Surviving ER Residency Training Month with Dr. Corey Abdeen pt. 2

Dr. Abdeen, a former MMA fighter turned paramedic, now ER physician, shares the exciting transition between his diverse careers.  Celebrating completion of his emergency medicine training month; We discuss our first month being a doctor, preparing to begin residency, anticipation of critical care rotations, and the imprints our families leave on our professional choices.  A highlight of our conversation is Dr. Abdeen's insight into the emotional and technical aspects of the IVF process. His openness about the trials and tribulations he and his wife faced during their IVF journey is both enlightening and deeply moving. Enjoy!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to the Off-White Coat
podcast.
This week is part two of mydiscussion with Dr Corey Abdeen,
where we go over our firstmonth of residency and delve a
little bit further into DrAbdeen's medical journey.
So, without further ado, here'spart two.
Once again, he definitely hasthe best icebreaker answers

(00:27):
because even if you try to hithim with the two truths and a
lie which they made him also doand he just goes I have a USC
career, a patent on something.
And then he pauses and he goesand I like the color yellow,
yeah, and then everybody knewwhat the lie was, but we were
like, how the heck does he havea patent as well?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Like so I mean it's one of these things.
Yeah, I mean you got to be aRenaissance man.
I mean it's important.
I don't really like to talkabout myself.
I'm no different than anybodyelse.
I just try to do things to thebest of my ability and I'm
willing to take chances.
And if you those two thingstogether, good things will
happen to you, if you kind ofkeep your nose to the ground
still.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
So what was the patent on?
Like what?
So, ultimately the specificthing that you were changing.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah.
So really to kind of get intosome of the more specifics of it
, ultimately what we were doingis so these, this is a chicken
plant, so this is a breadingplant and there's also a kill
plant where they they'll killthe chickens to create chicken
breasts, chicken wings and allthat.
Then there's also a plant wherenot where they're killing the

(01:32):
chickens and making the meat,but where they take the meat
it's processed, they'll addbreading to it and make chicken
tenders that go to Buffalo WildWings or become Tyson chicken
nuggets at the grocery store.
And the wastewater from thatplant so you think all the water
that's involved in that entireprocess it's going to have
salmonella, it's going to havevarious bacteria from chicken

(01:54):
and raw meat and stuff in it,and that water all cycles out of
the plant and gets put backinto your local sewage system of
whatever town that's in.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
That's problematic, right, you can't return that
water back.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Even though that water does get processed,
there's still certain criteriait has to meet before it even
can go to like what you wouldsay is the water treatment or
sewage plant.
And that's sort of where wecame in.
It was this company in CampMississippi was having issues
with meeting those benchmarks,and kind of just my dad, my
brother and I a few other peopletoo we just decided to come up

(02:30):
with how can we solve thisproblem.
And what we really did is we mybrother sort of came up with
the aspect in my dad of usinglike a physical separation of
the particles, like separatingthe oil and the biological
material and the actual watersoluble material, physically
separating it through a microscreen, just like you would

(02:53):
think of any filtration device.
Right Then, to make it evenbetter than just a physical
separation, I came up with achemical process.
We use a polymer that respondsto sodium hypochlorite or bleach
.
Basically, if you add morebleach to the polymer, the
polymer gets stronger.
If you take the bleach away,the polymer gets weaker.

(03:15):
The polymer in this case wouldbind very well to charged
particles.
So things that have DNA orproteins, things like that, you
know charged molecules.
Those are the way it was reallya way to separate the biologics
and you add those two together,the screen plus the chemicals
combination of chemicals that weuse.

(03:36):
I can't really go into all theentirety of it, but you add
those two things together andyou actually end up getting a
better separation than any ofthe local companies and I
actually think nationally.
We were sort of beating a lotof numbers also.
So we now have our process.
It's not only in Mississippi,but there's also chicken plants
in Arkansas, alabama, I thinkeven Tennessee, that have

(04:00):
adopted this process.
It's been a wild ride, man.
It was never anything that Iset out to do, but it just sort
of worked out that way.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Dude, that's very interesting.
I bet that was great for yourinterviews.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
It was cool man.
It definitely gave me somethingto say.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So how did you figure out what chemical compound Like
?
How did you know that thiscompound bounded to that halt?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
So a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Did you run tests on it?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, so we actually, like I remember we had this
contract with Pico.
It was the first chicken plantwe ever had a contract with.
Once we, on paper, came up witha theoretical way to sort of
get this process done, weactually had to implement it in
real life and we had a contractto perform testing.
So we had a contract with thiscompany, this chicken plant in

(04:45):
Canton Mississippi.
For one I think it was eithertwo weeks or a month we were
going to show up on site and wewere going to be responsible for
dealing with their wastewater24-7 every day, seven days a
week.
Whatever volume we had, we weregoing to be there to deal with
it.
So for that, I think it was atwo-week process where we

(05:06):
initially had our trial periodand I had to literally be there.
My dad who's an attorney, by theway, he's not an engineer, he's
not a chemist, he doesn't dothings like this but my dad took
time away from his law career.
He was there during the day,plus a few other people.
They split the day shift 7am to7pm, and then I got there every

(05:26):
night, 7pm to 7am, andovernight I was the only one
there, by myself, running theentire wastewater from an entire
chicken plant through ourscreen and I was the one
adjusting the chemicals.
To not go into all the finedetails of it.
Polymers were something I hadto get advice on.
So I met with people in otherindustries to sort of say, hey,

(05:47):
if I wanted to separatebiological material effectively
from a chicken wastewater plant,how would we do that?
And I suggested, oh, you coulduse bentonite clay or you could
use a cationic or anionicpolymer.
And just based on the sort ofthe advice that I got, we sort
of settled on using anionicpolymer to do it.

