Chase: So you’re moving in 100 directions at once. You have four patients on your mind, and you’re about to see the next four. You can’t stop thinking about all these difficult cases and all the things you still have to do. And then just like that, boom. Someone grabs you and says, “Do you have a moment for a curbside?” Well, this is not another curbside, and welcome.
Taylor: Welcome to Not Another Curbside. I’m one of your co-hosts, Taylor, joined by Michele and Chase. Chase and myself are practicing physicians. Chase is in family medicine, myself in orthopedics, and then Michele is our lovely coach who connects real-world examples that physicians face and shows us how if we can focus on the mental aspect of it, potentially it can change our day.
The name obviously speaks for itself. We’ve all been there. Both primary care and specialist, we curbside people. We have people curbside us. You’re at Thanksgiving, you have somebody ask you to take a look at this from family members. We want this to be not another painful curbside, but somewhere you can hear a conversation and take something from it that builds your mental game up and allows you to be the best physician but also the best person for your family, friends, and everything else that life brings you.
Chase: Yeah, I think that’s really well said, Taylor. I think it’s important for our listeners to know kind of early on what we’re trying to be and what we’re not trying to be. We want this to be an active learning experience that we’re going through, that you get to share in and hopefully participate in. It’s something hopefully you can tune in and get something out of. It’s important that this isn’t a lecture. This isn’t three perfect people, perfect humans talking to you about how you should be perfect too. So I think we’re all far from it, but certainly wanting to be the best versions of ourselves.
This is not like a wellness module, where we’re again telling you all the right things to hear or say, but something that we’re actively learning from and something that we’re excited about talking with each other about and really wanted to get engagement from our audience, and hopefully that grows.
Taylor: Yeah, and we’re still practicing. I think that’s important. We’re not interested in this podcast becoming what we do. It’s something that we’re passionate about, but I think it’s important to know we’re digging out of the dirt with everybody and we want it to be something that’s sustainable. And I think reading all the books and knowing all the clinical stuff is one thing, but I think really focusing and mastering your mind is another. And that’s what this is about.
Michele: Yeah, I’d like to add to that. I think one thing that physicians, you’ve been trained in every aspect of what you do, but the one thing you haven’t been trained in is managing your mind. And if there’s anything that we take away from our coaching practice and from this podcast, we want y’all to feel like you are learning a skill sets to do that on a daily basis, like manage your mind and not let it manage you.
Chase: Yeah, and I think there’s a great irony in that. Physicians, we pride ourselves in being pretty studious people and learning a lot. And obviously, it’s a wonderful profession and Taylor and I are both very privileged to be part of that. When you go to school for so long and you study and you really learn how to take care of other people, I think one thing you don’t spend a whole lot of time on in any anatomy textbook or pathology manual is learning how to control your mental game.
And so I think for Taylor and I, that’s where Michele has come in and really helped us improve ourselves. And I think that’s led to us not only improving in the realm of being a physician but hopefully improving in the realm of other aspects of our life that hopefully have value to us and allow us to be re-energized and come back and be the best version of ourselves in and out of the workplace, as possible.
Taylor: All right, Chase, it’s 11:30. You’re about to go to lunch. You’ve got four patients that you’re still roomed. You’re never going to make it to lunch. And then you get a call from the hospital, somebody’s in there, critical lab. What’s your option at that point when—and this is a little bit of a real-life scenario for today for you—but what are your two routes there? Fork in the road, you get curbsided in that scenario, what could you do? Which is the better option and why?
Chase: Yeah, so I think that’s really well said. So, I mean, I think a lot of it, particularly as a younger physician, you stop and you’re like, “Man, this critical lab can kind of take over,” right? It takes in your mind. And even if you don’t address it immediately, you’re thinking about it when you go see that next patient, which is something that is going to ultimately probably lead away from that encounter.
You know, I think it certainly depends on the critical, how critical it is, right?
Taylor: I’m getting anxious just listening to you.
Chase: You are? Yeah, I’m getting anxious just listening. I think one thing that’s important is take a moment, right? To try to take a moment to assess what needs to be done and what has to be done. And if something has to be done, there’s not a whole lot of other choice, right? That has to be done. But I think the more you can delegate to those around you, to hopefully your medical team, if that means telling a patient, “Hey, I’m going to be five more minutes,” or “Hey, can you wait for this?” or “Hey, I need you to let this patient know this. Can you call them?” You know, when you get them on the phone, you can grab me too.
So, I think just taking a moment’s important. You know, I think the younger version of myself would certainly probably just immediately address the critical lab and everything else kind of goes to the wayside, and then you have some maybe some angry patients that are that are still waiting on you. And sometimes it does have to happen that way. But I think it’s important to try to take a moment to, you know, allow yourself to not be purely reflexive, right? To respond in the way, in the manner that you’re wanting to.
And I think that mindset, and I think we’ll talk more about it, that’s a that’s something you get to earn, right? As you go through it and as you work through these difficult problems. But in that particular situation, I think delegating what you can and then dealing the with the rest and certainly, you know, being as responsive and not just reflexive in your actions.
