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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast, Quality Improvement Executive Leadership Consultant, Margie Nelson, MS, MT, EMT, CPXP.

Margie has spent the past 20 years as a hospital quality and safety specialist handling risk, quality improvement, and communication enhancement.

Margie has recognized that quality of care is directly related to how well a patient understands what the physician is telling them. Many physicians don’t always have time to develop the relationship that the patient requires to build that trust and desire to take care of themselves.

Effective communication between physicians and their teams is foundational. Physicians need strong communication skills with peers and leadership, as well as with their patients. Often strong communication in one area will positively impact the others.

What steps does Margie suggest to improve communication between physician leaders, physician reports, and ultimately, patients?

• Step 1 - Set the expectation that colleagues can always come to you with questions, challenges, or suggestions.
• Step 2 - Exhibit the characteristics that you want to see in others.
• Step 3 - Acknowledge existing challenges and ask for partnership in solving those challenges.

Most importantly, PRACTICE improving how you communicate!

BIO

Margie Nelson, MS, MT, EMT, CPXP, is a Quality Improvement Executive Leadership Consultant with a demonstrated history of working with hospital and healthcare systems on quality, safety and patient experience of care. Most recently, she added Physician Wellness to her skills, administering a Physician Coaching program at Envision Healthcare, which made a significant impact on physician wellness and improvement of quality and safety scores. Margie’s education and training include a BS and MS from the George Washington University in Medical Technology and Healthcare Quality and Safety. She has worked on both sides of the care and regulatory aspects of Healthcare and continues to bring value to physician relationships with patients, leaders and colleagues.

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians.

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more.

PRACTICE Your Best!

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Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes ENT surgeon and professional coach Dr. Mel Thacker to the podcast.

Each of us carries two inner selves — the essential self and the social self. When these two are in harmony, we’re capable of extraordinary things. But when they’re out of alignment, it can lead to dissatisfaction, stress, or burnout.

The essential self is our true nature — who we are at our core, from birth. The social self is the identity we build over time to meet the expectations of others. As infants, we cry when we’re upset — pure essential self. As adults, we may feel like crying but force a smile to keep others comfortable — the social self at work.

So how do we bring these two selves into balance? Dr. Thacker offers three key steps:

• Step 1 - Recognize that most of us are living unconsciously. We tell ourselves we’ll be happy after we attain the next milestone. This is the arrival fallacy. Instead, we need to live consciously.
• Step 2 - Explore your earliest memories and consider why they stand out. These moments can offer valuable insights into your essential self — the version of you that existed before external expectations took over.
• Step 3 - Consider working with a coach to explore, identify, and integrate your essential and social selves. A coach can help you uncover unconscious patterns and align your path with who you truly are..

Most importantly, PRACTICE being your essential self!

BIO

Mel Thacker, MD, PCC, DipABLM is a fellowship-trained rhinologist/otolaryngologist, professional certified coach, and lifestyle medicine specialist.

After two years in academics, she realized how much she valued autonomy and pivoted to private practice, serving a Massachusetts community for nearly a decade. But when panic attacks and insomnia took hold, she turned to coaching—transforming the most emotionally painful year of her life into her greatest teacher. She emerged on the other side as a better human, clinician, surgeon, wife, mother, and friend. After that experience, her work evolved from taking care of patients to resourcing her fellow surgeons.

• Watch her TEDx talk, "How to Save Lives with Two Minutes of Listening," here.
• Her second TEDx talk, "Seeing Beyond the Red Swans," will be available in Spring 2025.

She is also the host of the groundbreaking podcast, Surgeons with Purpose, and the Founder of Empowered Surgeons Group, a program that will teach you everything you didn't learn in surgical training.

Social Media:

Follow her on Instagram here
Connect on LinkedIn here

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians.

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more.

PRACTICE Your Best!

Send us a text

Pump the brakes on your week and take 10 minutes to make your life as a surgeon just a little better…

Jeff welcomes to the podcast pediatrician, startup founder, and people connector, Dr. Zhen Chan.

In addition to earning his medical degree, Zhen earned an MBA during the middle of his residency, which offered a unique perspective.

Zhen is most passionate about solving large pain points for the healthcare industry. One of the main ways he pursues this goal is through networking with people in healthcare - not just those in the clinical sphere, but those behind the scenes as well.

As physicians, we go through med school and residency and the education and training process is primarily focused on the clinical aspects of medicine. But practicing medicine in the modern day system requires at least a baseline knowledge of many other things (operations, informatics, management, insurance, etc.) That’s not standardized in our medical training so we need to find ways to fill those gaps in our training. One of the best ways to do that is through making connections.

What steps does Zhen suggest we take to make better connections?

• Step 1 - Reach out to one other physician. Many physicians are hesitant to do this, but quite often, the person you’re reaching out to wants to provide advice or mentorship.
• Step 2 - Make networking a part of your life. That way, the world gets a lot smaller and you’ll have better options when you’re looking for new opportunities.
• Step 3 - Reach out to another physician with similar interests and continue this process to make networking a regular part of your life.

Most importantly, PRACTICE building connections through networking!

BIO: Zhen Chan, MD MBA FAAP

Healthcare Management | Pediatrics | Physician

Dr. Zhen is a pediatrician in Washington, DC with an MD and an MBA in Health Management and Policy. He is actively developing a career that integrates his interests in healthcare strategy and emerging health technology that can make a scalable impact on patient care outcomes, access, equity, and physician well-being.

He worked for one year in a healthcare venture capital company focused on pediatric health innovation as a Venture Fellow and later a Senior Associate. During residency, he was a Co-Chair of the Housestaff Quality Council at Weill Cornell Medicine, QI Captain for the primary care center where he had his pediatric continuity clinic, and an Advocacy Co-Chair for the pediatric department. He has extensive experience leading quality improvement initiatives and advocacy projects focusing on childhood obesity, HPV vaccinations, and food insecurity.

Currently, Dr. Zhen is the founder and CEO of Grapevyne, a pioneering physician job search platform that leverages physician peer-to-peer referrals to address the physician shortage crisis and issues around physician burnout by improving how physicians choose jobs and match to communities that need them.

Certifications: Board Certification in Pediatrics, Licensed in DC, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, IHI

Open School Basic Certification in Quality & Patient Safety

Awards: Distinguished Housestaff Award, Gold Humanism Honor Society, VC University Scholarship Recipient, MD MBA Scholarship Recipient

Social Media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

SurgeonMasters is a physician peer community dedicated to improving the personal and professional well-being of physicians.

Join your colleagues online at SurgeonMasters.com for events, resources, and more.

PRACTICE Your Best!