April 1, 2025 • 29 mins
Dr. Christine Park invites us to reimagine our relationship with achievement, rest, and purpose in this soul-stirring conversation that transcends typical discussions about simulation in healthcare education.
The former president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare shares her remarkable journey from surgery to anesthesiology to simulation leadership, culminating in her decision to embark on an early retirement to pursue coaching. What drives this transformation? A profound realization that came through what she calls her "Holy Grail experiment" – questioning what ultimate prize awaited at the end of the achievement path she had been following her entire life. Her surprising discovery: the prize itself held no appeal.
Dr. Park's reflection on measuring life choices by asking "When I die, will I say this was a good use of my time?" offers listeners a powerful framework for evaluating their own priorities. Her discussion of learning to embrace "rest for rest's sake" – inspired by Tricia Hersey's book "Rest is Resistance" – challenges our culture's tendency to define human value through productivity.
The conversation takes fascinating
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Welcome to the Sim Cafe, apodcast produced by the team at
Innovative Sim Solutions, editedby Shelley Hauser.
(00:50):
Join our host, deb Tauber, andco-host Jared Jeffries as they
sit down with subject matterexperts from across the globe to
reimagine clinical educationand the use of simulation.
So pour yourself a cup ofrelaxation, sit back, tune in
(01:12):
and learn something new from theSim Cafe.
Deb Tauber (01:23):
Welcome to another episode of the Sim Cafe.
Today, jared and I are herewith Dr Christine Park, and
Christine and I are both fromthe Chicagoland area.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much.
Why don't you tell ourlisteners a little bit about
yourself?
Dr. Christine Park (01:41):
Oh, thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here.
So a little bit about me.
I well, how far back you wantto go.
I was born in Detroit, grew upin the Midwest, started out my
clinical career in generalsurgery before I switched to
anesthesia, and I've been inanesthesia ever since.
Yeah, what else?
(02:01):
Oh, I majored in Englishliterature in college, so
hopefully some more writing andreading is going to be in my
future.
Deb Tauber (02:08):
Great.
Do you want to share yourjourney into simulation?
Dr. Christine Park (02:14):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
So the part about surgery andanesthesia figures is a
highlight in this.
So, as I said, I started ingeneral surgery.
I loved every day of my timethere.
I started to have some questionsabout my relative lack of
curiosity, and what I mean bythat is stuff didn't bother me.
(02:35):
So if the patient did well ordidn't do well or I wasn't at
home wracking my brain like why?
And I kind of started to thinkthat things need to bother you
to a certain extent for you tohave a career that's going to be
successful and, second, thatyou don't become a dangerous,
whatever it is that you are.
Because it's the fact, it'sthat sort of stuff that bothers
(02:58):
you, that drives you.
So I made a decision to switchto anesthesia.
To my great luck, it ended upbeing a perfect fit.
But anesthesia is where I had myfirst exposure to simulation.
I mentioned that I had made itin English which figures here
also, because that world was allabout who and why and what did
(03:20):
we know and what's all thatqualitative, of qualitative
curiosity that had kind of beenleft me for me in medical school
.
But here in simulation was themoment where it was like who
knew what and why and how didthe tone of voice matter in this
and teamwork, and how do we getthings done?
And it was sort of instant,instant drinking from the Oasis
(03:46):
and that's how I got intosimulation and that's why I
stayed in simulation ever since.
Deb Tauber (03:52):
Thank you.
Now can you tell us about yourrecent transition and what it's
meant to you?
Dr. Christine Park (04:05):
it.
Yeah, thank you.
So I currently am the directorof the Simulation and
Integrative Learning Institute,which is for the College of
Medicine at the University ofIllinois, and it was during this
period that I also served asthe president of SSH.
There are many things to beproud of in the work that has
gone on, and you probably knowthe Healthcare Simulationist
(04:26):
Code of Ethic was something thatI was greatly privileged to
facilitate that coming intobeing, and you should be very
proud of that work.
Deb Tauber (04:36):
It is such a great thing to have when programs are
working towards accreditation.
I always encourage them to havethat up because it's so
important.
Thank you for that.
Dr. Christine Park (04:48):
Well, I hope that it is inspiring for people
and it really is intended to beinspirational and aspirational
rather than these are the rulesthat you should follow, and I
really do hope that it isserving that purpose for people
out there.
Yeah, so there's all kinds ofgreat stuff, but what's
interesting is, about 10 yearsago, a work colleague passed
(05:12):
away before the age of 50.
And in all the talk about thisperson afterwards you know it
was like oh, what a tragedy.
The career was cut short andthis person had all these grants
and these titles and all theseother things, and I really at
that time took the time to dowhat I call the Holy Grail
(05:33):
experiment with myself, whichwas to say, let's just assume
that whatever it is I'm strivingfor just happens to fall in my
lap.
You know, just whatever.
This title, that title, thisgrant, what have you?
And just keep going.
The next thing falls in my lap.
You know, just whatever thistitle, that title, this grant,
what have you?
And just keep going.
The next thing falls in yourlap.
The next thing falls in yourlap right at the end of this
amazing path what is the holygrail that's waiting for you and
(05:57):
what that holy grail is goingto fall in your lap, and you're
going to have it.
What is that thing?
And what I realized in my greatsurprise surprise, but not
surprise is that you know, whenyou're a good student or you
know you're like a faithful,hardworking, good student, you
kind of get put on this path andI never, until that time,
(06:21):
really had an opportunity toquestion that.
You know of achievement,achievement, achievement,
achievement.
And I realized that I reallywanted none of the.
I didn't want that thing, whichwas the Holy Grail.
I don't know what.
I never got to it.
Like what is that?
A Nobel Prize?
Are you the president ofuniversity?
Whatever that is?
(06:41):
I realized I didn't want any ofthat and I really wasn't very
interested in any of theantecedent steps either.