Taylor: Yeah, and I think the I think you hit the nail on the head. Human nature’s response is anxious. It’s fast. It’s rushed. But if you’ve thought about how you’re going to accomplish your day not only based on your knowledge but your mind, I think you have the ability to respond to both sides of it. And it betters you, but it certainly betters the people you’re taking care of. What do you think, Michele?
Michele: Yeah, I coach so much on response versus reaction. And what we see with responses, our human brain is kicking in and it’s telling us, I get to decide on purpose, I get to think ahead of time. That’s a big differentiator with humans. And whenever you see someone, unless it’s a life-saving, something that’s going to save a life, literally save a life, its reaction is never positive.
When we see humans coming at us with reaction in any situation, we know they’re coming from fear. And that’s certainly as docs not you don’t want to be reacting, making decisions from fear. And so it’s like just like taking that pause. You don’t have to say, I think we all get uncomfortable with kind of silence or dead space and if we can just pause and realize that I get to stop, I get to decide how I want to show up in this moment, I get to decide on purpose and make a decision and say what I want to say rather than what my emotions are wanting me to say, which is a reaction. Like, I’m safe, I’m going to respond and not react. So, response versus reaction is, I’ll probably drive y’all crazy on this podcast talking about that, but that if you can master that, that is one of the, that’s one of the core things for me.
Chase: Well, I think that repetition is important, right? To be able to tell yourself that because it is something that you have to practice in order to implement in a game-time situation. It’s something that you just can’t think about five seconds beforehand that I heard this on a podcast perhaps, and it’s just going to magically work, right? There has to be some repetition in there.
I think that I’m sure that the listeners of this podcast, and certainly I know Taylor and I and Michele, we’re people that are prepared too. And I think that I’ll give you an example today. I knew I had a really busy clinic day. I knew there were going to be some potentially really difficult patients coming in, some complex patients, and that we’re going to maybe take more time than even I had allotted for them. So the more kind of groundwork that I was able to lay could try to anticipate potentially some things that were happening and hopefully help that run smoother in the huddle before the clinic of, “Hey, we might need this. We’re going to need this EKG done,” such and such. And so that way when something does come in even off the wall, you have enough groundwork laid to where I feel like you’re more comfortable in the situation.
Michele: Certainly. Yeah. Yeah, you responded. You responded to when you saw your day, you responded to what you saw that was facing you rather than reacting in the moment. And that you laid that groundwork, you set that foundation.
Chase: Yeah. And I’m sure that if anybody who knew me a couple years ago or former nurses and things like that, that I don’t think was always the case, right? That’s something that I had to learn. I’m sure there are plenty of moments to where there’s a quote by Jimmy McGinty from The Replacements. That’s a great movie. But he says, “We’re all just ducks on the water, right? Under the surface our feet are just kicking.” But we want to have a calm presence on the outside, right? And I think as doctors, that’s extremely important, right? To even when you maybe feel a little bit of anxiousness, that’s normal. We’re all going to feel that, but you certainly want to be the leader of the team and display a calm demeanor. So, from Jimmy McGinty, guys.
Michele: I love that visual. It’s like the feet underneath the water are the reaction and the ducks swimming and looking graceful and being calm is the response. So that’s a beautiful, that’s fabulous.
Taylor: I for some reason I, y’all remember the movie Heavyweights with Ben Stiller?
Chase: Oh, it was fantastic, yeah.
Taylor: You know when he’s getting frustrated with all the campers and they keep stepping on the scale and he pulls himself aside and he’s like, “How you doing, little Tony?” “Bad.” Anyway, that to me though is like having that mental kind of discussion with yourself and being able to go through something when you’re on the outside struggling, right?
But on the inside, if you can have that rep like Chase said, like Michele said, it becomes second nature to respond and not react. But if you haven’t rehearsed it and you don’t have that mental discussion with yourself, your passive reactions are just going to be fear, anxiety, bad. Just like Ben Stiller in that movie, you know, he loses his mind on the kids and all that stuff like that. But it’s so simple, but it requires you to acknowledge the importance of how you approach that situation mentally.
Michele: You know. And I think when you, yeah, when you start doing it, like when you’re aware, like, “Oh, I get to choose. I get to decide on purpose. I get to think ahead of time how this is going to be for me,” you may catch yourself that you’re starting to go down the road of reaction a little bit and you get to quickly pull your mind back and go, “No, no, that’s not how I want to show up.” And, start again, really. And so, it’s just like, and then it gets to the point where you’ve done it so much that it becomes your automatic response rather than watching your mind go down the road. And yeah, that’s great.
Taylor: Well, I think we’ve pulled in The Replacements and Heavyweights, two fantastic movies. I think this is kind of our style of format. You guys can see we like to focus on something that’s meaningful like responding and not reacting, relate it clinically, but also connect it with other real-life, entertaining examples. And so that’s kind of what this Not Another Curbside, it’s not another painful, somebody’s asking you to do something. This is a curbside in a good way. And that’s kind of what we want to be, is an open conversation, a community for that going forward.
