Friends of PonderMed,
I hope you’re all exceptionally well and enjoying the festive period… Here is my November 2018 roundup.
November podcast releases
*Links below are to blog posts (or “show notes”) with the podcast embedded in the post. You can also find the pods on iTunes and Spotify.
PonderMed #8: Dr. Fatima Ahmed. Obs and Gynae Registrar and Clinical Entrepreneur
Fatima is an obstetrics and gynaecology registrar based in Birmingham. She is also an NHS Clinical Entrepreneur with an interest in digital health. She is currently working on a project using immersive technology to train obstetrics and gynaecology doctors with a focus on procedural and emergency skills.
PonderMed #9: Henry May. Lessons From the Frontline of Social Entrepreneurship
Henry is a social entrepreneur based in Bogotá, Colombia. He is the CEO and co-founder of Coschool, an organisation that transforms the lives of young people across Colombia by building character and leadership skills
PonderMed #10: Chris Odedun. Doctor, DJ and Radio Host
Chris is a senior emergency medicine trainee in London. He is also a DJ and Radio Host. On his show, Music Takes Me Up, he curates old and new music from a range of genres with descriptive interludes. His aim is “to bring new music to your ears, and connect it to the music of your personal and auditory youth”.
Speaking
I was asked to give My Mental Toughness Manifesto (a talk I’ve been giving fairly regularly for the last 3 years or so) at the BASICS FHPC Annual Conference in Edinburgh. You can listen to a summary of my talk on The Resus Room Podcast. Thank you Jon Barratt for the invite (looking forward to chatting to Jon on the show soon).
I was then in Cardiff for the excellent EMTA 2018 conference where I spoke about the transition from junior to senior in emergency medicine training. Here is the blog version of my talk. Thank you Carrie Thomas for the invite. The future is bright for UK emergency medicine!
I had to leave EMTA early to head off to Neuchâtel, Switzerland. There, I spoke to Swiss emergency physicians about the evolving relationship between social media and medical education, and specifically the emergence of the #FOAMed phenomenon. Thank you Christopher Richard for this wonderful opportunity.
Please do get in touch if you’re interested in me speaking to your department/institution/event/group.
My favourite podcast this month
I’ve been listening to a lot of Unfiltered with James O’Brien. The Robert Webb and Lilly Allen episodes are particularly entertaining and insightful. The Bill Browder episode is frightening… but essential listening.
A great (and very relevant) film I re-watched
My wife Caroline and I sat down to re-watch Moneyball, based on Michael Lewis’s brilliant book. It depicts the 2002 season of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. The team’s general manager, Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), has to assemble a team on a tiny budget with little hope of competing for silverware. Beane signs a group of players who, on the surface, seem distinctly average. He signs them based on sophisticated statistical analysis of their game productivity as opposed to the appearance of how they throw/swing the bat… which had never been done before. That season the A’s broke the all-time record for most consecutive wins (20). I love the film for many reasons (Hollywood slick, Pitt, sports), but mainly because it beautifully parallels a major issue in the acute medical environment: the frailty of gut-instinct decision-making.
Something personal
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Last week I wrote down as many words/short phrases as I could think of to describe PonderMed on post-it notes. I then grouped similar ones together to map out overarching themes. Brand strategist Ali Vermilio, who is usually sat on the same table as me on the Ustwo Adventure Floor (the mutual workspace I frequent a day or so per week) kindly took 3 hours out of her day to facilitate this process for me. I found it incredibly useful to think about my “why”, and in our next session hopefully we’ll be able to distil it down to a single sentence. I’ve always wondered where this relentless drive to produce content for PonderMed comes from, and what my ultimate ambition is. I feel much closer to understanding now. I’ll be sure to update you as this exciting process of self-discovery evolves. Thank you Ali, I hope you enjoyed my humble offering of a white Americano and posh white chocolate!
That’s all folks!
Robbie
@Ponder_Med (twitter)
@pondermed (instagram)
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