Amanda Dinsmore (00:01.131)
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am Amanda.
Laura (00:05.082)
I'm Laura.
Kendra Morrison (00:06.463)
and I'm Kendra.
Amanda Dinsmore (00:08.123)
And we are so excited today because we have a special guest, Dr. Amy Vertrees. She is a veteran surgeon, coach, author, and podcast host. Her podcast that you'll want to check out is called BOSS Business of Surgery Series, that's what BOSS stands for, podcast, and helps surgeons love surgery again, not take work home, get home quicker, have confidence, and the topic of our podcast today, Ding, Ding.
is not let complications set you back. In fact, we'll link to her episode number 99, which is called Thriving Despite Having Complications. We all need this. So many of our ER colleagues struggle with this, but everyone that's a physician is sometimes gonna have a miss or a complication or something, and it's so easy for us to start beating ourselves up about it. But who better than a surgeon?
to be specially positioned to take us through this topic. So thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Vertrees.
Amy Vertrees (01:10.722)
Oh, thanks, Amanda. Thanks, Lauren and Kendra. I mean, what an honor. I really appreciate being on here and especially elevating the message because there's one thing that I've learned over the last few years of being a coach is that there's so many harmful messages that we can, I mean, simple concepts that once we say them and reframe them in a certain way, then it makes it really obvious how the solution is right in front of us. We are unnecessarily making our life hard. So I'm hoping that I can really shine a light on a lot of ways that we're making ourself miserable that are completely optional.
Kendra Morrison (01:44.382)
I love that. Once again, I will echo they are completely optional. Which changed my life. Yeah, it changed my life when I when I found that out. Oh, this is optional. Not 100% Laura says all the time, not 100% of our thoughts are true and they we have to live by them. No. So well, thank you, Dr. Vertreese and so tell our listeners a little bit about you. Tell us about your training, your family, what you like to do and how you got into coaching.
Amy Vertrees (01:51.746)
They don't feel optional, but I swear they are.
Amy Vertrees (03:08.19)
What a great question. I think it's been a variety of experiences for sure. So I went to the only military medical school we have, Uniformed Services University. Don't worry if you haven't heard it. A lot of people haven't. It's like the best school in the entire world. So I we become an officer in the military and I chose the army and we go through the medical school and then we have a payback. So we do our residency and then our payback happens afterwards. So unlike the HPSP, which is the
scholarship program where you can go to any school you want. This is choosing that particular school. So I went to that school and ended up staying on training at Walter Reed and this is at the height of the wars. So definitely a unique experience. And we also did rotations in some really amazing hospitals around at Fairfax and Shock Trauma and things like that. So got a great experience in training. Then I went to
I stayed on as staff at Walter Reed and I was our associate program director and things. And then I deployed three times, twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq and learned a little bit more variations of experience in practice too. Then after I paid back my commitment, I got a job as an employed surgeon because everyone says that's what you do. You get employed because private practice is dead. So I said, okay. And I got my three years in employee practice and decided to not stay.
as an employed surgeon, I decided to open my own private practice because what I was missing was autonomy. And so what I've discovered over time is that there is no perfect job. Everything has gives and takes. And so right now I'm in my third year, beyond third year of private practice, learning all those lessons. And so the Boss Business of Surgery series started with me just trying to fill in those gaps, those lessons not taught in residency.
and complications is just one of them. But I do a lot of practice, how do we navigate for ourselves? How do we run different things? And it's all based on the variety of practices that I've experienced to this day.
Kendra Morrison (05:14.986)
Wow, that's awesome. That's amazing. Those places that you rotated with and that experience and then being deployed, thank you so much, Dr. Vertrees for your service too. We do wanna honor you on that aspect too, not only just furthering the care that you provide, but also serving all of us in that manner. So thank you very much. And like we said, the title of this show today is about complications and we know they happen and yet many of us have
Amy Vertrees (05:23.364)
of the kids.
Kendra Morrison (05:45.42)
tendencies might we say and unwilling to extend that self-compassion to ourselves. So you mentioned in your podcast about some amazing quotes to remember and I think all of us can expand to include all docs, excuse me, not just surgeons. Will you share those with me and why they're so important?
