Human School

In this episode, I discuss the lineage of mentoring, which is different than your ancestral or family lineage, but still very important. This is about the mentors that have guided you in your life and then, who you mentor yourself.  It's a never-ending cycle of teacher to student to teacher again. I spend some time telling stories about one of my mentors, Dr. Gene Kallsen. The mentor-mentee relationship is something I come bac...

As a medical toxicologist, I take care of people of all ages who have any type of poisoning, overdose, envenomation or medication misadventure.  One of our core tenets in toxicology is 'the dose makes the poison' and the cases I discuss in this episode demonstrate that very fact. Taking care of sick poisoned patients isn't just about the immediate care but also involves detective work, to figure out exactly what happ...

I'm once again joined by my sister Garin Hussenjian, who co-hosts this episode. She's G and I'm P, in case you were wondering! This is the second episode in a 2-part series about my fertility process. Check out episode 18 for the first half of the series! This episode covers how I shifted my mindset and relationship with my body in order to have a successful pregnancy. I made many small changes which made a real diff...

I'm once again joined by my sister Garin Hussenjian, who co-hosts this episode. She's G and I'm P, in case you were wondering! Today we delve into a very personal and sometimes difficult to discuss topic, fertility. Specifically, Garin asks all about my fertility process and we don't hold back. This is the first episode in a 2 part series and covers how I found out my husband and I had fertility issues and the r...

This is a soundbath meditation piece, best experienced while laying down with your eyes closed. It can also be used in seated or walking meditations, or just relaxation in general. This sound tapestry is woven by the women of the Sounds of the Light collective: Kathryn Sanchez and Wonda Correia. They use  crystal bowls, a gong, chimes, Shruti box, rain stick, and hand drums to both calm and energize you. 

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Leslie Galbraith is an expert Astrologer who joins us on this episode to discuss general principles of Astrology.  Astrology isn't just about the 12 zodiac signs and which one you were born in. Rather, as Leslie puts it, it is a detailed symbolic language for understanding human nature and energetic patterns of behavior. As she describes, the natal birth chart is a map of your soul’s constitution and a guide to track the cycle...

When taking care of really sick patients in the ER, we always begin with our ABC's: Airway, Breathing and Circulation. Those 3 things have to be secure in order to move on to the next step of helping someone. In this episode, I discuss how the airway taught me valuable life lessons about asking for help. Many of us are great at being helpful to others, but what about when we need help? The bottom line is, learn how to be reall...

Dr. Whitney Johnson is an emergency physician in Southern California and the Education Director for the Southwest Healthcare Medical Education Consortium Emergency Medicine Residency based at the Temecula Valley Hospital. She is also core faculty with EM:RAP, the largest emergency medicine educational platform, and serves as an associate editor for their online textbook CorePendium. She did her emergency medicine residency at UCSF ...

Dr. Ann Arens is an emergency physician and medical toxicologist at Oschner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to that she worked at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the scientific content chair of the biggest annual toxicology conference, the North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology, which is taking place in Montreal this week! She has authored many research publications, most recently be...

Spoiler Alert/Disclaimer:  We discuss the podcast series "The Retrievals" in depth in this episode. If you haven't already listened to "The Retrievals" and do NOT want spoilers, don't listen to this yet! Come back after you listen to "The Retrievals."

This episode I'm joined by a co-host, my sister Garin Hussenjian! She's G and I'm P, in case you were wondering. Garin...

Dr. Kent Olson is a clinical professor of Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). From 1983 to 2017 he was the medical director of the San Francisco division of the California Poison Control System where he was instrumental in the toxicology education of thousands of medical students, pharmacy students, resident physicians, pharmacists, and medical toxicology fellows. He concurrently worked as an...

Every day, we make hundreds, if not thousands of decisions both big and small. Whether it's at work, at home, during a commute or at play, we’re consciously and unconsciously making fast decisions. As you know, I speak through the lens of emergency medicine, but a busy ER has many parallels not just to other sectors of medicine but many other workplaces. Really, any place where rapid decision making is needed. In this episode ...

Erin Claire Jones is an expert in Human Design, a system based on your time, date and place of birth that reveals your energetic blueprint and how you are uniquely wired to thrive. As Erin puts it, Human Design brings together schools of ancient wisdom like astrology, the I Ching, the chakra system and the Kabbalah to give you an operating manual that shows how you are uniquely wired to work, make decisions, cultivate relationships...

It may sound over the top, but schedule is indeed life, especially if you're a shift worker like myself. In this episode, I discuss some of my life schedule tips and tricks and introduce the concept of the Zero Day. A zero, or off day is a day where you don't do anything work-related and give yourself a chance to reset and recharge. Think of organizing your schedule and to-do lists as a clarity exercise. Offloading these ...

Dr. Bernard Frischer is a professor of informatics at Indiana University and a true pioneer in Virtual Heritage. He received both his B.A. in Classics at Wesleyan University and his Ph.D. in Classics from Heidelberg University, followed by a fellowship in Roman topography and archeology at the American Academy in Rome. He has been a professor at UCLA, University of Virginia and Indiana University. Through his virtual heritage work,...

This is the second episode in a 2 part series about my personal story of burnout. In this episode, I discuss how I slowly burned through to the other side, pulling myself out of burnout. It came with a realization that I couldn't change the others around me, but could change my reactions to people and events to improve my overall life experience. It required a combination of working on myself both physically and mentally while...

This is the first episode in a 2 part series about my personal story of burnout. In this episode, I discuss how I burned in for 2 years before I finally burned out. Burn-In is a term I use to describe when someone is keeping in their true thoughts and feelings for self-preservation. Simultaneously, I didn't have the time for my usual outlets of art and exercise that had kept me balanced in the past. That set me up for burnout ...