[Music]
[Applause]
I’m here to talk to you about unexpected
points of education moments when you can
learn when you don’t think you were
going to learn and then you’re like oh
my gosh darn it
I learned there’s an art to learning
outside of the classroom and I’d like to
talk to you a little bit about that
my job is other people’s worst day I am
an emergency physician I literally sit
waiting in part of the hospital where
people can come in and tell me what’s
wrong and ask me how to fix it okay
that’s actually what we do this is what
people think I do every day but most of
the time it’s not a big chunk of my life
until this point has been this just like
you guys are right now in school
learning about being a doctor learning
before that I did a bunch of different
degrees in immunology and then in
education and then I went to medical
school so I’ve spent a lot of time in
the situation that you’re in right now
and then I landed in medicine which is a
really complex field it is a lot of
moving parts a lot of people from
everyone from the paramedics who take
patients from the field as we say in the
hospital are really from your real lives
into the hospital to the people that
work in the hospital registering you and
then putting you into the line to wait
in the waiting room people that help
clean the room so that you can have a
clean room to see me and and all those
people are an essential part of our
health care system the world doesn’t run
on doctors alone right and so what I’ve
learned is that all of those people help
in making the system function the way it
is in the early 2000 and mm I’d say
around
five or so they launched this hand meds
framework the Camerons framework is a
definition of what it means to be a
doctor a bunch of work before that then
right here in Ontario had brought people
to get together to kind of talk about
what it means to be a physician this
framework is built on that now it’s not
really rocket science you do need to be
a medical expert at the core of it but
you also need to be all these other
things is what people when we talk to
them patients doctors nurses all the
different people in our communities they
all stood up and said we want our
doctors to be a professional a good
communicator a collaborator a scholar a
health advocate and a leader I’m going
to talk to you today about a couple of
opportunities I’ve had unexpectedly that
led me to be a better person today and
as a consequence probably a better
doctor so let’s talk a little bit of a
Kakuma communication skills and where I
learned those I for my summer jobs in
high school was a gift shop cashier I
grew up in Niagara Falls Ontario how
many guys have been Niagara Falls before
right this a couple casinos there but
really for you guys at your age it’ll be
the gift shops and the Clifton Hill and
they escape rooms now I were four there
were like all the the horror shops
before where you could go through and be
thrilled and excited and I spent a lot
of time being a gift shop girl on
Clifton Hill and you know what when
people are vacationing you think they’d
be pretty chill but they’re not and when
people are on vacation maybe is because
all the stresses of outside world come
and filter in maybe it’s because they
don’t spend that time with their that
much time with their family usually and
now they find them a little bit more
annoying that I remember and all those
situations come up and people end up
sometimes unloading let’s say on me the
little gift shop girl who’s like you
know all the 15 16 maybe 17 at the time
and they’re freaking out because they
can’t find a keychain with their
daughter’s name on it and you’re like
wow
you and you could either escalate or you
could deescalate vo and let me help you
find it or let’s try to find something
else is customized maybe we make here a
t-shirt things like that right so you
learn how to defuse the situation learn
how to handle them and I realize every
day when I have an angry patient in the
emergency department how much this
instruction and this experience helped
me learn how to be a better doctor
because there isn’t a single shift where
someone’s not annoyed at me because
they’ve been waiting a long time and yes
there’s a bigger system it’s all my
fault but if I can be helpful to them
and remember that at the end of the day
the guy that you know whether it’s
because they were freaking out over a
keychain and you talked to them a little
bit morning you realize they have been
home this is a business trip and they’re
trying to find a key change to make up
for missing his daughter’s birthday well
that makes it a very different
conversation than a conversation that if
you didn’t get to know that person right
a lot of my friends also worked in
coffee shops and you don’t want to stand
between a healthcare provider and their
coffee so I totally get what it means
that in service industry drugs just like
gift shop girl or a barista you’re going
to get experience with handling people
when they’re not thinking of you
actually as someone else but rather
someone that’s supposed to help them and
I feel that that’s really important
because those moments that I learned how
to ground myself how to listen how to
inquire and how to help really help me
today because when someone comes in like
this I try to use those same skills
listen learn from them help them right
and I think that at the bedside when
we’re trying to be compassionate as
healthcare providers whether that’s
because the worst thing in the world has
happened to them or something relatively
