Stimulus - Learn Tools to Crush It in Your Medical Career

When you have a patient who requests a Z-pack for what is almost certainly an acute viral respiratory infection, you probably respond internally or externally (possibly both) that antibiotics do not treat viruses. But could there be some effect on their symptoms, or the viral infection itself, that is not part of the common discussion when it comes to such things? We know that azithromycin is an a...

Most of us are motivated to have compassion for those in need, but sometimes it can feel like the tank is running on empty. In this episode, wellness expert Kim Bambach, MD gives insight into compassion fatigue and strategies to thwart it.  Compassion fatigue is cumulative emotional and physical exhaustion stemming from exposure to the suffering of others. It is the “cost” of caring for other...

Our guest today is Dr. Stephanie Pearson, founder and CEO of Pearson Ravitz , an insurance advisory firm that specializes in disability and life insurance for healthcare professionals. In this episode we break down disability insurance start to finish: what to look for in a policy, pitfalls and traps, the deal with disability coverage through work, the steps you need to take in order to collect di...

Financial expert, raconteur, and finance CEO Vitaliy Katsenelson gives his approach to the scarcity mindset, personal finance advice that changed his life, key strategies for making a budget, why people argue about money, geofencing as a diet tool, and a Stoic take on social media.  Guest Bio: V italiy Katsenelson was born in Murmansk, USSR, and immigrated to the United States with his family...

In a follow up to our episode on sleep , we break down five sleep tools we’ve tested, like, and are still using.  For many of you,  sleep can be a fraught landscape. This is doubly true if you are doing shift work, working nights, or even just getting home with your mind spinning.  When you have built-in disrupted sleep, it is extra important to pay attention to how you go about get...

Feedback comes in many forms and oftentimes we aren’t even aware that it’s happening. In this episode, communication expert Lon Setnik, MD  breaks down the basics of feedback, why cloaked or hidden feedback can be so dangerous, and critical skills for both delivering and receiving feedback. Guest Bio: Lon Setnik, MD is a community emergency faculty at the Center for Medical Simulation. Mentioned i...

It’s a tough time to practice medicine, which makes paying attention to self-care even more important. In this episode, we break down three specific strategies for improving mental and physical performance during a long shift, sustaining shift endurance, and building a scaffolding for joy at work. For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website Awake...

28 years ago, the die was cast for how emergency department encounters were documented.  Since then, we've had note bloat, click fatigue, and too much attention placed on things that really didn’t matter. All of that is slated to change in 2023 with dramatic new documentation guidelines (that today’s guest calls ‘refreshing’) are implemented. When was the last time you heard the word ‘refresh...

Barry Kerzin, MD, the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, is back to dive deeper into: the difference between empathy and compassion, why compassion (versus empathy) is a critical aspect of medical care, generating self compassion, and answers to listener email.  Guest Bio: Barry Kerzin, MD is a US born and trained family physician who for the past several decades has resided as a monk in Dharam...

Verbal de-escalation is a tool that can be learned by almost anyone. In this episode, we learn from two masters in the art of de-escalating those who are agitated and upset:  Jose Pacheco, RN, known affectionately to his co-workers as ‘The Drunk Whisperer’,  and Dan McCollum, MD,  emergency physician at Augusta University. The core of this conversation hinges around an approach to c...

What happens at the end of an event can disproportionately impact our perception and memory of it. In this episode, we investigate the research behind the peak end pattern and how you can use this phenomenon to improve your own experience at work (and life). Awake + Aware | Our 2026 Retreat Join us at Awake and Aware, our 3-day retreat in Scottsdale, AZ. March 1-4, 2026. Space is limited. Learn M...

We’re all guilty of it, basing decisions on the most recent event. It’s surely part of our wiring. The question is - what do we do about it? In this episode, Justin Morgenstern breaks down availability bias: what it is, how it shows up in life and medical practice, the difference between learning and bias, research showing availability bias happening in real-time, and ways to turn availability bia...

Specific strategies to improve workflow and manage overwhelm during an emergency department shift. Guest Bio: Landon Mueller, MD is an emergency physician and fellowship trained sports medicine specialist who gave the best talk I’ve ever seen on managing workflow in the emergency department. Now he's our guest on the show.  Awake + Aware | Our 2026 Retreat Join us at Awake and Aware, our 3-d...