(06:08):
So I had help in that regard.
But really it was just all of usputting our heads together and
said, hey, if we use a physicalseparation, a chemical
separation, and also, too, wewere trying to resell.
So when they fry chicken itrequires oil, right, well, that
oil can be resold back onto themarket.
So that was another way to makemoney.
Also, it was all the oil thatwas coming off in the wastewater

(06:30):
.
We used soap, in this caseliterally Dawn dish soap, in
addition to our polymer and ourbleach.
The soap would help us separatethe oil from the mixture and
then we would take all that oil,collect it and then we would
sell it back to the oil companywhere they would refine it, send
it back.
So we made money that way.
Also, it was a way to sort ofmake it where our bids to these

(06:52):
companies, because we werecompeting against, like waste
management and all these bigcompanies that do wastewater
treatment.
The way we were able toundercut them was by figuring
out a way to effectivelyreharvest the oil and sell it
back.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
So you could have money involved.
Yeah, yeah exactly.
And really great littlebusiness.
So how old were you when youdid this?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
So let's see, this would have been 2013 through 20.
Right before I met my wife.
So 2013 to 2016, 17?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
So you would have been in your mid 20s or whatever
.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
So I was probably in my mid to late 20s.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
So you're just funneling through chicken manure
?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, yeah, Essentially yeah right, I was in
a lot of places that were notthe best place to be.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
And then he goes, I'm going to med school.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, but the thing that was the best about
the whole chicken thing.
The thing that I am most proudof about it is really I don't
care if I ever make it a lot ofmoney off of it.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
But what it?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
did enable me.
Hopefully, what it will enableis my parents.
I have the best parents on theplanet.
They've worked their butt offto make sure my brother and I
had everything we ever needed orwanted.
I'm hoping that my dad'sownership in this company that
we started Southeasterneventually, I hope it becomes
where the stock price is worthenough money where my dad one

(08:09):
day hopefully soon can sell hisstake in the company and get a
large sum of money and finallyretire.
That would make me happy, evenif I don't make a dime off of it
.
If it can help my parentsretire and be able to take the
foot off the gas and just livethe good life, that would be a
win for me.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's awesome, man.
I hope that that actuallyhappens.
We can only hope that we canbuy low, sell high.
Yeah, exactly, that's cool, thefact that you are even able to
figure all of that out.
The crazy thing is when youhave chickens, especially when
they're I assume you're at avery big factory.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, very large plant.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, or very large plant, that there are a bunch of
chickens that, or at least I'veseen, like the documentary,
where with all the antibioticsand these hormones and
everything they give thechickens, the chickens can
barely even walk at some point,yeah, and they get so big, heavy
, chested and everything thatthey fall down.
And the one I watched, theywere just scooping the chickens

(09:09):
up with a plow or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
And luckily I was not involved in that aspect of it
all.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
No, no, no, you're just shoveling the shit, or?

Speaker 2 (09:17):
if I was me, in fact.
I mean, it was a veryinteresting to see that side of
things.
But sort of you bringing up theantibiotics and things of that
nature actually brings upanother good point.
Those are other things that wewere separating from the
wastewater, right.
So they treat these chickenswith large amounts of
antibiotics, other substancesand other drugs also too, to

(09:37):
sort of for lack of a betterterm make it where it kind of
cuts down the bottom line forthese companies to sort of make
the chickens healthy, as opposedto giving them necessarily the
best life right, you know, likeliving out free range, like a
chicken normally, would theysort of substitute that by just
giving them large amounts ofdrugs.
Well, those drugs end up in thewastewater.
That wastewater ends up back inthe sewage system, which ends

(10:00):
up back in our drinking water,right.
So that was another motivationto try to come up with a way to
more effectively separate thosetype of compounds like from our
drinking water.
That was another win from theprocess.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Or at least that was one thing that we thought about
when we were doing it.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
I used to have a much better command of all the
specifics, like how manychickens at this plant and blah,
blah, blah blah.
But it's just been four yearsof med school and the first
month of intern year, it's just.
I've kind of lost command ofall the exact numbers.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
But no man, I love it .
The Abdeans are literallysaving us in the ER, on the
front line and on the back linein the sewage system.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, my dad used to always say, in regard to the
mixed martial arts and jujitsuaspect of it, was he always
hoped that one day I'd be in aposition where I could break
somebody's arm and then hand hima business card.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
There you go, you might, you'll just be breaking
their arm, and then you'll beseeing them at your business.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was awesome.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, it's crazy.
This week we are officially inthe hospital and they found out
the aliens exist all in the sameweek, so we're waiting to get
certified and we're laughing atthe fact that.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Man.
It is funny.
But at the same time, literally, a guy went before Congress
under oath, under penalty ofperjury, and he said on national
TV, in front of the whole world, that not only do we have a
craft, not of this world, thatwe've reverse engineered, but we
also have bodies of aliens.
I know that nowadays, with thehow fast the news comes at you

(11:34):
and you know Trump does this,biden does this it's easy to
kind of get lost in the weeds,but if you really stop and think
, that's pretty monumental news.
I mean there's a highlikelihood unless this guy is
totally full of it that thealiens might be real man.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, that's a crazy thing to think about and it's
crazy that people don't reallycare and it's because you're
like blinded by all the thingsgoing on and then all of a
sudden you can actually getcaught up in the weeds and not
actually.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
I think that's by design right.
I think they sort of pollutethe news cycle and they put all
this nonsense out because itmakes it very easy to distract
you from the real things goingon Not to sound like a
conspiracy theorist, but thatactually does that.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
It was at least interesting like thank God for
YouTube too, for some of theselike monumental cases, because
sometimes I see it and I'm like,oh, I would like to watch that.
The guy's name was like Tyler,do you remember his name?

Speaker 2 (12:26):
So there's a guy whose last name was Graves.
There's another guy namedFavour.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, that's Commander Favour.
Then there's a guy named Grush.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Grush or Grush, that's the guy.
He's the main one who droppedlike the biggest bomb, saying
that we have alien bodies andcrazy stuff like that and that
was that was wild.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
I still have to make it all the way through, but
definitely good.
And Commander Favour and allthem.
They're very official sounding.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
They're unimpeachable man.
I mean, that guy is anything hesays, you can take it to the
bank.
He's not like some kook livingout in a trailer in the middle
of the desert.
He's not out there looking forBigfoot.
He's not one of the crazyconspiracy guys.
This guy is totally legit andhe's saying that.
Okay, while I was flying one ofthe most high you know, the
highest level of technology asfar as aircraft go that the

(13:14):
United States has, he was flyingone of that with the most
sensitive radar and imagingsystem and he saw a vehicle that
is not able to be explained.
It's technology that we, ornone of our enemies or allies,
possess, and he is totallyconvinced that he saw a craft
not of this world and just allthis stuff coming out.