Amy Vertrees (06:06.758)
There's so many different layers to all of this too. So I'm not 100% sure which part, but let me tell you some of the things that I think about when I think of complications. So complication means I meant something to happen and it didn't happen that way. And it's so fascinating when we think about that as simple as possible. So we break things down as simply as possible. It's like, I did not achieve my stated outcome. It was therefore a failure. So it feels like a failure and we do not tolerate said failure.
But the most fascinating aspect is when you ask a patient, did you know that this was gonna happen? Like, yeah, you told me, and we've forgotten that part. The whole consent procedure is, these are the risks of undergoing surgery. Are you willing to it? Like, oh yeah, sure, they sign it. And so one of my favorite things is to go back and ask ourselves as surgeons, like, did we consent to this procedure? Do we consent to the possibility of bleeding, infection, damage to stuff around it, need for further procedures?
all those things that we say in our sleep, we stop listening to that part. So first is we basically ignore the possibility that it's gonna happen. So we're already setting us up for some failure because we think the only option is perfection. So that's a problem. And the second thing is that we don't realize that it's just not achievable. I think that's the most important thing. It's not achievable to be perfect all the time.
And if we are the surgeon or we're the doctor making the decision and the power is within us and the knife is in our hand, the decision is in our hand, whether it's the computer or a knife that we're doing to treat this patient, it is us doing this. So if we consider this as a failure and we notice that we are the one doing this, we are basically saying I have created this failure and then we have to decide what we do with that information.
First, we're recognizing that's completely unreasonable. It's not very compassionate. But the most important thing is we're just not looking at it in a simplistic way that these things happen and we're not expected to be perfect all the time. Our patients actually don't expect us to be perfect. No one really expects us to be perfect, except for us.
Amanda Dinsmore (08:27.351)
to quote some of the some of the quotes that you put on that episode 99 because I love him so much but I'm going to change it to doctors the only doctor who doesn't have complications is the one who doesn't practice and then the second one you said but trans transcribed to doctor every doctor carries within him a small cemetery from which from time to time he goes to pray a place of bitterness and regret where he must look for an explanation of his failures
Kendra Morrison (08:27.607)
Yeah.
Amy Vertrees (08:51.35)
Yes.
Amanda Dinsmore (08:56.771)
Those resonated with me so much and the point you were making was like, this is inevitable and it's hard to get over. And that is so true with both of those. I think everyone should listen to podcast number 99 on the Boss series. It is so good.
Amy Vertrees (09:14.806)
And I think this goes to, I think the graveyard is a great example, and that was not me, that was a quote from like, I think the 1800s. And the point is, is that there is a place within us. And I think that's a really important concept is that when you think of complications and dealing with complications and our feelings about that, we're never gonna get to a place where we're happy that this happened. So there's always gonna be some element of a feeling that we want to do something with.
But this is part of our lived experience. This is part of what we accept as the challenge of being a physician or making these difficult decisions. Like not everyone can do this. Not everyone can bear that weight. The way that you can bear this weight is to recognize that it is a weight separate from yourself. That if you're going to visit a graveyard, it means it's separate from you. It means that there's a part of you want to visit. You want it to be there. You don't want it to go away. But you also don't want to live there all the time. And so...
What we can do, what is reasonable to do, is find a place to where you can contain it in a place that you allow yourself to visit, rather than one that is your environment and you can't see past it.
Kendra Morrison (10:26.594)
Yeah, that is really good. It's almost like I heard my attending when I was in training say, when we do different procedures as ER docs, like a central line and saying things like, oh.
have you had a pneumothorax or any complication with any procedures, but saying, for example, a central line and they're like, and you know, you're like, oh no, you know, every resident wants to say no, 100%, you know, no pneumothorax or no complication. The attending says, well, then you haven't done enough, you know, and it's just like that perspective. I didn't realize what that meant before, like saying, well, you know, just do enough and the chances are you'll have, you'll drop a lung or you'll do whatever. But that's what that's saying really is
Be okay that not if it happens but when and almost preparing or that Intentionality around your thoughts about that complication like oh, this is what he was talking about Okay Being able to wrap my head around the fact that I should drop along here at some point it will happen It's inevitable, but then almost preparing our thoughts to say okay when it happens I can also be an intentional creating You know whatever thought about that now when it's not happening so that I can tune into that
when it does happen, I guess so.
