Ep 7: Bernhard J. Gersh | From failing first year at med school to Rhodes Scholarship

03/27/15 • 35 min

The Medmastery Show - with Franz Wiesbauer MD

Today's guest is Dr. Bernhard J. Gersh. He is the Professor of Medicine and past Chair of Cardiovascular Education at Mayo Medical School, as well as Consultant of Cardiovascular Diseases and Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Born in Zambia, he went to highschool and medical school in South Africa. After medschool he received a Rhodes scholarship and went to Oxford where he did his PHD in anesthesiology. When he came back to SA, he started his training and learned the nuts and bolts of hands-on clinical cardiology. In 1978 he joined the Mayo Clinic to continue his training. He has remained in their faculty up until the present moment with a short break of 5 years that he spent in Georgetown University in Washington DC. He has been awarded many clinical honors and it’s no exaggeration to say that he’s one of the most renowned cardiologists in the world.

In this interview we're talking about Dr. Gersh's track record, how he evolved from having to repeat first year at medical school to having straight A's and receiving the Rhodes scholarship. Furthermore he gives advice to younger doctors on how to show effort and establish work relationships with senior colleagues.

Previous Episode

Ep 6: Jonathan Sackner-Bernstein (Part II) | The Art Of Medical Mastery Continues

This is part II of my interview with cardiologist and TED speaker, Dr. Jonathan Sackner-Bernstein. In this interview, he reveals several insights on how to be successful within clinical medicine but also outside. In case you’ve missed part I - click this link where you can also access the show notes.

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Here's a little bit of background on Jonathan:

Today’s guest is Dr. Jonathan Sackner-Bernstein, a cardiologist by training with a background in electrical engineering. He has had an amazing career so far... After doing his internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Mount Sinai in New York, he discovered his love for product development, which took him along a new and very interesting career path.

Among other positions, he served as an advisor to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was invited by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to serve as a consultant to their new Biological Tactics Office.

In a very inspiring TED talk at TEDx Brussels he discussed the fact that it’s never too late to leave your dent in the universe. I highly recommend you watch the talk! A large portion of our interview is centering around the things he discussed in that talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tSCdNmd4BM

Make sure to go to our blog where you can access the show notes with links to all books and resources that were discussed during the interview.

Next Episode

Ep 8: Pamela Douglas | Inspirational Advice from a Successful Female Cardiologist

We are really excited to present the first female guest in our show:

Today's guest is Pamela Douglas, MD. She is the Ursula Geller Professor for Research in Cardiovascular Diseases at Duke University and Director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute’s Imaging Program. Dr. Douglas is internationally known for her scientific work in noninvasive imaging especially echocardiography. She’s the author of over 320 papers and over 30 national guidelines, she has previously served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin. She was chief of cardiovascular medicine at Duke University and the University of Wisconsin as well as President of the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Echocardiography.

In this interview we talk about what makes a good researcher and clinician and she gives advice to all female doctors and scientists on how to be successful.

In this short interview (around 30 minutes) we talk about how to be happy and successful as a cardiologist, what makes a great clinician, researcher and overall human being. If you are working in cardiology, you don't want to miss these valuable nuggets of wisdom!

For more show-notes, please visit our blog at www.medmastery.com/blog