small that could cut in their hand but
they got to get back to work or they got
to get back to their kids having that
moment of compassion finding the inner
gift shop girl in me has been very very
helpful and so I think one of the things
is is that learning how to be
compassionate and being a good
communicator has really come down to
being able to find those unexpected
moments where you might have learned
from all the experiences
you have the next thing that I’d like to
talk to you about collaboration now
there’s a lot of volunteers here today
that have done everything behind the
scenes they have made it possible for me
to even find this place they emailed me
they’ve helped me put on the mic
backstage and made sure that my dress
wasn’t all a kilter when I came onstage
they’re making sure the rest of the
speakers get to where they get to do you
know what I remember in being that kid
in high school and university in
university I worked with the Victoria
College Drama Society and I am NOT a
very good actor I can speak in front of
people
I can teach now it’s taken me some time
to learn that skill but where I really
liked helping out was actually selling
tickets I was a publicity manager making
sure people were in the seats so that
the actors would have someone to perform
in front of and I worked backstage
whether that the stage management or
helping with the crews like the people
up in the booth today and that’s where I
was most comfortable so I realized that
a lot of the stuff you can perform you
can be the one with a microphone but you
also need to be the person behind the
stage and also on the stage but you also
need those people there at the front
greeting people and you need the whole
system and in medical school I kept on
that and I became the the director of
one of our school musicals and and
galvanized our crew of medical students
that were finishing to put you put on a
big production and yes we had the stars
of our show but we also had the
backstage crew and I was one of those
people that was backstage and I you
can’t see it there but I had there’s a
pair of crutches off to the side there
I’ve been injured so I couldn’t really
dance and stuff in the show so I was
helping direct the show and I think it’s
in those moments that I realized that
behind the stage work is actually justin
is important and today in the health
code collaboration scene yeah there’s a
couple of people who are going to be the
stars right so you might have you know
like stories that you’ve heard of when
people go to the hospital
and the cardiologists saved my life and
you know what in those moments sometimes
as an emergency physician I’m like what
am I chopped liver like did I not help
identify your heart attack and get you
to the cardiologist but it’s those
moments that I realize it’s just like a
stage performance the whole thing the
whole hospital doesn’t work unless we
have people there at the front of house
and get people into the door so that the
stars can shine and we have to have
people backstage that are helping making
sure that the lights are on the
computers are working and all those
other things and so as much as I hate to
admit it in many ways I’m still that
stage manager I’m still the girl that
gets all the docs in the right place
with the right patient at the right time
right I’m you know the Romeo and Juliet
can be on stage but if the lights aren’t
on and the microphone is not on and
there’s no one in the seats it’s kind of
a moot point right and so all the people
that helped with collaborating across
the hospital system are what make
healthcare really work and I think I
learned that by working on tivities like
this TEDx by working on stage
productions in university and really
helping out to understand how the whole
system can flow together so the next
thing I’d like to talk about is the can
meds leader role and the leader role is
something that’s new it came about in
2015 it used to be called manager and I
think that leader is probably a more
appropriate term in the context that I’m
going to talk about it because I think
that at times as doctors we do have to
step up and lead in a business
resuscitation like the ones you’ve seen
on TV there’s usually someone calling
the shots and I think about the times
when I’m a leader myself in the
resuscitation room calling the shots or
making a call and I realized that a lot
of the skills that I learned there
actually come from watching conductors
I’ve actually worked with a lot of
musicians over the years I’ve worked
with band conductors I’ve worked with
choir conductors and I’m always amazed
at their leadership capacity their job
is to practice outside the room with
their Orchestra with their
fire and coach the best performance to
listen intently at all the different
moving parts all the brass the woodwind
and the strings and make sure there’s
balance all those Sopranos the Altos the
baritone the tenors and making sure that
everything follows together well and is
coordinated and sounds amazing and I
think that I’ve learned from watching
great conductors and great leaders in
this context is that you have to really
listen and I think that’s something that
we forget sometimes when we’re leading
is that we don’t listen enough and I
think that it’s imperative to think
about that as a really important part of
being a leader whether it’s in the
resuscitation room we’re running a
school club or actually being in charge
of something like this wonderful
conference today it’s really important
to listen to what people are telling you
because all those pieces actually fold