Amy Vertrees (11:41.886)
Yes, it's stated another way. I always like to keep it simple. So if let's say, you know, one in 100 times, it's possible to drop along with a chest tube. And if we do it 100 times, then that is a statistic, but we will argue with reality all day long. Like that won't happen to me. It's arguing with reality.
Kendra Morrison (12:02.738)
Isn't that yes, isn't that great? I like how that is. Yeah, that's great point So describe our roles as secondary victims of the complications
Amy Vertrees (12:13.398)
Right, so when we do something, an action, we set out to do something, we cause harm, and what then happens is, so the patient is harmed. We all agree that the patient is harmed if something happens unexpected. So they are worse off than potentially when they started. Maybe, I mean, that also goes into the fact that we ignore the other realities that the patients come with their own problems. They come with a problem that we need to fix.
that if we weren't there, they actually made me worse off too. So who knows? So that's a different concept altogether. But this idea of a second victim is like, you have one victim, the patient has been harmed. But adding more harm to that is unnecessary. For us to then harm ourselves, we do not have to be the second victim. So recognizing that the pain that we cause ourself and or the system causes us or all of these other things is unnecessary suffering.
Like the patient is injured, will always be injured, or some suboptimal outcome has happened. It's an outcome that we did not really plan for. But nothing else has to happen until we choose to make it happen. We do not have to think that we're terrible people. We don't have to cause our self-punishment. We don't have to do all of these things. These are done by choice. I think it's a really great question is to ask ourself, why do we do this?
Why do we think this is necessary? I think this goes into the culture that we were raised in. It's like, why do we think that this is necessary to do that? Because on some level, we think that it is motivation to get better.
Amy Vertrees (13:56.614)
And I would mention that is basically if we're a, I'm like right here and I want to get to B, whereas I don't make this mistake again. We think that punishment and suffering is a way to get to that point to where we don't have that mistake happen again. But that's a really expensive fuel to use to get you to feel like you have a better outcome or get you to a place where you can have a better outcome the next time. And that fuel is a choice.
Laura (13:58.614)
And.
Laura (14:24.903)
It's so interesting what we do to ourselves. And I would argue it's not just the culture we grew up in, but the culture we experienced through our medical training that wires us this way. Can be.
Amy Vertrees (14:39.843)
And I'm glad that you said that because if you think about it, why do we do that? And we were talking, I think, before we started recording of like, we think that perfection is the outcome that we're aiming for. So one, we think that's what everyone wants. And that's a different point. I'll argue that in a minute that I don't think that's actually what we want. So we think there's a perfect outcome. So when we don't have a perfect outcome, what we want to do is just tell everyone that is not OK that this perfect outcome didn't happen.
And this is like M&M here too, instead of being like, I'm gonna learn more, we say this is why you're never gonna make that mistake again, because the only model that we're modeling after is perfection. So if we hide it, if we think there's something wrong with it, we're basically sending the message that unless you're perfect, then you're doing something wrong. And the one thing that we can offer that could change this cycle is to say, I am a human, I try my best, this is statistically happens.
know this event has occurred and it happens and it's okay that it happened because it's arguing with reality to say it's not going to happen. So instead of modeling that perfection is our goal and that is our only goal is to find a different thing to model to where we don't have to cover up making a mistake and instead go into the point of saying something happened how can we do this better rather than how could I make myself better which you know
we want to de-identify what's going on. Because sometimes, honestly, if you have complications, and this is where the motivation comes from, this harm that we cause ourself is simply so we don't do it again, because we don't want to cause any harm. But we can say, like, the goal is not to cause any harm again. So do I do this from covering it up and thinking it won't happen and putting my head in the sand and telling everyone else they can't do it? Or do I say, like, maybe I can look at this in a way of saying, I don't want this to happen again.
What are the best steps for me to do this to where I can get better and no one else has to suffer, including myself?
Laura (16:43.603)
Yeah. So how can we start to look at complications differently? So rather than ruminating in misery for months and years when we have a complication, what can we do differently?