So I would say that my path toretirement and to coaching
really started about 10 yearsago and since that time I tried
to live my life by a metric ofwhen I die.
(07:02):
Am I going to say, yeah, thatwas a good use of my time?
The answer is no, I really don'tgo for it.
And that includes, you know, myboss could say how many grants
have I had in the last 10 years?
Like you know, maybe almostnone.
So I try to follow joy and thisdecision now, which is coming a
(07:24):
full ton plus years before thequote-unquote normal age
retirement, part of thatintention.
Jerrod Jeffries (07:31):
so that's a very long answer to a short
question that you got but I loveholistic, instead of chasing
the carrot continuously, whichwhich I think in the west maybe
it's, it's more Europe probablyincluded as well, but there's
always the next, what's the nextthing, what's the next thing?
And the goalposts always moveand then you only have such a
(07:51):
short amount to really enjoy,maybe what other civilizations
or countries really share.
And I think your more holisticline of thinking in terms of
okay, what is important?
Really resonates with with alot of people as well.
Deb Tauber (08:07):
so good on you yeah, and how do you find your joy?
What do you consider joy?
Dr. Christine Park (08:12):
I read this amazing book not too long ago
called rest is resistance, bythis author named tricia hersey,
and in it she talks about theimportance of rest, and she does
actually tie it explicitly tothe history of enslaved labor in
this country and the idea ofdefining ourselves by how much
(08:38):
we produce and using that as ameasure of value of a life, of a
person.
And there's much more to thatbook that I could ever give
credit in just a few minutes.
But one of the things she talksabout is our sacred right to
rest, and what I think many ofus, including myself, experience
(08:59):
, rest as is.
I need to rest so that I can goback to work, so that I can
bring my best efforts to work.
This idea of rest for rest'ssake has not been part of my way
that I see life, or really myentire life.
And so you asked about joy.
I think leaning into that hasbeen something that brings me a
(09:26):
lot of joy.
Just to the question, what areyou going to do this weekend?
You know what?
I don't know, it might benothing that I used to feel some
amount of guilt about.
Now it just feels great.
It's like freedom.
You know, that is somethingthat brings me.
I am learning to let it bringme joy.
Let me put it that way.
It's sort of not how I waseducated to think and, of course
(09:55):
, talk about being a dog loverand animal lover, and I learned
a really good lesson aboutletting the people around us,
and in this case, our dogs justlet them bring you joy.
When my dog, leo, was a puppy,puppy I had come home late from
work.
I was at a really bad moon.
He was late for his walk.
I'm just like let's just getthis walk over with I.
Honestly, I was outside likeangrily stomping down the
(10:16):
sidewalk and these two guys theylooked like football players
saw my little white, fluffy dogand I said, oh, can we pet your
dog?
They pet Leo.
And then they said, oh, I'm 50%happier.
I was like, wow, I did not letmyself be 50% happier coming
(10:38):
home to see him.
In fact, I was angrily takinghim on his walk because you know
that's what I had to do.
Angrily taking him on his walkbecause you know that's what I
had to do.
And so you know, since then, Ireally tried to always look at
them with pure joy.
Deb Tauber (10:52):
Thank you.
How many animals do you have?
Jerrod Jeffries (10:59):
We have two dogs and three cats right now.
There you go.
I picked out is that you'restill learning.
I absolutely love that, whenmost people think that learning
stops with education, but youknow, you're learning to relax.
You're learning to do nothing.
I think that's an importantpiece as well, because I think
that's where the beauty begins.
Dr. Christine Park (11:15):
Thank you so much for saying that, because I
sometimes feel a littleembarrassed like, ah, this is
something I should have knownyears ago, you know.
So sometimes it feels a littlebashful to say, oh, I'm just
learning, so thank you.
Jerrod Jeffries (11:27):
That means so much to hear that yeah, and I
think that it's the same as whenpeople fail it's viewed as a
negative and it's like theyfailed because they tried, you
know, and in addition, it's alot of times you have to unlearn
, then you have to unlearn andthen relearn, and it's like you
know, if you're still moving andstill trying, and so that's
where you're kind of pushing, soreally it's well done thank you
(11:50):
.
Dr. Christine Park (11:50):
Thank you so much yeah, thank you.
Deb Tauber (11:52):
I needed to hear that today.
Sometimes I feel like I'mresting too much yes, I'm very
familiar with that now.
Do you have a favoritesimulation story that you'd like
to share with our listeners?
Dr. Christine Park (12:09):
Yeah, I do, I do so.
Five years ago, me and BobKaiser, sandy Yingling and other
people in the sim community, wecreated this simulation
experience called First Step,and it's for second year med
students before they go toclerkship, and the idea is for
(12:33):
us to curate the space for themto experience patient death
before they go to clerkship, inwhich case it's just totally
haphazard, like it happens, itdoesn't happen, like we can't
control anything about howthey're going to take in and
process patient death.
But guess what we can controlfor that in simulation.
(12:53):
So we use this not as an effortto teach students how to do
their job, how to show up as aprofessional, but it's really
about their own inner journeyaround experiencing patient
death.
So, for 15 minutes in thelicense, have an hour and 15
(13:14):
minutes of post-event processing, including we have therapy dogs
, we have a written reflectionperiod and then we have a
debriefing, and I think for manystudents it's the first time
that they're in simulation spacewhere it's not about
performance to some degree, andso there are two things that are
(13:35):
my favorite, which I can'tchoose between, and one of them
is that the development of thiswas fully, fully
interprofessional, includingpeople who are not clinicians,
who have expertise in themedical humanities, social
workers, nurse this sort ofbeautiful coming together of
mine, and we have done thisevent in an interprofessional
(13:57):
sense which is so powerful forpeople to understand and to come
together around.