together to make sure that everything
goes off well now I’m not saying that
the stakes are the same between a
resuscitation room and you know like
your regional competition for choir
right it’s not the same but the analogy
holds true making sure that all the
people that are involved in that event
are on their a-game in the moment that
you recover from little mistakes and you
work towards the bigger end goal whether
that be to save someone get them to the
right place
or to actually win a competition both of
those things requires very similar
skills and so when I go to the emergency
department I try to bring those skills
with me the skills where I’m going to be
listening to the little little beeps and
bumps along the way
that might be something I have to pay
attention to to the shiney nursing
student that’s in the corner that could
be helping with chest compressions to
the paramedic who needs the room to be
completely quiet so they can have their
solo so they can actually tell everybody
what happened to the patient before the
hot they arrived at the hospital all of
those things are things that you can
learn by watching and being part of a
choir or a band and you just don’t know
that you’re learning those skill
until you sit back for a moment reflect
on it and you realize oh yeah it’s funny
listening is so important as a leader
and I don’t know where I learned that
from it’s moments when you realize that
those connections are there that it’s
really important and so at the end of
the day I think what I’m trying to get
at is that experiences outside the
classroom have been as important as the
experiences inside the classroom for me
as in my journey towards being a doctor
class is of course still important don’t
get me wrong the teachers and the
superintendent’s here will be very mad
at me if I don’t impress upon you that
right okay but and it can even be really
fun because you can create experiences
I’m sure that your teachers do a great
job at that making sure you have
projects make sure you have experiences
where you can interact with people it’s
not all just lecture all the time and
that’s fantastic right but the things
that are learned beyond the classroom
whether it’s be on a stage like this
prepping for this talk or learning to be
a better team player and behind the
scenes they can make you a better more
compassionate person and at the end of
the day I think that’s what makes me a
better physician than I would be if I
didn’t live those experiences outside of
the classroom so my challenge to you
today is for you look for chances to
learn everywhere because I think that in
everything there is something you can
learn and I want you to look for those
moments where you can have a chance to
engage in unexpected education
you
[Applause]
I’m here to talk to you about unexpected
points of education moments when you can
learn when you don’t think you were
going to learn and then you’re like oh
my gosh darn it
I learned there’s an art to learning
outside of the classroom and I’d like to
talk to you a little bit about that
my job is other people’s worst day I am
an emergency physician I literally sit
waiting in part of the hospital where
people can come in and tell me what’s
wrong and ask me how to fix it okay
that’s actually what we do this is what
people think I do every day but most of
the time it’s not a big chunk of my life
until this point has been this just like
you guys are right now in school
learning about being a doctor learning
before that I did a bunch of different
degrees in immunology and then in
education and then I went to medical
school so I’ve spent a lot of time in
the situation that you’re in right now
and then I landed in medicine which is a
really complex field it is a lot of
moving parts a lot of people from
everyone from the paramedics who take
patients from the field as we say in the
hospital are really from your real lives
into the hospital to the people that
work in the hospital registering you and
then putting you into the line to wait
in the waiting room people that help
clean the room so that you can have a
clean room to see me and and all those
people are an essential part of our
health care system the world doesn’t run
on doctors alone right and so what I’ve
learned is that all of those people help
in making the system function the way it
is in the early 2000 and mm I’d say
around
five or so they launched this hand meds
framework the Camerons framework is a
definition of what it means to be a
doctor a bunch of work before that then
right here in Ontario had brought people
to get together to kind of talk about
what it means to be a physician this
framework is built on that now it’s not
really rocket science you do need to be
a medical expert at the core of it but
you also need to be all these other
things is what people when we talk to
them patients doctors nurses all the
different people in our communities they
all stood up and said we want our
doctors to be a professional a good
communicator a collaborator a scholar a
health advocate and a leader I’m going
to talk to you today about a couple of
opportunities I’ve had unexpectedly that
led me to be a better person today and
as a consequence probably a better
doctor so let’s talk a little bit of a
Kakuma communication skills and where I
learned those I for my summer jobs in
high school was a gift shop cashier I
grew up in Niagara Falls Ontario how
many guys have been Niagara Falls before
right this a couple casinos there but
really for you guys at your age it’ll be
the gift shops and the Clifton Hill and