Amy Vertrees (16:57.218)
I think looking at the role of what complications are offering us. So if we think that this happened and we realize that we are not perfect, this complication is feedback on something that we have done. And we can say this is feedback that we are terrible, or this is feedback of something that we did could have been done better. So one is simply the technical aspect of saying,
to look at this externally, not internally, like I'm a terrible person, but look externally and saying, this is an outcome that I did not want. How do I improve this outcome? So this is like your root cause analysis. This is your looking at everything. This looking at my numbers and, you know, instead of arguing with reality that shouldn't happen and saying like, am I an outlier? You know, is there something I need to look at and look at it from a place of focusing on improvement. And another thing is if we acknowledge that complications are inevitable.
like a patient's gonna come in and potentially be harmed, is asking herself the question, what does the patient actually want from us? And I think we think, again, because we've been taught this, the patient wants a perfect outcome. Well, the patient, everyone wants a perfect outcome, but what do we expect? So a patient is gonna expect from us that we will do our best, not necessarily perfect. They don't expect us to be perfect. They expect us to show up, do our best, try hard within the system that we have.
they also expect to know what happens, what happened to them, especially as a surgeon. I remember talking to a patient who said, I just wanna know what happened to me. I was asleep, I don't know. I don't know what happened to my body. So when someone is harmed and you have an outcome that is unexpected, it is our job to tell them what happened, to give them all the things, to give them the knowledge that we have. And if we are afraid,
If we're thinking that we are worried about ourselves or worried about what they're gonna think of us, what we do is we hide and we don't tell them what happened to them. Or we think, I can't tell them what happened, they're gonna know I did something wrong. So we're actually robbing the patient of knowing what happened to them. And making sure that they know we're gonna be there for them. And if we are inside our head too much or avoiding them because we're uncomfortable, they're not getting the comfort that they need.
Amy Vertrees (19:23.422)
So knowing that the patient wants like three things from us, we did our best, we tell them what happened, and we see them through. And also we care about them and we learn from this and their experience was not for nothing. So there's a lot that we can do that is not involving being perfect. And in fact, if we're so wrapped around the axle about being perfect, we will miss all of those things that are the most important aspect of a patient's care.
Laura (19:54.363)
Wow, that's such good wisdom there. That's so good. So do you have any tips for anyone who's having a hard time having compassion or grace for themselves after a complication, or even just a near miss? What would you tell that person?
Amy Vertrees (20:09.666)
There's so much to it, I mean, I just actually put a post in my Facebook coaching group a couple weeks ago, I had my own complication and I've gone through all the things. I mean, I know a lot of the concepts. I know the self-compassion, the perfectionist thinking, all the aspects of it and I couldn't figure out why I was still having a hard time with it. And there's so many emotions. It was interesting because the emotion that I came up with that I was struggling with the most, there was actually two and one was confusion.
and another was grief. And I was confused because I wanted to feel better, because why wouldn't I? And I also didn't want to feel better. So, I mean, the idea that we could have these two opposing desires is normal. So if you find yourself experiencing this, and you have this whole mass of emotions going on, and a lot of times we're just not taught to tease out the different kinds of emotions, so all we feel is,
I feel bad. I would like to feel good as possible, but then I shouldn't feel good. So is first is recognizing that the feeling like you're confused and you're in this like mess of stuff is absolutely appropriate and normal. Like you want to have some element of feeling all of this. You don't want to feel great. You actually kind of want to feel bad, but it's also normal to want to feel good too. And
Amanda Dinsmore (21:17.625)
Yeah.
Amy Vertrees (21:37.362)
So that's where I started realizing that some of the problem is that we are confused because you don't realize you could have multiple emotions all at once. I could feel empowered and also disempowered because I haven't done what I wanted to do. I can feel compassion and I can also feel a little frustration in the system, especially if a system problem contributed to all this.
I could feel powerful and then I could do something and I could also feel powerless because this stuff happens. So there's so many conflicting emotions. I think it's just acknowledging that we can start looking at these, exploring things in more detail, because you'll be at a different point along the way. It's just like those cycles of death. There are cycles of this grief and confusion and frustration. And everyone's going to be on the continuum in a different way.
And when you get feedback from someone, because that's what we want to do, we want someone to help us make us feel better. So they'll offer us thoughts that may not resonate with us because we're not in that space yet. So like when they say like, well, these things happen. Well, if you're like arguing with reality that shouldn't happen, then that doesn't resonate with you yet. So I think it's just important to recognize that dealing with complications is, there's a lot to it. There's a whole lot to it. And to have a little bit of
Amanda Dinsmore (22:50.243)
Mm-hmm.