(13:37):
Over the last year it used tokind of be fun to talk about the
aliens bro, the aliens bro, butnow, sort of officially, it's
kind of hard to say, or at leastit would be very difficult at
this point to say that it'stotally untrue.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
You know what I mean.
That's the thing that haschanged over my lifetime.
Yeah, it was a course of evenwhen I was a kid.
Like it was laughables,Everybody.
I think signs came out.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, it was a joke.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Well, it was just a high stigma that it wasn't, and
then it's just which.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
I think it's pretty cool that we're at least finding
out, you know you know, I meanit doesn't really mean that it's
aliens from another planet.
Right, it could be that maybethe United States came up with
some technology that nobody elsehas, and if I developed
something that is technologywell beyond what currently
anybody has available, I mightalso try to say that it came

(14:29):
from aliens, if I was trying toobfuscate that.
It could also be that thealiens, instead of actually
coming here physically like in arocket, coming themselves.
Maybe it's a drone, just likewe sent Voyager out to Saturn
and we sent probes to Mars andPluto.
Maybe it's an unmanned vehiclefrom some other intelligent

(14:50):
being.
I don't know, it's just kind offun to think about.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Man, oh it's definitely fun to think about,
and the fact that it's so closeand things are changing day by
day I mean a congressionalhearing too is a pretty big
thing.
It's a big deal, man, I mean atleast I see that they at least
had a point to give out.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
For sure, and we live .
We're very fortunate.
We live in a very interestingtime.
We're sort of where thatgeneration that was right on the
cusp of when the internet kindof really broke loose, where the
computer generation were.
We made that transition fromeverything being, you know,
analog to digital, and you'reclose to my age too, so you kind

(15:28):
of went through that transitionalso, where you didn't grow up
necessarily with an iPad or aniPhone.
I didn't get stuff like thattill I was in my first iPhone.
I was in college, yeah.
I said that that sort of changedeverything, but also the cool
part about being alive right now, and Sort of circle back to
medicine, the level oftechnology and stuff that we

(15:48):
have now, particularly with AI,which a lot of people are afraid
of, think that it's gonnareplace us as doctors and you
know, everybody talks about thechat, gpt past the USMLE.
Ultimately, I think it'd be agood thing.
It'll allow us to be able toprovide the most up-to-date
management.
It'll reduce medical errors.
I think it'll be something thatultimately makes us better

(16:11):
clinicians.
I think it'll make us better aspeople in all disciplines.
It's not something to be afraidof, it's something to sort of
embrace.
But the idea that it maybe camefrom like Alpha Centauri or
some other planet is also cool.
I mean, I'm gonna nerd on that.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
I want aliens to be real, so it's hard to be
objective, but yeah yeah, how doyou think they came up with all
the AI and all the tech?
Any owner man?
Some people think by logics.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, they think it was aliens.
The aliens, bro.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Not to get off of necessarily the aliens, but I
didn't realize that chat GBT hadpassed the USMLE.
Yeah, yeah that's.
I think that was probably a fewmonths, three, four months ago,
but yeah, it effectively passed.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
now I don't know if it was what is effectively mean?

Speaker 1 (16:58):
because we are, we are chain.
We are literally Competing witheach other.
When you take these tests, it'sa comparison between you and
the rest of people, so I'minterested to know what their
score was compared to mine,because they had the whole
Internet at their back rightright.
So this is the way I got evenclose than I'm the way.
Yeah, exactly right.

(17:18):
So there's a couple ways oflooking at it, right?
So I?

Speaker 2 (17:21):
know I can't sit here and tell you definitively, like
what they mean by Effectivelypassed.
I assume what that means andwhat I recall is that the
computer took the exam and again, I don't know if it was step
one, step two, step three, maybeit was all three of them, I
don't know.
It was one of those exams.
The computer scored a passingscore.
The computer would have passedthe test just passing.

(17:44):
I mean, they're not luxury maybethe Computer may be now at the
point where it's making topscores.
I don't know.
But I know, when I initiallyheard about it, that the
computer was at the point whereit was passing the exam and some
people looked at that as well.
Damn, here so the computer.
I barely passed the computersdoing as good as me.
But, like you said, thecomputer has access.

(18:07):
It's basically the computerwhen it's taking it AI, but is
always open book.
Every exam a computer takes itsopen book, right?
You're having to use just theold noggin, right?
You don't get to have a copy offirst aid in your pocket when
you're taking it.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yes, and it doesn't feel the eight hours of stress
that comes along with that testRight, doesn't feel that at all.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
And the other thing, a computer will never be able to
replace, is there's a certainart to medicine, right?
It's sort of cliche to say, butthere is a certain thing where
there's experience.
You sort of you don't treatvalues, you don't treat numbers
right, you treat the patient.
You hear that all the time.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
There is something that is very.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I just think there's an aspect of medicine that a
computer couldn't necessarilyLike make the same assessment of
, particularly like anundifferentiated, like crashing
patient.
It wouldn't be able to makethat decision the same way that
a very experienced person wouldright.
That's that's why I don't reallyhave a fear that will be
replaced.
I think, if anything, it's justgonna give people who are very

(19:06):
experienced, very knowledgeableClinicians are gonna now have
this ability to.
Oh, I've recognized that thisperson has, you know, a COPD
exacerbation.
But uniquely, this person withthe COPD exacerbation also has
AFib, this medical history.
They're on these drugs.
This is like certain you knowdata points in their life and

(19:28):
you can take all those thingstogether and say for a person
with a COPD exacerbation thathas this history and takes these
drugs and fits all these boxes,what would be the best
treatment for that specificperson, just like they're doing
with drugs where they do seewhich people Like at a DNA level
.
Who is gonna be what drug?
Is somebody gonna respond toyou better versus another person

(19:51):
, right?
I think that's sort of gonna bethe benefit of AI and medicine.
It won't replace us, but itwill help us.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Oh yeah, the good thing about being a human is
that I have the one up on amachine, because I Know the
human experience a little bitmore you know like you get.
You're like I, being a human,you can right?

Speaker 2 (20:08):
No, that's actually a better way of saying it.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
That's more elegant than the way I said, and the
interesting thing about it isthat even though it can compile
all that information Like whenpeople come to the ER to like
you don't really get all thatinformation right.
Like, if the AI can figure itthat out, that's gonna be great,
but with usually you get verylimited information.

(20:30):
Oh yeah, any at all right andyou're lucky to even get like a
vital sign.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
I mean that's one thing that I think a lot of
people, when they make thetransition from medical school
to, you know, actually workingas a doctor, a big transition
that people have to make is whenpatients present.
Now I can only speak to theemergency room because that is
my chosen specialty and I'vesort of been around that
particular area of medicine morethan any others.
But whenever you're dealingwith a situation like that, it's

(20:59):
they're just our variables thata computer is never gonna be
able to Pick up like you wouldlike.
I don't have.
I can't even really think of abetter way of saying it.
I had an idea but I forgot.
No, it's one of the downsidesof podcasting, that is dude.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
That is.
I promise you that is gonnahappen many times if you do it
again.
Yeah, but to what you weresaying the feeling that you get
when someone when I'm looking atsomeone sick Like I, it's weird
, but you can almost feel thatthey're sick, like you can just
look at them, put your eyes onthem and right kind of at least
get the feeling that something'sgoing on.
Now, sometimes, especially withme being new to the game, I may

(21:41):
be a little bit More, I maychase the zebra every now and
then when I should it.
Right, but you can get thatfeeling.
Oh yeah, with all the and sothat that is a.
That's when I knew that I wasgonna be in In healthcare right,
care, anyway.
I knew that I was gonna work ina hospital one way or another,
because I loved all thosestories about I wanted to be

(22:04):
helping and be in medicine.
I just didn't know what I wasgonna do.
Right, right, and so Then, whenI started to realize that you
could do all that, I was like,ah, I mean kind of like a
superhero.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
I remember what I was gonna say now, so what it is.
When you're in medical school,some people get really good at
like taking a board question,right?
Where it'll say, a 35 year oldmale presents the emergency room
with these vitals, these labs,these symptoms.
Well, in real life, they don'tshow up with a piece of paper
that says this is all the stuffthat's going on with me, right?