This processing of death as thebasis for interprofessionality,
as opposed to this, is how wedo our work, so that is one
thing which has been maybe oneof the most deeply meaningful
(14:17):
things to me in in simulation,and then, yeah, oh, go ahead, go
ahead.
Deb Tauber (14:23):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
Those end-of-life simulationsare just so important to get
your arms around the things.
That is a health care provider.
Dr. Christine Park (14:34):
You think you're going to save lives and
stamp out diseases, but in theend sometimes it doesn't work
out 100, and I find that our ingeneral, it seems to me that our
nursing colleagues, in theireducation and in their practice,
come from a much healthierspace than the medical education
(14:54):
does, and that's at least myobservation.
The second favorite thing thatcame out of this was in one of
our debriefings there was amedical student who was sitting
there just really, really quietand we were wondering, like
going on for this person, likeare they uninterested or, you
know, are they processingsomething?
(15:15):
And finally they spoke up andthey said you know, when I was a
freshman in college, my one ofour roommates just never came
back from one of our breaks andI realized that to this moment I
have never allowed myself toprocess that death and like that
was a moment where, you know,talk about dying.
(15:37):
It's like if I died right now Iwould say that I feel like you
know that my life had meaning,because and that to me, is where
the real power of simulation islife-changing transformation
like yes, it's great we canteach people how to put in a
center line, we can be able toteach people teamwork, etc.
(15:58):
Right, um, but this person is,it's not changed for life, just
even as a doctor or as a healthcare provider.
This person is changed for lifeas a human being because of
allowing for space for them togrieve something that they have
never grieved before and to sortof take away this idea of urine
(16:21):
simulation to learn how to.
In this situation.
It was urine simulation, justfor you to explore yourself.
Those were two sort of bighighlights for simulation for me
.
They happen to come from thesame program, yeah.
Deb Tauber (16:38):
Thank you, Jared.
Do you have anything you wantto add?
Jerrod Jeffries (16:41):
No, I think, like you know, this is a
question.
They're all powerful in theirown way when they come to seeing
the impact of simulationthrough so many different lenses
and perspectives and I thinkyours is right up there when it
comes to really realizing howshort time is but also the power
of reaching out and helping oneanother through an education
(17:03):
perspective, through a real lifeclinical scenario or situation,
and even that of simulation, tomake sure that we're getting
things right.
Dr. Christine Park (17:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
Deb Tauber (17:15):
Now can you share with our listeners the biggest
thing you'd like them to know,Something that kind of when you
learned it, just a personal ahamoment.
Dr. Christine Park (17:23):
Yeah, about six months ago, so that's kind
of breaking news.
One day last summer I wasoutside I was looking at these
flowers.
I was looking at them becausethey were a gift from my parents
and so I really, really vestedin the fact that these flowers
are going to succeed.
So there was a half of a bunchthat was like really thriving,
(17:43):
that were like blooming wasgreat.
There was another half that waslike it was really struggling,
like well, you know, not even noflowers like the stems were
mostly brown and just struggling.
I was looking at them and I wasthinking to myself I'm curious,
how long is the side that'sblooming, how long are they
going to bloom in the sidethat's struggling, like is it
(18:05):
going to make it to the end ofthe season?
I'm really curious.
I was like watching thiscuriosity Now, this is, in a way
, maybe going to soundsacrilegious for the simulation
community, but I thought tomyself, what is my curiosity
doing for these flowers rightnow?
I was like, well, actuallynothing for these flowers right
(18:28):
now.
I was like, well, actuallynothing.
And in fact, my curiosity isserving my need to know.
I wonder, right, I have a sortof a need to satisfy, right, my
curiosity about these flowers.
I thought, oh geez, what wouldhappen if I could take curiosity
out of the situation, like whatwould be left?
(18:49):
And I thought to myself, okay,well, if I remove curiosity,
what I would be doing is I wouldjust be watching.
That's it.
And then, as I was justwatching these flowers, it
suddenly occurred to me oh myGod, I'm going to be.
What I'm seeing now is that Imean, you guys, I'm getting very
(19:11):
trippy here with you.
Please go ahead.
We're going deep, I thought tomyself.
What I can see just by watchingis that the triumph of life of
these flowers is not whether itbloomed or didn't bloom.
The measure of success is justthat it lives.
(19:32):
And so it is for these flowers,so it is for all of us as
humans, right?
It's not about what we achieve,what we did, how much all this
other stuff, right?
Anyway so I've been since thattime.
I quite haven't resolved this,this dynamic of curiosity.
To what extent does it serve us, and to what extent would it
(19:52):
make sense for us to mayberemove some of the curiosity,
and what could that look like?
I have not solved any of thosequestions, and so I'm really
interested to find out as mythinking continues.
Jerrod Jeffries (20:07):
To exist.
Dr. Christine Park (20:08):
Yes, to exist yeah exactly, Christine.
Deb Tauber (20:11):
do you have any questions for Jared or I?
Dr. Christine Park (20:14):
I do have a question for you, so maybe you
both can solve this questionaround curiosity.
Which is, if we were to removecuriosity from, let's say,
debriefing, what would be leftJust as a riffing sort of
brainstorm?
Deb Tauber (20:31):
I think some anxiety would be left in the room.
Anxiety, yeah yeah, becausewithout curiosity, if we're not,
and especially, to use thelanguage of curiosity, are we
giving our learners space tothink or are we presenting in
that we're coming from a placeof judgment?
(20:52):
That's a question to you.
Dr. Christine Park (20:55):
And I think it depends.
I think that we can hidejudgment behind a ruse of
curiosity, and that's I think itdepends.
And I've been toying with whatwould a curiosity let, what was
less curiosity, but also notless curiosity at the expense of
(21:16):
more judgment.
I don't mean that.
I mean, is there a way I couldremove my lens of curiosity and
even some judgment?
Right?
So if I know, if I go into adebrief and the students didn't
do some even real, super basicthings that I thought that would
be done, and I say I'm curious,what information did you have
(21:40):
that led to your decisionsaround the care of this patient?