Amy Vertrees (22:59.682)
grace to say, or a little bit of compassion for yourself to say, it's okay for me to feel what I'm feeling right now. It's okay for me to be where I'm at right now. And this is not all consuming. This will pass. There was a suggestion that someone had about lighting a candle each night. I thought that was a pretty interesting way of doing it. It kind of contains and put a boundary around your feelings. Because one of the problems that we have is that you have this complication.
or you have to be in clinic and talk to this person or in the ER and talk to this person about this terrible thing that happens. And then you go right next to the person who stubbed their toe and they're there. We have to compartmentalize these things too. So what I thought was really helpful is that you can compartmentalize it and go on with your life, but then visit it every now and then. And the suggestion that someone had was they, this was not my suggestion, it was someone else's, where they lit a candle each night.
Amanda Dinsmore (23:37.847)
Mm-hmm.
Amy Vertrees (23:55.086)
and gave themselves a little bit of time to acknowledge what had happened. They blow out the candle and then they would do that again the next night. Eventually, the candle would burn down. They said, with each complication, they basically let themselves pay attention to it over time. She said, at one point there was like six candles, different levels of it. But my point is that we can learn to contain these, compartmentalize them and-
say that I can feel bad in this space over here, but I can still move on in the rest of the space. And I can allow myself to go through the work of processing it a little bit each time and not necessarily have to resolve something right now, because we don't necessarily want to brush it on the rug. It's too complex sometimes for that. And we want it to be honored. And so some simple things like that are different ways to honor it and acknowledge it.
and compartmentalize it so we can still not be paralyzed by it. Because that's another way that we move on is not being paralyzed by it.
Laura (24:58.887)
Oh, absolutely. I love the candle. That's a great little practice to help constrain it to that one spot. That's great. So let's move to confidence and self-confidence. Do you have any tips for someone who has the yips as it's called in sports?
Amy Vertrees (25:12.843)
Mm-hmm.
Amy Vertrees (25:17.834)
Yeah. Oh, I never, I mean, it was only a few years ago that I even heard the difference between confidence and self-confidence. And I find a lot of power in definitions of all things because, you know, it's defining and clarifying things that help the most. So confidence is, I believe I can do it. I can believe I could do this one thing because of muscle memory. I believe I could put, I could make an incision.
and get into the abdomen and do all the things that seem really unachievable a long time ago because I've done it so many times that I'm confident. I'm confident I can get into there without ripping into anything, that kind of thing. So, confidence comes from doing it over and over again. Self-confidence is I am okay, I know that I can do things, which means that I haven't done it before. But self-confidence means that I am secure in myself, I will not allow myself to harm myself, I can take a chance.
because if something happens, I know I'm still gonna be okay. It's essentially the safety net that you offer yourself when you go up on a tightrope of trying to do something challenging. So I know that tightrope can be higher and higher and higher, the stronger my self-confidence is, the more infallible my safety net is. So confidence is just, in fact, confidence is like, yeah, I'm not actually impressed with confidence anymore. It's like, of course, I mean, you do something in uptime, it's gonna be fine.
Laura (26:42.024)
Thanks.
Amanda Dinsmore (26:43.328)
Yeah.
Amy Vertrees (26:43.51)
But I'm much more impressed with self confidence. So like, how do I do this scary thing without harming myself? How do I go about doing big cases and knowing that if the worst happens because it's statistically possible, no longer arguing with reality, and now I can look down and the ground is pretty far down. Like, how can I still do all these things that involve a lot? And I could do that because I will not allow myself to be crushed by.
disappointment or a failure.
Laura (27:16.135)
That is so key, like just to living life. I love that so much.
Amanda Dinsmore (27:16.504)
Yeah.
Amy Vertrees (27:23.338)
and
Amanda Dinsmore (27:23.667)
And it was mind blowing to me to realize that there was no one criticizing me more than myself. And that's the one voice I couldn't escape. And so if you know you're gonna beat yourself up and tear yourself apart if you fail, well no wonder you don't wanna try anything. But if you know that you will have your own back, suddenly you've opened your entire world to take risks. To...
to know that you're not going to sit there and beat yourself up over and over and over opens your entire life up to experience. I was like, well, nobody's criticizing me. Oh, but I was like, oh no, dadgummit.