they escape rooms now I were four there
were like all the the horror shops
before where you could go through and be
thrilled and excited and I spent a lot
of time being a gift shop girl on
Clifton Hill and you know what when
people are vacationing you think they’d
be pretty chill but they’re not and when
people are on vacation maybe is because
all the stresses of outside world come
and filter in maybe it’s because they
don’t spend that time with their that
much time with their family usually and
now they find them a little bit more
annoying that I remember and all those
situations come up and people end up
sometimes unloading let’s say on me the
little gift shop girl who’s like you
know all the 15 16 maybe 17 at the time
and they’re freaking out because they
can’t find a keychain with their
daughter’s name on it and you’re like
wow
you and you could either escalate or you
could deescalate vo and let me help you
find it or let’s try to find something
else is customized maybe we make here a
t-shirt things like that right so you
learn how to defuse the situation learn
how to handle them and I realize every
day when I have an angry patient in the
emergency department how much this
instruction and this experience helped
me learn how to be a better doctor
because there isn’t a single shift where
someone’s not annoyed at me because
they’ve been waiting a long time and yes
there’s a bigger system it’s all my
fault but if I can be helpful to them
and remember that at the end of the day
the guy that you know whether it’s
because they were freaking out over a
keychain and you talked to them a little
bit morning you realize they have been
home this is a business trip and they’re
trying to find a key change to make up
for missing his daughter’s birthday well
that makes it a very different
conversation than a conversation that if
you didn’t get to know that person right
a lot of my friends also worked in
coffee shops and you don’t want to stand
between a healthcare provider and their
coffee so I totally get what it means
that in service industry drugs just like
gift shop girl or a barista you’re going
to get experience with handling people
when they’re not thinking of you
actually as someone else but rather
someone that’s supposed to help them and
I feel that that’s really important
because those moments that I learned how
to ground myself how to listen how to
inquire and how to help really help me
today because when someone comes in like
this I try to use those same skills
listen learn from them help them right
and I think that at the bedside when
we’re trying to be compassionate as
healthcare providers whether that’s
because the worst thing in the world has
happened to them or something relatively
small that could cut in their hand but
they got to get back to work or they got
to get back to their kids having that
moment of compassion finding the inner
gift shop girl in me has been very very
helpful and so I think one of the things
is is that learning how to be
compassionate and being a good
communicator has really come down to
being able to find those unexpected
moments where you might have learned
from all the experiences
you have the next thing that I’d like to
talk to you about collaboration now
there’s a lot of volunteers here today
that have done everything behind the
scenes they have made it possible for me
to even find this place they emailed me
they’ve helped me put on the mic
backstage and made sure that my dress
wasn’t all a kilter when I came onstage
they’re making sure the rest of the
speakers get to where they get to do you
know what I remember in being that kid
in high school and university in
university I worked with the Victoria
College Drama Society and I am NOT a
very good actor I can speak in front of
people
I can teach now it’s taken me some time
to learn that skill but where I really
liked helping out was actually selling
tickets I was a publicity manager making
sure people were in the seats so that
the actors would have someone to perform
in front of and I worked backstage
whether that the stage management or
helping with the crews like the people
up in the booth today and that’s where I
was most comfortable so I realized that
a lot of the stuff you can perform you
can be the one with a microphone but you
also need to be the person behind the
stage and also on the stage but you also
need those people there at the front
greeting people and you need the whole
system and in medical school I kept on
that and I became the the director of
one of our school musicals and and
galvanized our crew of medical students
that were finishing to put you put on a
big production and yes we had the stars
of our show but we also had the
backstage crew and I was one of those
people that was backstage and I you
can’t see it there but I had there’s a
pair of crutches off to the side there
I’ve been injured so I couldn’t really
dance and stuff in the show so I was
helping direct the show and I think it’s
in those moments that I realized that
behind the stage work is actually justin
is important and today in the health
code collaboration scene yeah there’s a
couple of people who are going to be the
stars right so you might have you know
like stories that you’ve heard of when
people go to the hospital
and the cardiologists saved my life and
you know what in those moments sometimes
as an emergency physician I’m like what
am I chopped liver like did I not help
identify your heart attack and get you
to the cardiologist but it’s those
moments that I realize it’s just like a