What does it mean to act like a true professional? I’m not sure it’s been fully fleshed out in medicine but I’ve met those who are exemplars of it. This pod is a conversation with my partner in hundreds of critical resuscitations, Ben Peery, MD. We talk about wins, losses, lessons learned and, even more than that, I get to introduce you to someone who, for me, was a role model in how to carry ones...

An inside look at what it takes to launch a ketamine clinic including first steps, navigating hurdles, potential pitfalls, which patients benefit from ketamine, and an exhortation about why you should (and shouldn’t) go into this type of business.  Guest Bio: Dr. Samuel Ko is a Board Certified Emergency Physician and medical director of Reset Ketamine in Palm Springs, California. In addition...

When you are at the lowest of lows after a devastating case, how do you recover in real-time ? It’s certainly not easy and it takes a clear plan of action to do it well.  In this episode, pediatric hospitalist Sarangan Uthayalingam walks us through a difficult case where nothing was working. He felt frozen in inaction and the patient, a newborn, did not survive. Immediately afterward, he was...

Have you ever had a situation where afterward you repeatedly questioned the choice you made at the time? You chewed on it, perseverated on it, kept coming back to it? If you are a clinician, there is an amplifier to this because someone else’s life is also involved - the patient’s. You worry about their health, you worry about whether they or their family may sue you - you worry worry worry. I thi...

Medical Ethicist Abbott, MD walks us through her perspectives on myriad ethical quandaries including:  How to approach discordance between a patient's written wishes and a family member who says do the opposite, the ethics of operating on demented patients who have an acute life threatening critical illness, a case of a young man with an unsurvivable brain bleed and whether or not to extubate...

There’s no denying that mistakes happen in medicine. When they do, what’s the next step? Business as usual is to deny and defend. Not only is this an adversarial and destructive process, it is also a lost opportunity to learn (and for the patient/family to fully understand what happened). In this episode, we explore a novel approach that shifts thinking from ‘risk management’ to ‘patient managemen...

Sleep expert Mike Stone, MD joins us for a conversation about how to sleep well (and strategies to do it poorly!)  We cover: how sleep cleans your brain, alcohol, caffeine, a pragmatic approach to wearables, light exposure, the villainy of devices before bed, cannabinoids, heat, room temp, and night shifts.  Guest Bio: Dr. Mike Stone has been in medical practice for almost 20 years, and...

None of us are immune from the Fundamental Attribution Error - chalking up the behavior of others to their character rather than the situation in which they find themselves. In this episode, we tease out the details of this common bias, its negative effects, and several strategies to address and work through it.  Awake + Aware | Our 2026 Retreat Join us at Awake and Aware, our 3-day retreat...

Habit change doesn’t have to be grand, spectacular, or a massive shift all at once. In fact, it may be better to start small, tiny, you might say. In this episode, Scott Weingart and I break down the methodology from BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits and give real world examples as to how it works (and might not work).  Tiny Habits was the selection for our most recent book club. We host these every few...

Chances are that you have a robust inner critic. You might even believe that self-criticism and castigation are the only ways to excel. As a high-level performer, you are not alone. In this episode, we break down the nature of inner criticism and several ways to manage it. Awake + Aware | Our 2026 Retreat Join us at Awake and Aware, our 3-day retreat in Scottsdale, AZ. March 1-4, 2026. Space is l...

Finding time to debrief challenging cases can feel nearly impossible amidst the tumult and task saturation of medical practice. The reality, however, is that it’s a necessity, not a nicety.  In this episode, emergency physician Stuart Rose and rescue specialist Ashley Liebig discuss two different approaches to immediate debriefs: INFO and the hot offload.   Guest Bios:  Stuart...

It doesn’t look like performance metrics are going away any time soon. So why not make them a feature instead of a bug? We discuss: reframing audits so they help elevate and don't feel punitive, why we're not good at self-assessment, creating clinician-relevant (and friendly) metrics, the best way to present metrics to providers, 3 high-yield metrics that make a difference. Guest Bio: Shawn D...