Laura (28:09.179)
Yeah.
Amy Vertrees (28:10.211)
I just in the middle of reading this book, it's really great book is called All You Need is a Goal. I think it's john a cuff or something. So he had this really interesting idea behind this. So if we're, if you can hear me, can you guys hear me now? Sorry. So this book is all you need is a goal. And in this part of the book, he was talking about how we are our worst enemy. So if you think about enemy thinking like in warfare,
Can you imagine the advantage an enemy would have if they were in your head and knew all your thoughts and were there with you 24 seven? Which is essentially when we set up an eternal part of us as an enemy, like of course they have like a remarkable advantage. Unlike any other enemy in history, they have all of our thoughts and all of our time and they're there with us all the time. They know all the ways to come at us. So we can either think of a part of ourself as an enemy and know that
this is a pretty significant opponent or saying like, well, you know, maybe I can collaborate with this enemy that I have, maybe we can kind of like come on the same page.
Amanda Dinsmore (29:16.511)
Yeah, exactly. What would that be like to like be buddies instead of enemies? So along this line, it's a frequent thing that we see with people who are prone to perfectionism and prone to judging themselves. Do you have any suggestions for somebody who struggles with imposter syndrome?
Amy Vertrees (29:41.266)
oh, the first is just recognize it in the first place. Just like, it's so fascinating that we interact with other people. We feel terrible about something that's happened and we think it's the person who's nearby. We waste a lot of energy thinking, that person is so mean to me, they said these things, that patient, it says, you know, first is recognizing that feeling that we have in ourself is generated from a thought that we have about ourself. So once we start,
Amanda Dinsmore (29:54.415)
Mm-hmm.
Amy Vertrees (30:09.794)
not wasting energy on other people and recognizing that the feelings that we have are generated by something that we're telling ourselves, then we start pointing to the source, which is I wonder what I'm telling myself. And I wrote an article a while back of Stop Resisting the Imposter. It was a Kevin M.D. article. And this, I basically approached it as that voice in your head is if you separate it to a different person.
that voice in your head is certainly someone, they're just worried. There's like, I mean, they have their best interests at heart. If you think about it, like the person who nags us, like your mom or whatever, they say all those things. They're really genuinely coming from a place of love and fear and worry for us. They are there for us. So in that article I mentioned of, instead of resisting this person, saying like, stop telling me these things, you don't know what you're talking about, of saying like,
I don't know, do you? Maybe you should tell me what you're worried about. Because when we start speaking our fears out loud, we're like, yeah, that's no big deal. You know, I can see why you may think that. And it's funny, I have noticed a pattern myself now that I've tuned into this thought and embraced this thought and allowed it to voice its opinion. I can tell you that opinion is almost always in the morning when I wake up and I think of all the worst things that could possibly happen and then.
Amanda Dinsmore (31:12.306)
Yeah.
Amy Vertrees (31:34.034)
And I used to act on those things. I used to act on it. And then I would step back and I'd have my coffee like, why on earth was I worried about that in the first place? You know, that seemed like a, you know, it was a little bit of overreaction, wasn't it? But I can get to the point of clarity of saying that voice in my head is for me. And in my book, I call it the itty bitty shitty committee. Because it is, those voices are distinct different voices. There's a voice of empowerment, the one that wants us to do stuff.
Laura (31:56.896)
Thank you.
Amy Vertrees (32:03.03)
There's the voice that says, I don't know if you should do that, this is scary. There's this whole committee of voices in our head that is simply trying to go about the function of getting us to do things in a way that serves us best. I think the movie Inside Out had that best. You guys remember all that, where in our head is all this character of people? And it's totally true. I mean, I think once we put them in that perspective, then we don't put that voice down as much.
Amanda Dinsmore (32:20.111)
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Dinsmore (32:32.747)
love it. Yeah, it's always fascinating to me. The people that struggle with imposter syndrome tend to be the best trained tend to be like, excellent, excellent physicians. And yet, still don't believe it. So I like just being able to put a label on it and realizing that your brain just wants you to be safe. And it's just offering up a maladaptive way to keep you safe. And once you recognize that, then you can start choosing other thoughts.
because objectively these people are amazing. Well, tell our people they're gonna wanna know, oh, yeah, go, go.