stage performance the whole thing the
whole hospital doesn’t work unless we
have people there at the front of house
and get people into the door so that the
stars can shine and we have to have
people backstage that are helping making
sure that the lights are on the
computers are working and all those
other things and so as much as I hate to
admit it in many ways I’m still that
stage manager I’m still the girl that
gets all the docs in the right place
with the right patient at the right time
right I’m you know the Romeo and Juliet
can be on stage but if the lights aren’t
on and the microphone is not on and
there’s no one in the seats it’s kind of
a moot point right and so all the people
that helped with collaborating across
the hospital system are what make
healthcare really work and I think I
learned that by working on tivities like
this TEDx by working on stage
productions in university and really
helping out to understand how the whole
system can flow together so the next
thing I’d like to talk about is the can
meds leader role and the leader role is
something that’s new it came about in
2015 it used to be called manager and I
think that leader is probably a more
appropriate term in the context that I’m
going to talk about it because I think
that at times as doctors we do have to
step up and lead in a business
resuscitation like the ones you’ve seen
on TV there’s usually someone calling
the shots and I think about the times
when I’m a leader myself in the
resuscitation room calling the shots or
making a call and I realized that a lot
of the skills that I learned there
actually come from watching conductors
I’ve actually worked with a lot of
musicians over the years I’ve worked
with band conductors I’ve worked with
choir conductors and I’m always amazed
at their leadership capacity their job
is to practice outside the room with
their Orchestra with their
fire and coach the best performance to
listen intently at all the different
moving parts all the brass the woodwind
and the strings and make sure there’s
balance all those Sopranos the Altos the
baritone the tenors and making sure that
everything follows together well and is
coordinated and sounds amazing and I
think that I’ve learned from watching
great conductors and great leaders in
this context is that you have to really
listen and I think that’s something that
we forget sometimes when we’re leading
is that we don’t listen enough and I
think that it’s imperative to think
about that as a really important part of
being a leader whether it’s in the
resuscitation room we’re running a
school club or actually being in charge
of something like this wonderful
conference today it’s really important
to listen to what people are telling you
because all those pieces actually fold
together to make sure that everything
goes off well now I’m not saying that
the stakes are the same between a
resuscitation room and you know like
your regional competition for choir
right it’s not the same but the analogy
holds true making sure that all the
people that are involved in that event
are on their a-game in the moment that
you recover from little mistakes and you
work towards the bigger end goal whether
that be to save someone get them to the
right place
or to actually win a competition both of
those things requires very similar
skills and so when I go to the emergency
department I try to bring those skills
with me the skills where I’m going to be
listening to the little little beeps and
bumps along the way
that might be something I have to pay
attention to to the shiney nursing
student that’s in the corner that could
be helping with chest compressions to
the paramedic who needs the room to be
completely quiet so they can have their
solo so they can actually tell everybody
what happened to the patient before the
hot they arrived at the hospital all of
those things are things that you can
learn by watching and being part of a
choir or a band and you just don’t know
that you’re learning those skill
until you sit back for a moment reflect
on it and you realize oh yeah it’s funny
listening is so important as a leader
and I don’t know where I learned that
from it’s moments when you realize that
those connections are there that it’s
really important and so at the end of
the day I think what I’m trying to get
at is that experiences outside the
classroom have been as important as the
experiences inside the classroom for me
as in my journey towards being a doctor
class is of course still important don’t
get me wrong the teachers and the
superintendent’s here will be very mad
at me if I don’t impress upon you that
right okay but and it can even be really
fun because you can create experiences
I’m sure that your teachers do a great
job at that making sure you have
projects make sure you have experiences
where you can interact with people it’s
not all just lecture all the time and
that’s fantastic right but the things
that are learned beyond the classroom
whether it’s be on a stage like this
prepping for this talk or learning to be
a better team player and behind the
scenes they can make you a better more
compassionate person and at the end of
the day I think that’s what makes me a
better physician than I would be if I
didn’t live those experiences outside of
the classroom so my challenge to you
today is for you look for chances to
learn everywhere because I think that in
everything there is something you can
learn and I want you to look for those
moments where you can have a chance to
engage in unexpected education
you
Please follow and like us: