Stimulus - Learn Tools to Crush It in Your Medical Career - 90. The Dalai Lama’s Doctor Has a Prescription for You | The critical distinction between empathy and compassion

90. The Dalai Lama’s Doctor Has a Prescription for You | The critical distinction between empathy and compassion

10/23/22 • 54 min

Stimulus - Learn Tools to Crush It in Your Medical Career

Barry Kerzin, MD, the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, is back to dive deeper into: the difference between empathy and compassion, why compassion (versus empathy) is a critical aspect of medical care, generating self compassion, and answers to listener email.

Guest Bio: Barry Kerzin, MD is a US born and trained family physician who for the past several decades has resided as a monk in Dharamshala, India — home of the Tibetan community in exile. In addition to serving as H.H. the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, Dr. Kerzin is the founder of the Altruism in Medicine Institute, whose mission is to increase compassion and resilience among healthcare professionals and extended professional groups, such as police officers, first responders, teachers and leaders.

Self described as “...a doctor, a monk, a teacher, a lazy man. All of these things, yet none of these things,” you can follow Dr. Kerzin on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram or learn more about his story here.

Episode Sponsor: Ivy Clinicians. Curious if there’s a better clinical opportunity out there? Ivy is the simplest way for physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners to match with jobs they love. With Ivy, you can find all 5,549 emergency departments, filter by your preferences, and connect securely with the right employers. All for free.

For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website

Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event

⭐ Join us at Awake and Aware 2025, a game-changing 3-day workshop from May 5-7 in Bend, Oregon. Learn how to stay cool when the pressure’s on and lock in the mindset you need to flourish. Space is limited.

🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com

🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!

The Flameproof Course

The hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets

We Discuss:

The difference between empathy and compassion;
Can compassion be taught?
Listener email about having a hard time switching between empathy and compassion;
Barry’s response to the listener's email;
Self compassion after a bad patient outcome;
Exercises to help build compassion;
The decision point between accepting people how they are and trying to change them;
And More.

For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website

Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event

🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com

🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!

The Flameproof Course

The hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets

We Discuss:

The difference between empathy and compassion;
Can compassion be taught?
Listener email about having a hard time switching between empathy and compassion;
Barry’s response to the listener's email;
Self compassion after a bad patient outcome;
Exercises to help build compassion;
The decision point between accepting people how they are and trying to change them;
And More.

Previous Episode

89. The Drunk Whisperer | Verbal de-escalation for the agitated, upset, and unruly

Verbal de-escalation is a tool that can be learned by almost anyone. In this episode, we learn from two masters in the art of de-escalating those who are agitated and upset: Jose Pacheco, RN, known affectionately to his co-workers as ‘The Drunk Whisperer’, and Dan McCollum, MD, emergency physician at Augusta University. The core of this conversation hinges around an approach to conflict resolution that evolved from the martial arts principle of using your opponent’s energy to resolve conflict, rather than simply butting heads. The name for this method? Verbal Judo.

A proviso to all of this is that if the room/scene needs to be safe. Your top priority is to keep yourself and your team safe. Do not put yourself at risk. That doesn’t always mean physical escalation (though sometimes it does), it can simply mean removing yourself from the physical space of the escalating situation.

Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event

🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com

🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!

The Flameproof Course

The hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets

For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website

We discuss:

Jose Pacheco's tactics to de-escalate and defuse agitated patients in the emergency department [03:13];
Dan McCollum’s de-escalation sequence based on needs of the situation [09:30];
The unifying principle of verbal judo: Empathy absorbs tension [15:50];
Present the professional image [22:50];
The Universal Upset Patient Protocol [24:20];
“We treat people as ladies and gentlemen not because they are, but because we are.” [35:50];
You can’t control how an upset person is going to respond to conflict, you can only control how you respond. [36:40];
Seeing a situation from the other person’s eyes. [37:50];
Sword of Insertion technique aka How to politely interrupt [38:20];
Active listening [40:50];
Tips for interacting with difficult patients in the ED. [42:30];
Non-verbal cues [53:30].

Next Episode

91. Is this the end of note bloat? | Breaking down the 2023 documentation guidelines

28 years ago, the die was cast for how emergency department encounters were documented. Since then, we've had note bloat, click fatigue, and too much attention placed on things that really didn’t matter. All of that is slated to change in 2023 with dramatic new documentation guidelines (that today’s guest calls ‘refreshing’) are implemented. When was the last time you heard the word ‘refreshing’ used when it came to charting? And a massive thank you and hat tip to my friend Matt DeLaney who now runs ERcast - he was the first to alert us to these guidelines and interviewed Jason when they were first announced.

Guest bio: Jason Adler, MD is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland where he is also the director of compliance and reimbursement. He is also the vice president of acute care solutions at LogixHealth.

Episode Sponsor: Ivy Clinicians. Curious if there’s a better clinical opportunity out there? Ivy is the simplest way for physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners to match with jobs they love. With Ivy, you can find all 5,549 emergency departments, filter by your preferences, and connect securely with the right employers. All for free.

For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website

Awake + Aware | Our 2025 Live Event

🖱️ Website: Awakeandawarebend.com

🎓 P.S. Yes, this is a CME event!

The Flameproof Course

The hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets

We Discuss:

History and physical documentation are now at your discretion;
Heavy value is placed on cognitive work and medical decision making;
History from a non-patient source is valued in these guidelines;
Ordering a test is equally valued as not ordering a test;
Consideration of escalation or deescalation of care;
In addition to documenting your shared-decision making conversations, your MDM should include;
Population health - Stable means something different when it comes to documentation;
Social determinants of health;
There is a heightened emphasis of independent interpretations of separately billable procedures (EKGs, X-ray, CT, U/S);
Jason’s take home points;
And More.