(22:36):
You have to actually elicitthat information from them.
You have a person who's havinga bad day?
You have to get them in a room.
You have to get them to tellyou this is my history, these
are the meds I'm on.
This is how it happened.
This is what I was doing whenthe symptoms started, but this
is like the way it felt to me.
There's a lot of subjectiveinformation that you take for

(22:56):
granted that you get in a boardquestion, but in real life you
actually have to like elicitthat information, you have to go
out and find that information,and that is a skill right, and
then you also On a boardquestion too.
They just give you the labs,but in real life you actually
have to make the decision like Ineed to order these labs.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
You have to have the foresight to do that.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
There's just a lot more going on than you have
going on in a board question.
Now I do understand, thefurther I go along, why you need
to learn medicine in that paintby numbers fashion first.
But yeah, there's, there's alot more going on like.
So, if you're out there inmedical school and you're
listening, this is not me tryingto say, oh, if you're good at

(23:34):
board questions, that you'regoing to be a terrible doctor.
You know, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that it's importantto have the knowledge.
But don't take for granted justbecause if you are the person
that has a 4.0 or does make aperfect score on all your board
exams, that is definitely a goodthing.
But just don't rest on yourlaurels If you're that person.
Also keep in mind that when youthe ultimate goal is to get to

(23:57):
where you can take thatinformation, take that skill and
apply it to actually makingReal human beings in real life,
like fixing them, fixing theirproblems, making them better.
Those are two very differentthings, very big, different
things.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
And the thing about it, too, is it takes that extra
experience to Like, when you'rewhen you're in medical school,
you're not even thinking aboutthe forethought to order the
test like that.
It's a whole.
Another aspect of the job andit can probably be the toughest
thing is to figure out, like,even if you see somebody that's

(24:30):
sick, you're like, oh shit, whatdo I need to do?

Speaker 2 (24:33):
right for this person right now.
Oh man, that to me that is thehardest part, that that, to me,
is the scary aspect or thedifficult aspect of where we are
In.
Our training is like we have alot of knowledge, we know.
If you say, oh, this person hasacute decompensate heart
failure, we know what that isand I could, we could both
rattle off drugs that you mayneed to give for that Right.
But the discretion and sort ofthe the calculus you have to

(24:55):
make in real life is like Reallyfor me, one hard thing is
knowing when do I need to pullthat trigger, like when is
somebody actually sick enoughfor me to say, oh, I need to
stick a tube in this person'schest or I need to make the
decision to give rsi drugs andactually Intubate this person.
Knowing when you need to make acritical intervention versus
not.

(25:15):
That is to me the difficult partof this transition is like sort
of knowing when you need to befreaked out when you need to do
stuff, when you don't need to dostuff, when you can send
somebody home, when youabsolutely can't send somebody
home.
Those are the things thatyou're going to learn as you
move through residency, whereasin medical school and rightly so

(25:35):
you just have to spend yourtime and focus on learning the
vast amount of Information thatyou sort of take for granted
where we are.
We have a lot of knowledge inour head that when somebody says
pulmonary embolism, all thesefacts and figures and lab tests
and Decisive all these thingspop in your head.
But it's when you're in medical.
That's what your goal is is tolearn all those things.

(25:56):
But now you got to harness allthat and actually like use it in
a way that's coherent and makessense and apply it to a
situation.
It's.
It's humbling, but it's alsocool.
I kind of see it as like asuperpower in a sense the
vignette is now.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
The person comes in toxic appearing right vomits
once.
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, right, yeah.
And it's just like you likereading that on a piece of paper
versus seeing that person inthe Tromba room or in the er,
whatever bay.
You're in seeing that personand I actually like saying, oh,
this person looks toxic.
When you read that word You'relike, oh, I know what that means
, but like actually identifyingsomebody just visually.

(26:37):
When you say, what does it meanwhen somebody looks quote toxic
?
I know it sounds simple, butthat is something that you kind
of have to learn to learn skillIdentifying like sick versus not
sick.
It's something that people sayall the time and it sounds easy.
But I pour anybody out there,whether you're medical or not
medical, walk it into an ER andjust look at it somebody and
saying this person is in troubleversus not in trouble.

(26:59):
It's not as easy as it soundsto make that decision and to
make it quickly.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, the one thing that I noticed like growing up
we talked kind of about how Iwas in the hospital early
growing up Is that when I wasaround like the ER physicians
yeah, the best ones I noticedthat they could get information
Out of somebody.
Yeah, and even a little bitmore that would help make a
decision, but it was quiteimpressive and you would see

(27:24):
those people being Like I justremember they all had one super
talent, which was whatever.
No matter how else they acted,they could get whatever
information they needed out ofsomebody.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, I mean it's important, man, because you
gotta keep in mind and you and Iare kind- of we're just on the
precipice of this situation.
But you realize now, wheneveryou make the decision to give
meds or do an invasive test ordo an invasive procedure, like
it's one thing to select A, b orC that says do that thing, but
we actually have to do that toan actual person.

(27:56):
Like that's a big decision tomake and you're making that
decision based off of likequestions.
You're asking the patient andyou're asking that question.
You gotta be confident to say,if the patient tells me this,
that means that that informationis gonna make, it's gonna make
me so confident in my decisionthat I'm willing to, based off
of that information, I'm gonnamake some critical action that

(28:19):
all procedures have risk, right.
Like it's one thing to say, oh,I need to intubate this person,
but like there's more to itthan that.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
You could hurt somebody, you could kill
somebody, you may not get it.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
So like knowing when, like hey, I definitely need to
put take the risk of giving thisperson drugs, paralyzing them,
sticking a tube down theirthroat, you know, potentially
causing trauma to their throat,trachea, all those things.
It's a big decision to decideto do something like that to a

(28:49):
person because it's somebody'smom, brother, grandma, sister,
friend.
To me, that's the most humblingpart of making this transition
from medical student to doctoris realizing that these
decisions that we make based onwe're used to just reading these
questions and having thesehypotheticals and saying, oh,
we're gonna do this.
But it's a different thing whenyou make that decision and it
actually is gonna happen to aperson that you've met their