There's definitely judgmentbehind that, it's true.
Even if it is good, bad or inbetween, there's definitely so.
I don't know the answer, noanswer.
But how might I go into asituation without curiosity but
still create these?
I don't know.
(22:00):
I mean, I don't even know ifit's possible.
Jerrod Jeffries (22:02):
Yeah, I feel like a lot of assumptions that
would probably jump into it aswell.
I mean, there's obviouslycuriosity is one of the
cornerstones, the main drivingfactor of a lot of debriefing
into the judgment piece.
But it's just, I think thatalmost a series of assumptions
was taken over.
It's just like when you seeright, when you're trying to
(22:23):
teach kids to be more creativeinstead of just in set zoom, and
then as adults we kind of seemaybe a quarter of a picture,
that's that's a picture of acamera, see maybe a quarter of a
picture that's a picture of acamera or that's a picture of a
dog, and then you can besomething completely different.
Or if you turn it to anotherway or angle or perspective, you
change it.
(22:44):
But I think that would removeand of course I don't know the
answer either.
This is my take.
But if you remove curiosity,you're just trying to take
shortcuts into how it grew andthen you're leading by a series
of assumptions and predeterminednotions to deb's point and that
you're you're not really seeingthe full picture or the amount
of variables that can into anoutcome.
(23:07):
But okay, this is a shortcut mybrain made because of this lack
thereof and it's and it's notreally as as fruitful I
absolutely would have thoughtthat exact same thing, until I
ended up with these flowerswhere I realized that without
curiosity, just watching, Iwould.
Dr. Christine Park (23:27):
I made absolutely no assumptions and no
judgment.
In fact, I became much moreinterested in the flowers
themselves as opposed to my ownneed to know something.
So it makes me just wonder likewhat if I went into a
debriefing instead of leadingand maybe it's the semantics,
but maybe instead of leading thewords?
(23:48):
I'm curious, what was yourexperience If I were to, just if
you just went in with open arms?
Tell me about your experienceWithout sharing, like the I'm
curious suggests, I have acuriosity that needs to be
satisfied.
So there's some, even if it's atiny bit amount of centering
(24:10):
myself in this equation what Iwas thinking in terms of
watching the flowers, right, atiny bit amount of centering
myself in this equation, what Iwas thinking in terms of
watching the flowers, right, Ifeel like it's a conversation
that we could have over awonderful dinner sometime
somewhere and take a deeper divemaybe.
Deb Tauber (24:23):
Now, Christine, what kind of flowers were they?
Were they perennials?
Were they annuals?
Dr. Christine Park (24:30):
I love that you asked that question.
So they're called balloonflowers and they come in this
sort of purpley blue color andalso white that are perennials
in certain zones and also what'sreally interesting is they can
grow wild and their roots areactually edible and they taste
(24:54):
kind of like a cross between aparsnip and a potato, and by
studying them and looking atthem and being curious about
them, were you ever able to getthe ones that weren't doing so
well to get better?
What I discovered is that Ididn't need to intervene, that I
could just let it be.
Jerrod Jeffries (25:12):
Let it be.
Dr. Christine Park (25:13):
Instead of right, like my anxiety, like oh
my God, that side is struggling,I need to do something Like,
well, you're living now andyou're trying your best, I'll
water you, I'll take care of you, but I'm going to remove my
sort of judgment that I need torescue you or do something.
Know, interesting.
(25:34):
I bet you weren't in for thistrippy of a conversation when we
started, right, I just won'tlet it be to be playing in the
background for the for theopening and the closing
Jerrod Jeffries (25:44):
the show notes so the Beatles get a little
little shout out, yeah, yeah toexist is enough so that gets us
to our final question.
Deb Tauber (25:56):
Are there any final words?
You would like our listeners toremember this conversation by?
Dr. Christine Park (26:01):
yes, and part of my transition into I'm
putting retirement in air quotes, into working as a coach to
help people kind of understand.
A thing which had took me so areally long time to understand
is that is, how much choice thateach of us actually has this
(26:22):
idea even of.
I have to.
Right, I have to work for xnumber of years because I don't
have enough money or I have tomeet this deadline, or so many I
have to.
But for most of us my questionis how true?
Is it really?
Disclaimer. Foster Simulat (26:38):
that .
Dr. Christine Park (26:39):
I have to.
I could, for example, choose tonot work another day in my life
.
There would be some veryserious consequences.
The bank would foreclose on ourhouse.
I mean all kinds of things aregoing to happen.
The bank would foreclose on ourhouse.
I mean, all kinds of things aregoing to happen.
So I choose not to have thoseconsequences and it's as a
(27:00):
result of that that I choose tokeep working.
So I think that these kind ofenergy shifts, you know from the
feeling of I have to submitthis report to my boss because
they've been on my case about it, feels so powerless.
If we were into instead to say,well, I choose to work over the
weekend to deliver this reportto my boss, feels much.
I feel the stance feels much,much different you know, or it's
(27:23):
possible that by workingthrough an exercise like this,
it's like oh, I actually don'thave to submit this on monday,
in fact, I don't have to workover the Monday, in fact, I
don't have to work over theweekend, in fact, it would be
fine if I submitted on Wednesdayinstead.
But I think we are much morefree and able to make choices in
our lives than we think we are,so that would be my parting
(27:45):
comment.
Deb Tauber (27:46):
Thank you, I very much agree, I think, with that.
We'll let it be.
You're here, right?
Dr. Christine Park (27:54):
Thank you so much for having me today.
Deb Tauber (27:56):
Thank you.
Yeah, if our listeners want toget hold of you, if they want to
use you for your coachingservices, you want to talk a
little bit about that for asecond.
Dr. Christine Park (28:05):
Yeah well, thank you for the invitation.
