Emergency Medicine TEDx Speaker – Dr. Amy Faith Ho

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Note: Some of this discussion was slightly altered for easier readability,

Know that what you are doing is a great thing, and even committing to medicine and choosing it,  is incredibly noble, and something you should be applauded for in the first place.” (Amy Faith Ho)

• The changing face of the doctor: I don’t think medicine is the old white guy in the white coat with the stethoscope and reflex hammer in his pocket anymore. I think medicine is like us, young people with a lot of diversity, diverse interests and more emphasis on work-life balance. We have our own lives, and like to take those experiences, and integrate them into how we take care of patients.

• Journey to Emergency Medicine and brand new boots: I was planning on doing law and policy, but I realized I had a fundamental gap of understanding of what it was like to be inside healthcare. I went on a sort of reconnaissance mission with full plans of being a consultant. Then I went to the Emergency Room and I had on these brand new spanking boots. I turned around and a trauma came in, they put in a chest tube and blood spattered all over my brand new boots… and I was like, “this is soooo cool!”

• Please listen to Amy’s memorable/funny story about 7 minutes into the conversation, it’s fantastic…

• Describing medicine to a young student: You are going into one of the most personally gratifying industries out there. You do have the potential to actually save lives and have huge impact. I think you will need to understand the obvious sacrifices. There’s emotional tolls you must be ready for. You are going to have patient complaints, you are going to have people pass away, you are going to have people that you advise into “do not resuscitates”. That’s an incredible impact, and incredible weight to take on, and you realize you are making life and death decisions for people with 3 times the life span that you do. You have to be really confident in your training and in your intention to feel comfortable about making those conversations and decisions.

• Tip for keeping up with life as a doctor – Triage your life/worst-case scenario: We are into triage in Emergency Medicine. There’s things that are really urgent and high risk. There’s thing that are urgent but lower-risk. I think if you triage appropriately, you will get away with time-management in a way that makes you happy. In triaging ask yourself: what’s the worst thing that can happen. If I miss a deadline for submitting this paper [for example] – well I won’t get published. That’s not a negative that’s a neutral, I’m just not published.

• Attitude, the key to medicine: I think that attitude is ultimately the key in medicine. I think you also need an internal gratitude for life in general. You realize life is fragile, relationships are fragile, you see incredible people… like ninety year-olds that have been married for seventy years and die within one day of each other… that’s actually really beautiful as well as tragic. I think we have to recognize the silver-lining to those sort of situations, because we are so privileged to be a part of those in so many people’s lives. I think if you come in with a bad attitude, no matter what specialty or industry… you are never going to ever be happy. You have to see the good in what you are doing, and accept the frustrations or get excited about how to change them.

• Follow the #FOAMED on twitter: There’s a trend in twitter #FOAMED – it’s kind of for resident/attending level, but it’s Free Open Access Medicine Education. It’s all of these specialists who are highly published with pearls and links to articles. I think this asynchronous learning is great for our lifestyle.

• And much more!