(29:11):
family and like they haveexpectations that you're gonna
help them and not hurt them.
It's a humbling job.
It's definitely the hardestthing I've ever done.
So you know again, this isanother endorsement.
If you like a challenge andyou're not squeamish about blood
and you kind of like chaos,look into emergency medicine.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
That's one of the things that I like is the fact
that you don't get a lot ofinformation and you just gotta
figure it out.
Now at UMMC you can gettransfers and all these other
things.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
No, you got all kind of back.
You have a lot of help.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
That's what people want when they see a doctor.
It's hard, man, it's hard.
That's a like every otherspecialty, has its points.
We're obviously biased, right,we're biased, we're biased, but
obviously you can't tell itthere.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
We both love emergency medicine, and it's not
to say that other specialtiesaren't awesome too.
I think it's all awesome.
I love surgery, I likespecialty medicine, I like it
all.
I think everything has itsplace and has its own sort of
like, level of like I say asuperpower to it.
But for me the ER was a uniquechallenge and that you sort of

(30:14):
have to take.
You gotta remember and know alittle bit about everything.
You have to be able to staycool under pressure.
You gotta be able to make likebig, consequential decisions
with not complete information.
And going back to it, cyclingback to what I said earlier, a
quote from my dad fighting ishigh level problem solving with
dire consequences for failure.

(30:35):
That is a perfect descriptionof emergency medicine.
Also, too, right, you'replaying a high stakes game that
if you mess up, I mean theconsequence is death, whereas in
a fight it's just you may getknocked out, you may break your
nose, you may have to tap, Imean whatever.
But we're playing a very highstakes game and it's humbling

(30:56):
and it makes me want to be thebest version of myself because I
don't wanna make a bad decisionright.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Love it.
That fear will keep peoplealive.
Do you do good at those testsLike the standardized?
Do you do good at thestandardized tests?

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Not I mean historically.
I'm one of those people whodoes about average.
You know, it's one of thosethings that I always walk away
and if I was gonna tell youabout it, the way I've always
thought about it is that mylevel of medical knowledge and
my ability, like in the actualclinical scenario, is not
reflected by how I perform onthe test.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
I say the same thing, and that might be why we are
under endorsing the USMM.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah, again, again.
This is not me and my peoplewho do really good at the test,
Like I have a lot of respect andI am in awe of the people that
can make 15,000, 15,000 AnkiCards and make a perfect score.
Like to me, that is a amazingskill and it will give you
opportunities that, like Jordanand I, may never have.

(31:59):
We wouldn't even get our footin the door that.
If you make a perfect score onUSMM, you may get that
opportunity.
But to the people out there andI would probably say the
majority, more people out therewho were the standardized test
is not necessarily your thing.
Or if you feel like your boardscores don't really reflect your
actual ability, rest easy andknow that there is more than

(32:22):
just your board scores.
You'll end up where you wanna go, but at the same time, I'm not
gonna be one of those people whoknocks the people, who bust the
265 on the USMLE and get to dowhatever it is they wanna do.
That's also very impressive, no, man, that is super impressive.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
I wish I had that skill.
There was one thing, though,that I wanted to ask you, which
was we just got done with thismonth, and it's a training month
.
What was one thing that youbenefited from having the
training month?

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Right.
So to me, the biggest benefitof having this month to get to
do a lot of simulation andtraining and work on all the
procedures fundamentally was andeverybody out there who is a
fourth year med student willeither either knows this already
or will come to know this thatyou kinda get a little rusty

(33:12):
going from match day to actuallystarting your intern year.
So it was a good opportunity tokinda get get my head back in
the game, kinda get seriousagain, as opposed to just
starting day one in some workingin the hospital and having no
idea what you're doing.
So it was a good way to getacclimated.
It was also a great way to getto actually meet all of my

(33:33):
co-residents in a real way asopposed to just saying hey, I'm
Corey, I like long walks in thebeach and puppies, Like we
actually got to know each other.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
That was good.
Not in your fourth month ofyour residency and you finally
meet them.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah, like when you're super busy and don't even
really care.
And then, just as far as themedical aspect of it, I think
the thing that was mostbeneficial for me and again this
is very specific to me becauseI'm starting in the medical ICU
is that the opportunity toreally hammer down on all the
procedures, and I don't evenjust mean like the physical

(34:07):
action of doing the procedure.
I've had a good bit ofexperience doing a lot of
procedures and I feel like I'vegotten to as a medical student
and in my former job and stuffI've got to do a lot more than a
lot of people but really takingthe time to not just do the
procedure but learn what are theindications, contraindications,
what, drugs do.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
I need to give why do I need to give this drug?
What?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
does just like really learning the ends and outs of
why I'm doing something, when todo it, and also getting to have
to practice the reps of doingit.
So for me, I feel like theprocedural aspect was probably
the most beneficial, because inthe MICU it's a very
procedure-heavy situation.

(34:50):
There'll be a lot of lines, alot of people that will either
be on the vent or will need tobe on the vent, people that will
be excavated and have to bere-intubated, people who will
need chest tubes and things likethat, and having the
opportunity to practice not evenjust doing a chest fever, doing
an intubation, but also gettingto also practice those things
but also really hammer down onwhen I need to do them, why I

(35:13):
need to do them, be able to sayout loud and articulate these
are the things I need.
This is what I'm gonna do ifthings go south.
It was awesome.
I really felt that it was.
I think a lot of EM programs dosomething similar.
Maybe, maybe not, but I can saythat the OP EM month at UMMC,
as far as their program, it'sclutch, it's everything I know.

(35:36):
I heard a lot of people in ourclass say that man, I'm ready to
get in the game, but and I amready to get in the game, but
this month was.
It was great.
I feel like it wasirreplaceable.
I think it's gonna make all ofus better starting off?

Speaker 1 (35:49):
I definitely think so too.
The one thing about proceduresis whenever you haven't done a
skill in nine months and thenall of a sudden they're like hey
, hop on this bike.
You never forget how to do it,but you're a little wobbly going
in.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
And when they're asking you to put a catheter in
your neck, which involves you toprick the vein with a needle.
Sometimes you can get a littleyou would like to be on the job
for multiple.
You know For sure, a little bitof time off, it makes you a
little bit more worrisome, so Iwas actually really glad we got
to have that, was there?
Any event, that you did thatsticks out in your mind, that

(36:27):
you really enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
One thing that I've really enjoyed was all of us
doing ATLS together.
I felt like our ATLS which Iknow a lot of people do ATLS and
all that but the group ofpeople that we got to do it with
at UMMC so really, really,really good trauma surgeon at
UMMC this Dr Zaza.
He we got to have instructionfrom him.