I can be reached at my email,which is christine, at
thechristineparkcom, and I wouldbe delighted to offer a free
discovery session to anyone whowants to learn more about what
coaching might be about.
Thank, you.
Jerrod Jeffries (28:24):
Thank you so much.
Deb Tauber (28:27):
We appreciate you and happy simulating.
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Welcome to the Sim Cafe, apodcast produced by the team at
Innovative Sim Solutions, editedby Shelley Hauser.
(00:50):
Join our host, deb Tauber, andco-host Jared Jeffries as they
sit down with subject matterexperts from across the globe to
reimagine clinical educationand the use of simulation.
So pour yourself a cup ofrelaxation, sit back, tune in
(01:12):
and learn something new from theSim Cafe.
Deb Tauber (01:23):
Welcome to another episode of the Sim Cafe.
Today, jared and I are herewith Dr Christine Park, and
Christine and I are both fromthe Chicagoland area.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much.
Why don't you tell ourlisteners a little bit about
yourself?
Dr. Christine Park (01:41):
Oh, thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here.
So a little bit about me.
I well, how far back you wantto go.
I was born in Detroit, grew upin the Midwest, started out my
clinical career in generalsurgery before I switched to
anesthesia, and I've been inanesthesia ever since.
Yeah, what else?
(02:01):
Oh, I majored in Englishliterature in college, so
hopefully some more writing andreading is going to be in my
future.
Deb Tauber (02:08):
Great.
Do you want to share yourjourney into simulation?
Dr. Christine Park (02:14):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
So the part about surgery andanesthesia figures is a
highlight in this.
So, as I said, I started ingeneral surgery.
I loved every day of my timethere.
I started to have some questionsabout my relative lack of
curiosity, and what I mean bythat is stuff didn't bother me.
(02:35):
So if the patient did well ordidn't do well or I wasn't at
home wracking my brain like why?
And I kind of started to thinkthat things need to bother you
to a certain extent for you tohave a career that's going to be
successful and, second, thatyou don't become a dangerous,
whatever it is that you are.
Because it's the fact, it'sthat sort of stuff that bothers
(02:58):
you, that drives you.
So I made a decision to switchto anesthesia.
To my great luck, it ended upbeing a perfect fit.
But anesthesia is where I had myfirst exposure to simulation.
I mentioned that I had made itin English which figures here
also, because that world was allabout who and why and what did
(03:20):
we know and what's all thatqualitative, of qualitative
curiosity that had kind of beenleft me for me in medical school
.
But here in simulation was themoment where it was like who
knew what and why and how didthe tone of voice matter in this
and teamwork, and how do we getthings done?
And it was sort of instant,instant drinking from the Oasis
(03:46):
and that's how I got intosimulation and that's why I
stayed in simulation ever since.
Deb Tauber (03:52):
Thank you.
Now can you tell us about yourrecent transition and what it's
meant to you?
Dr. Christine Park (04:05):
it.
Yeah, thank you.
So I currently am the directorof the Simulation and
Integrative Learning Institute,which is for the College of
Medicine at the University ofIllinois, and it was during this
period that I also served asthe president of SSH.
There are many things to beproud of in the work that has
gone on, and you probably knowthe Healthcare Simulationist
(04:26):
Code of Ethic was something thatI was greatly privileged to
facilitate that coming intobeing, and you should be very
proud of that work.
Deb Tauber (04:36):
It is such a great thing to have when programs are
working towards accreditation.
I always encourage them to havethat up because it's so
important.
Thank you for that.
Dr. Christine Park (04:48):
Well, I hope that it is inspiring for people
and it really is intended to beinspirational and aspirational
rather than these are the rulesthat you should follow, and I
really do hope that it isserving that purpose for people
out there.
Yeah, so there's all kinds ofgreat stuff, but what's
interesting is, about 10 yearsago, a work colleague passed
(05:12):
away before the age of 50.
And in all the talk about thisperson afterwards you know it
was like oh, what a tragedy.
The career was cut short andthis person had all these grants
and these titles and all theseother things, and I really at
that time took the time to dowhat I call the Holy Grail
(05:33):
experiment with myself, whichwas to say, let's just assume
that whatever it is I'm strivingfor just happens to fall in my
lap.
You know, just whatever.
This title, that title, thisgrant, what have you?
And just keep going.
The next thing falls in my lap.
You know, just whatever thistitle, that title, this grant,
what have you?
And just keep going.
The next thing falls in yourlap.
The next thing falls in yourlap right at the end of this
amazing path what is the holygrail that's waiting for you and
(05:57):
what that holy grail is goingto fall in your lap, and you're
going to have it.
What is that thing?
And what I realized in my greatsurprise surprise, but not
surprise is that you know, whenyou're a good student or you
know you're like a faithful,hardworking, good student, you
kind of get put on this path andI never, until that time,
(06:21):
really had an opportunity toquestion that.
You know of achievement,achievement, achievement,
achievement.
And I realized that I reallywanted none of the.
I didn't want that thing, whichwas the Holy Grail.
I don't know what.
I never got to it.
Like what is that?
A Nobel Prize?
Are you the president ofuniversity?
Whatever that is?
(06:41):
I realized I didn't want any ofthat and I really wasn't very
interested in any of theantecedent steps either.
So I would say that my path toretirement and to coaching
really started about 10 yearsago and since that time I tried
to live my life by a metric ofwhen I die.
(07:02):
Am I going to say, yeah, thatwas a good use of my time?
The answer is no, I really don'tgo for it.
And that includes, you know, myboss could say how many grants
have I had in the last 10 years?
Like you know, maybe almostnone.
So I try to follow joy and thisdecision now, which is coming a
(07:24):
full ton plus years before thequote-unquote normal age
retirement, part of thatintention.