Chase: And we won’t cancel your lunch for lack of hustle as Ben Stiller did, right?
Taylor: Yeah.
Michele: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.
Taylor: I’ll say this though. I loved that movie and I probably was towards the end of college, dating a girl, and she’d never seen it. And I thought that was the craziest thing. So we had a movie night and we watched it and I remember thinking, man, this is funny, but I remembered like the go-karts and the track and everything was so much bigger and like the camp was so much cooler. And then at my older age, like looking back, it was kind of like, eh, it wasn’t quite as grand as I remembered it, but it was still funny and I still quote that movie. Now I kind of age myself when I mention it to my younger patients. They have no clue what it is. So, it’s kind of sad. I guess that happens though, Michele, you maybe can speak to that too.
Michele: I don’t know anything about that. I don’t age out of anything.
Chase: Before we sign off, one of the probably foundations of this podcast, and we’ll certainly be receptive to feedback as well, but would be kind of quotes and things of that nature. I know there’s one quote that I wanted Michele to talk about a little bit and that’s a big Taylor quote as well. “Pressure is a privilege.” I think it kind of ties into a little bit of what we’re talking about. Is that something you want to expand upon a little bit, Michele?
Michele: Yeah, I remember the first time I met Taylor, I remember him saying that. I was like, “Oh, that is a great quote.” And what I think it’s important for physicians to remember is that nobody is going to curbside a doctor that they don’t respect. And pressure is a privilege, yet any privilege that or any pressure you don’t manage will manage you.
So, one of the things I was thinking of when preparing for this episode was that if somebody curbsides you, you get to make a choice and you get to say, okay, you’ve got, like if they curbside you at the club, at dinner, in the hallway, at clinic, wherever it might be is you get to say, you’ve got my undivided attention for two minutes, or catch me at three.
And if you’re not managing how that, the half answer is like, “Oh, yeah, what do you need?” and then you get resentful and you’re behind schedule or your dinner’s being interrupted. So it’s very important to be very definitive. And one of them, you get to manage the pressure of it and decide on purpose how you’re going to respond. And I would offer that the next time you get curbsided to think about one of those things, like, “I’ve got, you’ve got my undivided attention for a couple of minutes,” or “meet me at three,” or “find me at three,” whichever one works for you. But the half answer will get you every time.
Taylor: Yeah, and I think I really like that quote a lot and I’ve always liked it going through training. I’m not sure I ever thought about it specifically to medicine until I really met Michele and we kind of started talking about this. But for me in medicine, it’s like that’s the most fulfilling thing is that you’re doing something that matters. It’s very easy to understand that. And if there was no pressure, then how would it be worth anything to anyone?
And so it’s like, I think it’s important to remind yourself how thankful, even though sometimes the career could be quite exhausting, there’s plenty of people that show up to their jobs and they don’t love it. And or it’s easy and they’re not challenged and they’re comfortable. And medicine is just something that I think you can always find that edge of comfortability. You can always find that pressure that makes it worthwhile, that makes it easy to see the why. And that’s just not true everywhere. And I think if you wanted it to be easier, it’d take about one day and you’d wish you had it back the way it was. You know?
I, that’s my take on it. It might be wrong, but that’s probably one of my favorite things about what I do.
Michele: Well, yeah, no, I would offer that, you know, sitting in this chair, I, in my other private practice, I work with a lot of high-performing men, a lot of CEOs, professional athletes, and they look like they’ve got it made, they’re making millions, walking the red carpet, but there are so many of them that are miserable. You know? And so, if you could wake up in the morning and be like, “It’s going to be a heck of a day, but I feel blessed to be able to do this,” that’s a real blessing.
Chase: Yeah, I really, I mean, I really echo what you guys are saying. I think that’s what we love about it. And so hopefully this is something we can share with others that are wanting to be high performers, in and out of the office or clinic.
And just to know, right, that this is something that we’re working through too, right? I had some consult after hours today that I’m sure I didn’t always mentally lock in on just perfectly, right? But it’s something that, you know, having talked with you guys, you can take away and then feel like, “Hey, I can do this better the next time. I can continue to grow as a professional.” And then ultimately my patients are going to benefit, my family, those around me who care about me are going to benefit too. So that’s really the goal of this show is to take some of the things that hopefully these high-performing athletes and CEOs who have been getting coached on for a long time and implement to kind of fellow physicians. So something that we’re excited about to share with everyone.
Michele: My takeaway on this would be if you take one thing out of here today is, yes, you did earn the weight, but you also set the terms. And so I would really urge you to set the terms, set the terms that work for you and, don’t deviate.
Taylor: Love it. All right, guys, thanks for joining us. Looking forward to, you can count on these episodes. Could be weekly, could be bi-weekly, might be monthly. We’ll set the terms. But we’ll see you soon.
Chase: Bye-bye.
Taylor: See you soon.