(36:50):
Most of the people that wereteaching all the stations were
general surgery residents ortrauma surgery attendings, and I
felt like our ATLS was verybeneficial, not just for the
actual steps of ATLS, but I feltlike we got to learn a lot of
good tidbits as far as dealingwith the trauma.
And the reason that's importantis a lot of times, especially

(37:13):
as a med student, you're notreally involved in high level
trauma situations.
I mean, you may be watching itright but you're not really
doing anything.
But as an EM intern at UMMC,you're gonna be head of bed on a
lot of crazy things.
Oh crazy, yeah, and so havingthat opportunity to go through
the motions but also to reallyhammer down and learn, under the

(37:37):
pressure of having peopleevaluating you, be able to say I
need to do this because this Iknow I've kind of harped on that
but being able to make thattransition to not just know the
steps but to know why and when Ineed to do X, y and Z.
I can't stress enough howimportant that is.
So much stuff as a EMT or somany things as a medical student

(38:02):
, you know in an algorithmicfashion and that's very similar
to when you're learning Jujitsu,for example you learn it by
paint, by numbers, but then asyou get better at it, you don't
have to say step one, step two,step three.
You kind of understand it froma like a more global perspective
where you can kind of put yourown spin on it.
And I feel like that's the samefor medicine.

(38:24):
But you and I are at the stagewhere we're white belts, blue
belts, you know emergencymedicine.
So we need we benefit frombeing able to say we have to do
this, I need these materials, weneed to do this.
What are the indications,contraindications, like it's
something you take for granted,but it's super important.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah, we have a solid group there.
We had the whole team together.
Everybody could interact, andthen we actually we had Dr Zaza
and he was great to even bouncequestions off and say like this
is going to be how it is whenthis thing rolls into UMC.
The one thing that has reallyimpressed me about UMC is the
fact that every there's so manyresources and they've been done

(39:07):
so well, like even all thesimulations, in that they have a
simulations lab coordinator.
Shout out to Dr Verant.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yes, she's awesome.
That was also super beneficialtoo.
That's her name, right?
Yeah, Verant.
I think Dr Verant Shout out to.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Dr Verant, she's great.
Yeah, she's awesome.
And so they have, like, all ofthese resources and every one of
the courses and things that wehad to do, cause when you're
going into, you have to get allof your certifications up to
date.
So that means not just ATLS andACLS, but that's NRP and
essentially all the things thatcould happen.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
And I've never done NRP before.
That was the first time I got a.
NADLS certified.
I've been ACLS certified, butthat was the first time I've
ever been through the NeonatalResuscitation Program and that
was really cool.
Like I hope I never have to beinvolved in a resuscitation of
like a kid in that situation,but at least now we've been
through the training and if youdid God forbid find yourself in

(40:03):
that situation like we wouldknow what to at least have some
idea of.
We need to do this.
These are the things we need toat least start moving towards.
I thought that was really cool.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, and we saved the baby.
It was a miracle.
The baby had a hard timegetting out and the baby was
still not as big as I was when I, when she said the weight, I
was like, well, you know, we'regoing to have to deal with the
fact that this baby is obviouslylarge.
But at the same time I was like, hmm, I was 10, 10 when I came

(40:33):
out.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
So I was like oh wow, you were huge.
Yeah, you were a big boy.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Were you a C6, maybe or not.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
No Good, old fashioned man.
Old fashioned, that's awesomeman.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
So even when I go to medical school everybody
essentially says any baby over10 pounds the mother more than
likely has justational diabetes.
That's my mom about that.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
She was like no not me, you're a soss.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Rect that thing.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
The other thing too, that now that we're talking
about it, so many things pop inmy head.
But, like another really good,humbling thing about OPM was we
really harped on not justresuscitation skills and
procedural skills, but we wentthrough adult medical simulation
, pediatric medical simulation.
We also had lectures fromneurosurgery either residents,

(41:22):
fellows attendings that, like,told us, these are the things
that we care about.
When y'all call us for thesethings, we wanna know this.
We had the same thing withophthalmology.
Like, hey, if you call us,these are the things we really
like, these are the buzzwordsthat we wanna hear when you're
giving a presentation.
These are the things that callus to action.
We also worked on eyes, ears,nose, throat, lungs.

(41:43):
We had a day where we didobesity before.
We worked on like dealing withpostpartum hemorrhage and actual
emergent deliveries, inaddition to resuscitating the
kids after they're born ifthey're not doing well.
So we really got a wide rangeand review of almost all of
medicine and it was humblingbecause you know, I don't know

(42:03):
about you but I'm not there'scertain areas where I'm weak.
We all have weaknesses andstrengths and, like, for me, ob
is something that is probablylike in my mind.
I would say that's like mybugaboo, that's like the thing
that if on the spot, if I haveto answer your questions about.
Like to me that was kind of ahumbling scenario to be in, like

(42:23):
normally on the adult medicalSims or the resuscitative Sims,
like I was cool being the teamlead.
But I remember on the first daywhen we were with Dr Tara Lewis
and we're working on, like theemergent delivery scenarios, I
had to be team lead because mylast name, abdeen ABD I think it
was because I was on the top ofthe list she made me in front

(42:45):
of everybody be the team leadand in my group and I was always
confident in every scenario andlike a lot of the people in our
class were all like, oh yeah,you know Abdeen's, he's on top
of it, he's confident.
But in that scenario in theback of my mind I tried to
portray confidence but I waslike this is going to be scary.
I got pushed outside of mycomfort zone, which I needed.

(43:06):
I needed that.
That's great.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
What a cool mannequin too, because the mannequin
literally gives birth.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Oh yeah, the technology, the stuff they have
up there is so cool yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
You're comfortable with the trans-vaginal
ultrasounds, but the second thatthey yeah, I was like whoa.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, it was.
You know you're never going toknow everything, and I feel like
the moment you ever start tothink you know everything,
that's when you become aliability and when you become
dangerous, not only to yourselfbut to the patients.
I just think you have to have ahealthy respect for what we do.
It's difficult and there's alarge body of knowledge and you
can always be better at things,and I think OPEM did a good job

(43:47):
of reminding us of that, butalso reminding us that we need
to be humbled.
But it also reminded us that itis feasible, that we're going
to be able to do this,particularly if we work together
.
If we put the work in, put thetime in, we're all going to get
through it, but it was the kickin the pants that I needed.
I can't say enough about theOPEM program that they have at

(44:11):
UMMC's EM residency for thatfirst month.
I'm sure other programs dosimilar things, but it was great
.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, dude, a good kick in the pants is all you
need.
Sometimes it was very.
It was really good too, becauseyou got to work through some of
your first mistakes.
Yeah, because everybody's goingto be is going to fumble around
a little bit at first and evenif you know what's going on,
it's hard to like separate thefact that you're still new at

(44:40):
this, so you can kind of worksome things out.
I remember one of the answersto one of the simulations so kid
a baby, very new baby.
We all know of SIDS, which issudden infant death syndrome.
There's really the syndromemeans that there's nothing you
could really do the baby justyeah, there's nothing that could
be done.