Jerrod Jeffries (07:31):
so that's a very long answer to a short
question that you got but I loveholistic, instead of chasing
the carrot continuously, whichwhich I think in the west maybe
it's, it's more Europe probablyincluded as well, but there's
always the next, what's the nextthing, what's the next thing?
And the goalposts always moveand then you only have such a
(07:51):
short amount to really enjoy,maybe what other civilizations
or countries really share.
And I think your more holisticline of thinking in terms of
okay, what is important?
Really resonates with with alot of people as well.
Deb Tauber (08:07):
so good on you yeah, and how do you find your joy?
What do you consider joy?
Dr. Christine Park (08:12):
I read this amazing book not too long ago
called rest is resistance, bythis author named tricia hersey,
and in it she talks about theimportance of rest, and she does
actually tie it explicitly tothe history of enslaved labor in
this country and the idea ofdefining ourselves by how much
(08:38):
we produce and using that as ameasure of value of a life, of a
person.
And there's much more to thatbook that I could ever give
credit in just a few minutes.
But one of the things she talksabout is our sacred right to
rest, and what I think many ofus, including myself, experience
(08:59):
, rest as is.
I need to rest so that I can goback to work, so that I can
bring my best efforts to work.
This idea of rest for rest'ssake has not been part of my way
that I see life, or really myentire life.
And so you asked about joy.
I think leaning into that hasbeen something that brings me a
(09:26):
lot of joy.
Just to the question, what areyou going to do this weekend?
You know what?
I don't know, it might benothing that I used to feel some
amount of guilt about.
Now it just feels great.
It's like freedom.
You know, that is somethingthat brings me.
I am learning to let it bringme joy.
Let me put it that way.
It's sort of not how I waseducated to think and, of course
(09:55):
, talk about being a dog loverand animal lover, and I learned
a really good lesson aboutletting the people around us,
and in this case, our dogs justlet them bring you joy.
When my dog, leo, was a puppy,puppy I had come home late from
work.
I was at a really bad moon.
He was late for his walk.
I'm just like let's just getthis walk over with I.
Honestly, I was outside likeangrily stomping down the
(10:16):
sidewalk and these two guys theylooked like football players
saw my little white, fluffy dogand I said, oh, can we pet your
dog?
They pet Leo.
And then they said, oh, I'm 50%happier.
I was like, wow, I did not letmyself be 50% happier coming
(10:38):
home to see him.
In fact, I was angrily takinghim on his walk because you know
that's what I had to do.
Angrily taking him on his walkbecause you know that's what I
had to do.
And so you know, since then, Ireally tried to always look at
them with pure joy.
Deb Tauber (10:52):
Thank you.
How many animals do you have?
Jerrod Jeffries (10:59):
We have two dogs and three cats right now.
There you go.
I picked out is that you'restill learning.
I absolutely love that, whenmost people think that learning
stops with education, but youknow, you're learning to relax.
You're learning to do nothing.
I think that's an importantpiece as well, because I think
that's where the beauty begins.
Dr. Christine Park (11:15):
Thank you so much for saying that, because I
sometimes feel a littleembarrassed like, ah, this is
something I should have knownyears ago, you know.
So sometimes it feels a littlebashful to say, oh, I'm just
learning, so thank you.
Jerrod Jeffries (11:27):
That means so much to hear that yeah, and I
think that it's the same as whenpeople fail it's viewed as a
negative and it's like theyfailed because they tried, you
know, and in addition, it's alot of times you have to unlearn
, then you have to unlearn andthen relearn, and it's like you
know, if you're still moving andstill trying, and so that's
where you're kind of pushing, soreally it's well done thank you
(11:50):
.
Dr. Christine Park (11:50):
Thank you so much yeah, thank you.
Deb Tauber (11:52):
I needed to hear that today.
Sometimes I feel like I'mresting too much yes, I'm very
familiar with that now.
Do you have a favoritesimulation story that you'd like
to share with our listeners?
Dr. Christine Park (12:09):
Yeah, I do, I do so.
Five years ago, me and BobKaiser, sandy Yingling and other
people in the sim community, wecreated this simulation
experience called First Step,and it's for second year med
students before they go toclerkship, and the idea is for
(12:33):
us to curate the space for themto experience patient death
before they go to clerkship, inwhich case it's just totally
haphazard, like it happens, itdoesn't happen, like we can't
control anything about howthey're going to take in and
process patient death.
But guess what we can controlfor that in simulation.
(12:53):
So we use this not as an effortto teach students how to do
their job, how to show up as aprofessional, but it's really
about their own inner journeyaround experiencing patient
death.
So, for 15 minutes in thelicense, have an hour and 15
(13:14):
minutes of post-event processing, including we have therapy dogs
, we have a written reflectionperiod and then we have a
debriefing, and I think for manystudents it's the first time
that they're in simulation spacewhere it's not about
performance to some degree, andso there are two things that are
(13:35):
my favorite, which I can'tchoose between, and one of them
is that the development of thiswas fully, fully
interprofessional, includingpeople who are not clinicians,
who have expertise in themedical humanities, social
workers, nurse this sort ofbeautiful coming together of
mine, and we have done thisevent in an interprofessional
(13:57):
sense which is so powerful forpeople to understand and to come
together around.
This processing of death as thebasis for interprofessionality,
as opposed to this, is how wedo our work, so that is one
thing which has been maybe oneof the most deeply meaningful
(14:17):
things to me in in simulation,and then, yeah, oh, go ahead, go
ahead.
Deb Tauber (14:23):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
Those end-of-life simulationsare just so important to get
your arms around the things.
That is a health care provider.
Dr. Christine Park (14:34):
You think you're going to save lives and
stamp out diseases, but in theend sometimes it doesn't work
out 100, and I find that our ingeneral, it seems to me that our
nursing colleagues, in theireducation and in their practice,
come from a much healthierspace than the medical education
(14:54):
does, and that's at least myobservation.