Amy Vertrees (33:04.83)
Yeah, and here's an interesting concept.
Oh, yeah. But an interesting concept is that voice may be why we got to where we're at. Like, we're criticizing that voice that's making you know, causing us harm. But that voice is actually the one that maybe got us to this point of achievement. It's that concept of like, we'll got you here, we'll get you there. It's like that voice of like nagging and whipping at us and stuff got us this point. But at some point, when we start to realize it doesn't serve us anymore, then we kind of turn on it. So can you imagine that part of us that's that motivates us that
Amanda Dinsmore (33:28.075)
Mm-hmm.
Amy Vertrees (33:38.294)
gets us to achieve, you know, when we start turning on back, like, how could you? How much self harm that could cause too, because that voice is a part of us. And if we, you know, listen to it as something that it has different needs now, or we have different needs now, then we, we approach that voice on a much more open and compassionate side, rather than why am I saying that to myself too, which is, you know, our own second victim.
Amanda Dinsmore (34:06.099)
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So tell our listeners they're going to want to figure out so you mentioned your book, how do they get in touch with you? How do they find out more about you or work with you if they're if they're even eligible for that?
Amy Vertrees (34:19.69)
Yeah, I think that's a great point. You can find most things from bosssurgery.com. So that has links to my social media and links to the book and links to my coaching. So I coach one-on-one for anyone actually, typically physicians. My group is currently open just to female surgeons, but probably in 2024, I will open it to any physician. And the goal is lessons not taught in residency. So these are things that I have on the Boss Podcast.
and also in my Become the Boss MD Success Beyond Residency book, which you can find on Amazon. And the goal is for you to identify what the problems are. And what the problems are that we're all dealing with, we just, we didn't have time in residency to do all those things, but it's just how to become more functional in a different environment, you know, beyond our training, I think is, is where a lot of this comes from.
And the BOSS podcast itself, I really tried to highlight the hero's journey. You're gonna hear people who, a lot of times people are a little hesitant to come on and talk about some things and some unexpected things. It's not the business of medicine is how we are interacting and it's all the things. We talk about divorce, we talk about bad leaders, we talks about toxic jobs, and talk about like our difficulties on call and complications and...
This is the business that we're in. We're in the business of being humans in a complex world in a very difficult job with a lot of responsibilities. And there's a heavy burden on us. And so I think that it's, we all are walking around with a lot of shame and frustration and fear and worries. And the more we can verbalize that as normal, then people can start to see like, okay, well, I mean, they seem okay and they're going through this. So maybe I'm okay too.
And that's really what I want to take home with in the coaching and the pockets in the books to say that you're not alone. There's definitely some tips and tricks, but the most important thing is like this is part of the lived experience. And, you know, we're all worthy of this journey and we all have the ability to really thrive in this life if we are not our own worst enemy.
Amanda Dinsmore (36:34.339)
love that. I'm translating that we're allowed to be imperfect humans and still be good doctors. So before we close out are there any last thoughts?
Amy Vertrees (36:39.755)
Yeah.
Laura (36:40.135)
Oh, yes.
Amy Vertrees (36:43.306)
No, I really appreciate all that you are doing. I mean, I think that business, or I guess medicine is challenging itself. I mean, it's challenging the system is, feels broken in like many different ways. And, you know, we are the ones that are living in this. And I think it's through, you know, Amanda and Kendra and Laura, your efforts and my efforts of us putting it out there, I think we are the solution.
I think we're seeking the solution, but I honestly think we are the solution. So I appreciate all that you're doing because I think it's things like this that really are going to change medicine.
Kendra Morrison (37:22.55)
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Vertreese for joining us today. Such amazing wisdom, and I know it just comes from your years of service and your training, and also your real lived experience, and how best to relate to our listeners than just having doctors like you that come on and are brave enough to just tell about your lived experience. And I know that at least one person out there is gonna relate and get so much out of this. So thank you, thank you, thank you
joining us today. And if you are ready, then we are going to bring you just in time for the new year and after the holiday binge, a live free class that we have overcoming over whatever and join us Wednesday, December 27 at noon central to learn better ways to handle our emotions and our triggers that are getting ready to get tested beyond anything we can handle. So visit our website
physician.com to get more information. So until next time, you are whole, you are a gift to medicine, and the work you do matters.