(45:01):
What it just happens.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
But when you get faced with that and you're
sitting there and they'resimulating it.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
you realize that you're trying to think that
there is a solution and thatwhich that was?
Actually Corey had a moment ofshine.
He was being humbled at onepoint, but he shined then
because he was ready.
He was ready to call it Now.
He was also doing the most workout of all of us and that.
But then the answer was that sothey would let you flaunder and

(45:29):
keep going as much as you could.
But which is the funny thing isyou?
I said something about youdoing chest compressions for 10
minutes or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
And the other group saidsomething like they did it for
25 minutes.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, one thing that I'll.
One thing I will say if anybodyout there is listening, whether
you're in emergency medicine orsome other specialty, because I
don't know.
I will admit I don't knowanything about what the other
specialties do.
Jordan and I are just inemergency medicine, so I can
speak to that.
But if you are in emergencymedicine or any other specialty
and you go through, you know, asimulation of a resuscitation or

(46:08):
any scenario like that onething that Any scenario
especially high stress, yeah,man it's tough and one thing
that we don't do a good job ofand it's kind of about design,
right, we need tohave that idea that we can fix
anything.
I think that's importantmindset to have at the beginning
.
But I think it is also animportant lesson to realize that
you gotta know when yourefforts are no longer helping

(46:32):
and when now you're just sort ofcausing a detriment.
I think that's a very importantdiscretion to have.
And that particular scenariothat Jordan brought up, the
exact scenario was, you know, akid I forget the age, but very
young four or five months hadbeen down so unknown downtime
had been asleep in the bed withmom.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.
I don't think you're allowed tosay what the-.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh, that's right that's right.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
I think you did sign a confidentiality.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
That's right.
Yeah, I'm not gonna leave thespecifics out, like, at the end
of the day, it's a long timedown on arrival.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, and there's really nothing you could do,
yeah, and so like they're down along time before they even got
there.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
And then, once they get there, you start immediately
doing like all the outwardsuscitation You're doing chest
compressions, you're giving up anephron, you're doing all the
the mom's crying.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
We got.
We had one of the chiefs doinga great acting job.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Right, yeah, it was it was high stress man and the
two, like I just remembersitting there and 10 minutes go
by, 15 minutes go by, we've donepretty much everything we could
do and I just had this thoughtthat came over me, like, and we
needed to start considering likewhen we need to stop this Cause
.
I just thought, in real life,like you know, cpr works and
it's life saving, but at acertain point if you're not

(47:48):
getting blood to your brain,like sometimes making it is not
always the best thing.
I know that sounds harsh but,like you know, sometimes you can
make it where you'rephysiologically alive, but like
your ability to have a normallife afterwards is gone and I
feel like, as a physician, beingable to make that discretion as
to like you gotta think abouthow the person, not just like

(48:12):
life or death, you also have tothink about the quality of life
that person's gonna have afteryour intervention.
Like again, it all just sort ofcircles back to that.
It was all encompassing.
They taught us a lot of medicalknowledge.
They taught us a lot of likeno-when-defold-em situations.
I just thought that the OPE Ican't say enough about how good
it was and the lessons that ittaught all of us.

(48:33):
I think if you asked all 16 ofus, like if we learned something
that we all walked.
I think we all walked away fromthis month with something that
is gonna stick with usthroughout this year and
definitely with this next month,like something we learned over
the last few weeks, like you'redefinitely gonna use on day one
and you're gonna be glad we didit.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
You know yeah, that was my moment of humbling is
when that scenario happened.
Everybody kind of we all kindof rush up, we realize you know,
shit's gone sour part of myFrench, but the so everybody.
You start chest compressionsand I peel back, I'm like, okay,

(49:11):
I'll take the team lead, we'llfigure this out.
And at that moment, now that Imean like we said too nothing
you can do but just working thatthrough with the simulation,
like I know that not to wait tominute 15 to start speaking and
trying to get things planned out, whether it's with the mother,

(49:33):
and there was a couple timeswhere I did speak to the mom,
but I did not.
I should have been more eloquentwith how I handled the
situation.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well, I thought you did great man.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
That's a hard thing in real life, yeah, and so
getting that one chance to workit out in my head.
Like I know now that I willstart if I'm standing back right
.
If I'm not, I kept just wantingto hop in and do chest
compressions because I didn'tknow the next step to do it.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
But you did a great job.
Man, Like somebody, has to bethe team.
The team leads an important job.
Even if you're not physicallydoing a thing, I would actually
argue to say the team lead.
I mean, that is the mostimportant job.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Somebody's gotta bring more to that Somebody's
gotta at least direct it.
It is, and it's, a tough job,but I now know how I'm going to
handle it in real life, sothat's one of the things that I
get to take away.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
At least you were forced to think about it.
Right, you had to think aboutit.
I wouldn't have thought aboutit.
What if I'm in this scenario?

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, it's just like consent.
You never think about having toget consent for a procedure.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
This is something you take for granted, right, but
you actually have to have thatconversation with the patient.
You know that's important.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, that's a funny thing when you go to get tested
and then they go okay, well, nowtell us, like how you would get
consent for this procedure.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
And you're like, oh, I didn't think you were gonna
ask that, yeah, well, yeah, it'sone thing that you, on paper,
it seems like it would be easy,but, like if you're not used to
having those conversations withan actual person, like the
moment where you're kind offorced to, but it's a see, I'm
not gonna cast mistakes, itwasn't me this time, but yeah,
it's like one of those thingsthat you you always think about,

(51:09):
like, oh yeah, this would be nobig deal.
And even though it was asimulated scenario, but when you
actually have to take thatmoment and you're oh, what are
you gonna say to this person?
There's always gonna be a partof you that thinks about I'm
gonna actually be doing thislike pretty soon, and like what
am I gonna say?

