumatologist, she is a faculty member, researcher, and RealMD coach. She also recently took on a new role as faculty co-director professional identity formation. In this episode, I love how she talks about taking risks to grow and Navigating dark spots to create the life she wants. I...

This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing two founding members of the Utah Medical Orchestra, MS4 AnnaLeah Larson and MS3 Heather Smith. The MSO, as they call it, is a rapidly growing volunteer orchestra composed of students, professionals, and staff in the healthcare community in Salt Lake City who hold large scale performances each semester and also perform as ensembles for patients. In this...

Dr. Katherine Anderson is a geriatrician who advocates for her patients and a developer faculty, she knows how to build people up. In this episode, she shares light bulb moments throughout her professional journey including how she “fell into” her specialty, how she navigates being a “yes” person, and how she goes about setting life goals. I was struck by the wisdom she receives from her patients...

Dr. Francis Filloux is a pediatric neurologist and faculty member at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah. In recent years, Dr. Filloux has become an amazing RealMD coach and loves working with students as they navigate the inevitable uncertainties of medicine. He treats students like they are family. I think this is the take home message from our conversation. As yo...

Today’s episode features Erica Rojas. She is a colleague of mine who I really appreciate working with. Erica wears a lot of hats at the school of medicine including her roles as a learning specialist in the academic success program, Associate Director of the PROMISE2U  program, and teaching multiple undergraduate courses all while pursuing her PhD in education and being a mother. What stands...

Dr. Shipman is a first year physical medicine and rehabilitation resident and one of our RealMD alums. In this episode, we picked up right where we left off covering a lot of ground. But a central theme of building trust both in yourself, with patients and your health care team stuck out to me. Hank talks about a life changing car accident he went through as a teenager and how it led him to findin...

Trisha and I had a great conversation about life as a medical student and staying grounded. We covered a lot in our interview but what struck me is her wisdom including the connection her life purpose has to her family, creating authentic relationships, learning how to lead, and bringing her culture including all intersecting identities with her wherever she goes. I hope you enjoy this conversatio...

This week's episode of the RealMD podcast features first year medical student, Shi Liang. I have loved getting to know Shi over the past few months. In this episode, we talk about why he is pursuing medicine, finding community, overcoming failure in his life, and what he hopes for students in his class. He also expresses an overall desire to relieve suffering. This idea of relieving suffering is c...

It is the end of the year and a time when many people naturally review the past year and think about what they want in the future. Frequently, I get asked by students and colleagues about self-reflection and what it means to have a regular practice. So I brought in the person who has had the greatest impact on me and my own inner journey, Tony Tsai. He is the director of Leadership and Career Deve...

This week’s episode features Dr. Ivette Lopez. She earned her PHD in population health and from the moment she began her journey, she knew that everything she does from research to outreach would be for the benefit of the diverse and vibrant communities she has served for past three decades. Dr. Lopez tells her story of finding meaning in her career and talks about how our medical students have a...

This week’s episode features Dr. Mark Harris. He serves at the University of Utah as the Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education, Associate Chief Medical Officer, and Designated Institutional Official of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. We discuss his journey as a first-generation medical student in Glasgow, Scotland to coming to the US and switching specialties. Mark...

Dr. Kyle Bradford Jones is an Associate Clinical Professor in Family and preventative care at the U of U school of medicine. In 2020, after three years of work, he released the book: Fallible: A memoir of a young physician’s struggle with mental illness. We talk about his journey as described in the book, his efforts to destigmatize mental illness for medical students, and debunk what it means to...

Dr. Paloma Felga Cariello is Associate Dean of Health, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the U of U school of medicine and an infectious disease physician. In this episode, we talk about her journey into medicine, exploring specialty, her love of teaching and EDI work. She shares the unexpected life and career challenges she has faced and how self-reflection and a willingness to accept the challe...

Dr. Dominic Moore is an Associate professor and division chief of pediatric palliative care as well as the medical director of palliative care for intermountain healthcare. In this episode we talk about how grief, humor, and music play a part in his life and work.

This week’s episode features guest host Savannah Gelhard. She is a third-year medical students and serves as a RealMD facilitator. Savannah had a chance to sit down with fellow third-year Erik Tokita. He was driven to medicine by a desire to help those in his community. Throughout medical school, he has focused on balancing the rigorous workload with enjoying life and having fun with his classmate...

This week’s episode of the RealMD podcast features Dr. Sara Wikstrom. She is an internal medicine physician and faculty member at the U of U and strong advocate for students and residents. In this episode we talk about her journey and connections she made to medicine. She also shares how she navigated choosing a specialty.

Dr. Susan Sample has dedicated her career to creating spaces for narrative in medicine. She has a PhD in Communication and directs the Initiative in Narrative, Medicine, and Writing at the Center for Health Ethics, Arts, and Humanities at the University of Utah Health Sciences. She is assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Writer-in-Residence at the Huntsman Cancer Institut...

As we gear up for Season 3 next month, we are posting throwback episodes from the first season (formerly called: Unleashing the Doctor Within) that started it all. In this episode, Sam and Bridger interview Christina Tushman and Shira Kaplan about conflict management in medical leadership and medical education. They share their insight working with a large network of medical schools across the cou...