The second favorite thing thatcame out of this was in one of
our debriefings there was amedical student who was sitting
there just really, really quietand we were wondering, like
going on for this person, likeare they uninterested or, you
know, are they processingsomething?
(15:15):
And finally they spoke up andthey said you know, when I was a
freshman in college, my one ofour roommates just never came
back from one of our breaks andI realized that to this moment I
have never allowed myself toprocess that death and like that
was a moment where, you know,talk about dying.
(15:37):
It's like if I died right now Iwould say that I feel like you
know that my life had meaning,because and that to me, is where
the real power of simulation islife-changing transformation
like yes, it's great we canteach people how to put in a
center line, we can be able toteach people teamwork, etc.
(15:58):
Right, um, but this person is,it's not changed for life, just
even as a doctor or as a healthcare provider.
This person is changed for lifeas a human being because of
allowing for space for them togrieve something that they have
never grieved before and to sortof take away this idea of urine
(16:21):
simulation to learn how to.
In this situation.
It was urine simulation, justfor you to explore yourself.
Those were two sort of bighighlights for simulation for me
.
They happen to come from thesame program, yeah.
Deb Tauber (16:38):
Thank you, Jared.
Do you have anything you wantto add?
Jerrod Jeffries (16:41):
No, I think, like you know, this is a
question.
They're all powerful in theirown way when they come to seeing
the impact of simulationthrough so many different lenses
and perspectives and I thinkyours is right up there when it
comes to really realizing howshort time is but also the power
of reaching out and helping oneanother through an education
(17:03):
perspective, through a real lifeclinical scenario or situation,
and even that of simulation, tomake sure that we're getting
things right.
Dr. Christine Park (17:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
Deb Tauber (17:15):
Now can you share with our listeners the biggest
thing you'd like them to know,Something that kind of when you
learned it, just a personal ahamoment.
Dr. Christine Park (17:23):
Yeah, about six months ago, so that's kind
of breaking news.
One day last summer I wasoutside I was looking at these
flowers.
I was looking at them becausethey were a gift from my parents
and so I really, really vestedin the fact that these flowers
are going to succeed.
So there was a half of a bunchthat was like really thriving,
(17:43):
that were like blooming wasgreat.
There was another half that waslike it was really struggling,
like well, you know, not even noflowers like the stems were
mostly brown and just struggling.
I was looking at them and I wasthinking to myself I'm curious,
how long is the side that'sblooming, how long are they
going to bloom in the sidethat's struggling, like is it
(18:05):
going to make it to the end ofthe season?
I'm really curious.
I was like watching thiscuriosity Now, this is, in a way
, maybe going to soundsacrilegious for the simulation
community, but I thought tomyself, what is my curiosity
doing for these flowers rightnow?
I was like, well, actuallynothing for these flowers right
(18:28):
now.
I was like, well, actuallynothing.
And in fact, my curiosity isserving my need to know.
I wonder, right, I have a sortof a need to satisfy, right, my
curiosity about these flowers.
I thought, oh geez, what wouldhappen if I could take curiosity
out of the situation, like whatwould be left?
(18:49):
And I thought to myself, okay,well, if I remove curiosity,
what I would be doing is I wouldjust be watching.
That's it.
And then, as I was justwatching these flowers, it
suddenly occurred to me oh myGod, I'm going to be.
What I'm seeing now is that Imean, you guys, I'm getting very
(19:11):
trippy here with you.
Please go ahead.
We're going deep, I thought tomyself.
What I can see just by watchingis that the triumph of life of
these flowers is not whether itbloomed or didn't bloom.
The measure of success is justthat it lives.
(19:32):
And so it is for these flowers,so it is for all of us as
humans, right?
It's not about what we achieve,what we did, how much all this
other stuff, right?
Anyway so I've been since thattime.
I quite haven't resolved this,this dynamic of curiosity.
To what extent does it serve us, and to what extent would it
(19:52):
make sense for us to mayberemove some of the curiosity,
and what could that look like?
I have not solved any of thosequestions, and so I'm really
interested to find out as mythinking continues.
Jerrod Jeffries (20:07):
To exist.
Dr. Christine Park (20:08):
Yes, to exist yeah exactly, Christine.
Deb Tauber (20:11):
do you have any questions for Jared or I?
Dr. Christine Park (20:14):
I do have a question for you, so maybe you
both can solve this questionaround curiosity.
Which is, if we were to removecuriosity from, let's say,
debriefing, what would be leftJust as a riffing sort of
brainstorm?
Deb Tauber (20:31):
I think some anxiety would be left in the room.
Anxiety, yeah yeah, becausewithout curiosity, if we're not,
and especially, to use thelanguage of curiosity, are we
giving our learners space tothink or are we presenting in
that we're coming from a placeof judgment?
(20:52):
That's a question to you.
Dr. Christine Park (20:55):
And I think it depends.
I think that we can hidejudgment behind a ruse of
curiosity, and that's I think itdepends.
And I've been toying with whatwould a curiosity let, what was
less curiosity, but also notless curiosity at the expense of
(21:16):
more judgment.
I don't mean that.
I mean, is there a way I couldremove my lens of curiosity and
even some judgment?
Right?
So if I know, if I go into adebrief and the students didn't
do some even real, super basicthings that I thought that would
be done, and I say I'm curious,what information did you have
(21:40):
that led to your decisionsaround the care of this patient?
There's definitely judgmentbehind that, it's true.
Even if it is good, bad or inbetween, there's definitely so.
I don't know the answer, noanswer.
But how might I go into asituation without curiosity but
still create these?
I don't know.
(22:00):
I mean, I don't even know ifit's possible.
Jerrod Jeffries (22:02):
Yeah, I feel like a lot of assumptions that
would probably jump into it aswell.
I mean, there's obviouslycuriosity is one of the
cornerstones, the main drivingfactor of a lot of debriefing
into the judgment piece.