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Yeah, yeah.
It's not as intuitive as youwould think, it's difficult,
like I said we both said it thiswas a humbling month.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
I learned a lot.
We were fortunate to have goodco-residents and all of the
upper levels were very involvedin the process, so we got to
meet them and learn from them inthe process.
And it was also cool, like howmany attendings like took time
out of I'm sure being super busyto either, after a night shift,
come in the next morning andlike teach us ultrasound, like

(51:58):
Dr Hoda did for several hours,or like the ortho fellow comes
in after working all night, camein and like gave us a fracture
lecture for an hour and a half.
It's just little things likethat go a long way.
And it made me even moreexcited about being part of the
UMMC team and like kind ofgetting to be a physician that's

(52:22):
gonna be involved in themadness, so to speak.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Yeah, dude, it made me super excited.
I could not be more thankful,and it would be moving to
Mississippi.
Now I just feel morecomfortable, I'm ready to roll.
Yeah, like it.
Really, I've been humbled,definitely very excited, though,
and I'm really looking forwardto the next couple of years.

(52:47):
Dude, to be honest, this isgonna be great.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
I mean, we're gonna grow a lot as people and like.
Can I ask you a question?

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Yeah, dude.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
So let me sort of ask you a version of what you asked
me earlier what, as far as like, what's to say for this next
month, which really the nextmonth starts Monday.
When's your first shift?

Speaker 1 (53:05):
My first shift is on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
You work a night or a day Night.
So you're working nextWednesday at night, right?
So, as far as this first shift,when you think about it in your
mind, like what are your goalsfor this?
like first, like your firstopportunity to be doing the real
thing, Like what are somethings that you want to make
sure that you work on, getbetter at?
Like, what are you afraid of?

(53:27):
Like what, just like?
I wanna know what your thoughtsare about approaching this
first day, cause I'll be honestwith you, man, especially since
you and our friends, younormally in medicine we don't
like to show vulnerability.
We always like to act likewe're the smartest person in the
room, and that's an importantthing to have as a doctor.
We want to instill confidence,but I'm nervous about being in
the mickey.
Like, are you nervous aboutworking your first shift in the
home?

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Yeah, I'm certainly nervous Now when you ask me
about goals.
I don't have a specific number,especially because it's the
first one, but I definitely knowthat when I go in there I want
to pick up enough and be able tooperate at a certain level to
where I'm able to pull more offthe rack than would be expected
of me.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
I don't mean, like you know, come to one good
differential Like make sense.
I want to be able.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
I'll get there early.
I'm going to map out exactly,you know, the exact macros and
all that stuff.
Get my stuff set up, Cause whatI want to be able to do is be
able to pull patients off theboard and treat responsibly and
do the right thing.
But I want to.
I want to get into the workflowquickly and smoothly, and so

(54:37):
what I'm going to try to do isset that up Now.
I know it's going to be a niceshift.
It's going to be my first time.
There's going to be chaos.
So, of course, what I'm lookingto do is, by saying something
that probably is not going tohappen on that first shift, Like
I'm not going to be at workflow, but I won't be satisfied until
I am.
So I will be.
That's what I'm looking forwardto is like getting in there and

(54:58):
doing it Now.
I'm certainly nervous.
That's why I'm like well, Iknow that if I go and I prepare
and I know that I need to if Ican just try to get to an
average one on my first time,then I'll be good.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Let me ask you this so what specifically scares you
the most about now being you'renot a med student anymore,
you're a doctor.
Now, you're a doctor admin.
What scares you the most,whether it be a scenario,
whether it be whatever it is,what aspect of it?
When you say you're nervous,what is it that scares you the

(55:33):
most about now having thishigher level of responsibility
and expectation?

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Quick Sam man, the quick Sam.
Have you ever seen thereplacement?

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, I've seen it.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yeah, Quick Sam, when you start sinking and then you
feel like you can't climb out.
But no, that was really just, Iwas tying that into it.
But my biggest fear, to behonest, is going in there Now.
I know that I will have anattending and I know that
attending doesn't expect much ofme, probably on that first day.
But what I have a problem withis, my biggest fear is that

(56:07):
somebody will come in and theywill be thinned out no matter
what, and I won't be able to dowhat is right for that in the
moment.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
If I'm the only one stuck in there, because that's
kind of how the ER works.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Every now and then you've got the whole team, or
most of the time you have thewhole team, and then every now
and then everybody kind ofdisperses and then some shit
happens.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
It could go south.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
And then you're stuck .
You wanna be able to figure itout and I just don't wanna hurt
anybody since then.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
You just said the magic words.
For me, what it is more thananything is I know that I have
knowledge.
I know that if I walk in unlessI just have a really bad day I
know I can go in, take a goodhistory, I can talk to them, get
a good story, come up with somedifferential, be able to have
some reasonable way of workingit up.
More so for me than anything,it's like I know that, like you

(57:00):
said, we're not gonna beexpected just to be hitting the
ground running day one, butevery time I go in there and
this is a good thing too, thisis a mentality that I'm always
gonna have and I think it'simportant to have, even though
it puts more pressure onourselves you always have to
walk in there knowing that,anything you do now, any
scenario, even if you have anattendant there to help you back
, the day's coming where it'sjust gonna be.

(57:22):
You.
You know what I mean, and soit's like I really, really,
really wanna be good and I don'twant to hurt anybody.
And what I mean by that is yeswe're doing high level, high
acuity patients, so bad thingsare gonna happen and I can deal
with that.
But what would bother me morethan anything is knowing that
somebody got hurt because I wasinept or because I made a bad

(57:45):
decision.
Right, I know that sometimes nomatter what you do, even if you
do everything right, some people, a certain percentage of people
, are not gonna make it right.
I even had a paramedicinstructor that said 33% of
patients who come to the ER aregonna be fine, no matter what
you do.
Another 33% so another thirdare gonna do bad, no matter what

(58:05):
you do.
And then there's a third thatyou can actually help, and even
though that's kinda simplistic,there is some truth to that.
Oh, certainly.
I just wanna make sure that whenI do encounter somebody who's
in that third of where myintervention can determine life
or death, good or bad function,not function I just wanna know
that I worked hard enough torise to that occasion.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Yeah, man, that fear is what my mom has always told
me that the fear you have ofhurting people is going to
eventually make you a gooddoctor.
So if you can just keep that andthat seems maybe a little
simplistic or whatever- but youreally and yeah, we understand,
because when you really arenervous about whatever, you

(58:51):
start looking things up andsometimes you can be chasing
Z-bros or whatever.
But that's what also makes agood doctor.
And so, yeah, man, I'm excitedWe've got a heck of a crew
coming hospitals.
Beware, license to kill.
I'm definitely excited to bewith the group.

(59:12):
And so, yeah, man, unlessyou've got anything else to say,
we gotta wrap this thing up.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Last thing to say Dr Abney and Dr Abdeen rolling up
to UMMC this coming week readyto do some damage.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Double A's everybody beware.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Good luck everybody.
Jordan, thanks for having me on.
I really appreciate it.
This was fun.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, dude, it was a blast, so see you later again
everybody, thank you forlistening.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Praise, praise Cool.