But it's just, I think thatalmost a series of assumptions
was taken over.
It's just like when you seeright, when you're trying to
(22:23):
teach kids to be more creativeinstead of just in set zoom, and
then as adults we kind of seemaybe a quarter of a picture,
that's that's a picture of acamera, see maybe a quarter of a
picture that's a picture of acamera or that's a picture of a
dog, and then you can besomething completely different.
Or if you turn it to anotherway or angle or perspective, you
change it.
(22:44):
But I think that would removeand of course I don't know the
answer either.
This is my take.
But if you remove curiosity,you're just trying to take
shortcuts into how it grew andthen you're leading by a series
of assumptions and predeterminednotions to deb's point and that
you're you're not really seeingthe full picture or the amount
of variables that can into anoutcome.
(23:07):
But okay, this is a shortcut mybrain made because of this lack
thereof and it's and it's notreally as as fruitful I
absolutely would have thoughtthat exact same thing, until I
ended up with these flowerswhere I realized that without
curiosity, just watching, Iwould.
Dr. Christine Park (23:27):
I made absolutely no assumptions and no
judgment.
In fact, I became much moreinterested in the flowers
themselves as opposed to my ownneed to know something.
So it makes me just wonder likewhat if I went into a
debriefing instead of leadingand maybe it's the semantics,
but maybe instead of leading thewords?
(23:48):
I'm curious, what was yourexperience If I were to, just if
you just went in with open arms?
Tell me about your experienceWithout sharing, like the I'm
curious suggests, I have acuriosity that needs to be
satisfied.
So there's some, even if it's atiny bit amount of centering
(24:10):
myself in this equation what Iwas thinking in terms of
watching the flowers, right, atiny bit amount of centering
myself in this equation, what Iwas thinking in terms of
watching the flowers, right, Ifeel like it's a conversation
that we could have over awonderful dinner sometime
somewhere and take a deeper divemaybe.
Deb Tauber (24:23):
Now, Christine, what kind of flowers were they?
Were they perennials?
Were they annuals?
Dr. Christine Park (24:30):
I love that you asked that question.
So they're called balloonflowers and they come in this
sort of purpley blue color andalso white that are perennials
in certain zones and also what'sreally interesting is they can
grow wild and their roots areactually edible and they taste
(24:54):
kind of like a cross between aparsnip and a potato, and by
studying them and looking atthem and being curious about
them, were you ever able to getthe ones that weren't doing so
well to get better?
What I discovered is that Ididn't need to intervene, that I
could just let it be.
Jerrod Jeffries (25:12):
Let it be.
Dr. Christine Park (25:13):
Instead of right, like my anxiety, like oh
my God, that side is struggling,I need to do something Like,
well, you're living now andyou're trying your best, I'll
water you, I'll take care of you, but I'm going to remove my
sort of judgment that I need torescue you or do something.
Know, interesting.
(25:34):
I bet you weren't in for thistrippy of a conversation when we
started, right, I just won'tlet it be to be playing in the
background for the for theopening and the closing
Jerrod Jeffries (25:44):
the show notes so the Beatles get a little
little shout out, yeah, yeah toexist is enough so that gets us
to our final question.
Deb Tauber (25:56):
Are there any final words?
You would like our listeners toremember this conversation by?
Dr. Christine Park (26:01):
yes, and part of my transition into I'm
putting retirement in air quotes, into working as a coach to
help people kind of understand.
A thing which had took me so areally long time to understand
is that is, how much choice thateach of us actually has this
(26:22):
idea even of.
I have to.
Right, I have to work for xnumber of years because I don't
have enough money or I have tomeet this deadline, or so many I
have to.
But for most of us my questionis how true?
Is it really?
Disclaimer. Foster Simulat (26:38):
that .
Dr. Christine Park (26:39):
I have to.
I could, for example, choose tonot work another day in my life
.
There would be some veryserious consequences.
The bank would foreclose on ourhouse.
I mean all kinds of things aregoing to happen.
The bank would foreclose on ourhouse.
I mean, all kinds of things aregoing to happen.
So I choose not to have thoseconsequences and it's as a
(27:00):
result of that that I choose tokeep working.
So I think that these kind ofenergy shifts, you know from the
feeling of I have to submitthis report to my boss because
they've been on my case about it, feels so powerless.
If we were into instead to say,well, I choose to work over the
weekend to deliver this reportto my boss, feels much.
I feel the stance feels much,much different you know, or it's
(27:23):
possible that by workingthrough an exercise like this,
it's like oh, I actually don'thave to submit this on monday,
in fact, I don't have to workover the Monday, in fact, I
don't have to work over theweekend, in fact, it would be
fine if I submitted on Wednesdayinstead.
But I think we are much morefree and able to make choices in
our lives than we think we are,so that would be my parting
(27:45):
comment.
Deb Tauber (27:46):
Thank you, I very much agree, I think, with that.
We'll let it be.
You're here, right?
Dr. Christine Park (27:54):
Thank you so much for having me today.
Deb Tauber (27:56):
Thank you.
Yeah, if our listeners want toget hold of you, if they want to
use you for your coachingservices, you want to talk a
little bit about that for asecond.
Dr. Christine Park (28:05):
Yeah well, thank you for the invitation.
I can be reached at my email,which is christine, at
thechristineparkcom, and I wouldbe delighted to offer a free
discovery session to anyone whowants to learn more about what
coaching might be about.
Thank, you.
Jerrod Jeffries (28:24):
Thank you so much.
Deb Tauber (28:27):
We appreciate you and happy simulating.
Disclaimer. Foster Simul (28:31):
Thanks again to Foster Simulation
Supply for sponsoring thisweek's episode.
Foster Simulation Supply thecompetitive edge you need to
succeed.
Thanks for joining us here atthe Sim Cafe.
We hope you enjoyed.
(28:52):
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