Resa Lewiss MD
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
So our goal is to break things down into small micro skills, small fundamental units, behaviors to help the reader gain the skill. So networking is huge and can be intimidating and people are like, I'm shy. So we actually just, first of all, talk about its importance in terms of developing your own expertise, but also in terms of creating healthy teams and in terms of growing health.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
how you maybe find your next opportunity. A lot of this is through networking and the snowballing effect of networking. For example, Chris Hare and I met. He suggested I reach out to you. Now we're speaking in conversation. That's part of the snowballing effect of even we advise in that chapter of
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Every time you meet with someone who's a mentor or someone with whom you're connected, say, hey, is there someone that you would suggest that I reach out to based on my question about this or based on the expertise that I'm looking to develop on that?
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
One highlight specific that I really like because this is the part that I really learned personally and then have written about is networking for introverts. And many workplaces are very much built for extroverts and networking events are built for extroverts. We have highlighted ways that the introvert can actually reserve and keep their energy and not get drained at networking events.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And we talk about deciding you don't have to stay for the full extent of the networking event. You can arrive late. You can leave early. You can actually specifically go there, decide that you are going to
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
meet three new people exchange contact information and ask them is it okay if i follow up tomorrow or sometime next week and then you've grown your network but basically had like a tangible goal in mind and then once you achieve that goal you can leave the event There's other things. I talk about academic medicine conferences. They're often at large hotels.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And one of the ways to conserve your energy is don't stay at the big conference hotel where there's going to be a lot of noise and sort of social overload. Stay at a nearby hotel that's quieter, that allows you an easy escape. Or say there's someone that you really want to meet.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Try to make an arrangement ahead of time to meet up with them at the event, but actually from the event, go for a walk, have a walking meeting, and return back to the event. So there are many ways to design networking experiences if you identify as an introvert that doesn't feel draining, overwhelming, or something that you really just detest.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Because really, it can be very enjoyable, and it really is part of being healthy in your professional life.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
I love what you just shared. And to your point, just because someone is an introvert does not mean that they are shy or socially awkward or socially inept. In fact, they often go hand in hand. And I'm very similar to you. I don't mind being in a room of strangers, introducing myself, meeting people.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
But where we recharge and what are the sort of social and networking designs that give us the most energy? So our chapter one is Microskills for Self-Care, and we were very intentional in making that our chapter one because we really believe that everything starts with the self.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And the better you are in terms of yourself, your health, and we'll talk about what health means, the better team member you are, the better you're able to produce a high-quality product. Whether that product is patient care, whether that product is a policy paper, whether that product is bringing something to market. I think everybody understands this concept of the better work product.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And we felt it was very important because of everything that everybody's been reading about in terms of workout, burnout, moral injury. And there is a crisis in medicine. There's a crisis and epidemic in emergency medicine. But it is not just health care. This concept of burnout and moral injury is across many industries. And so the question is why?
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And part of it is we know that we are not as powerful as these organizations, these companies, these industries. However, we strongly feel that we can have individual agency. So part of making Microskills for Self-Care our chapter one was to teach about it, talk about it, but also to inspire the reader to realize their individual agency. And
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Going back to the health part, we don't just talk about physical health. We talk about mental health, emotional health, social health, financial health, civic health. Health is the key to everything in life. Without our health, our personal and professional lives are very challenging.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And so, for example, in that chapter one, we talk about sleep and we talk about deliberate rest and I'll talk about the difference. But what I think I wanted to make sure I emphasize is we did this because it's not taught, it's not modeled, it's not lauded. Certainly in medicine. And in fact, it's often rewarded if you're, quote, strong and you don't need to sleep or you stay up for 48 hours.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Now, thank goodness duty hours and rules have changed. That's no longer legal because it really isn't safe. It's not safe for patients and it's not safe for the health care worker, the physician in this case, to be doing such things as that. We tell these stories that at the time they're funny, not funny.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
For example, many physician colleagues we've seen walk around the emergency department working their shift while having an IV pole
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
in their arm walking around with the pole getting their medicine for example to try to abate a migraine headache or because they've been they have food poisoning and they're trying to rehydrate themselves i tell the story of like when driving home after an overnight shift and having not slept hoping that i don't have to stop at a red light or when i lived in manhattan i wouldn't sit down on the subway because i would miss my stop and wake up in queens and the environments aren't necessarily set up
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
to take care of ourselves or teach us how to take care of ourselves. But we strongly feel that we need to prioritize taking care of ourselves. And so like you, we talked a bit about sleep. I actually didn't realize and appreciate and believe, and so I started reading the science and also feeling the difference of when I really started paying attention to taking care of my sleep.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And sleep, we absolutely need it for our health. It is actually a detoxing time for our brain. It gives our guts a rest. Sleep is exquisitely important for health and also in terms of like cortisol levels, et cetera.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And the more you're able to stick to a sleeping pattern and get a healthy amount of sleep, everybody, it varies a little bit what everybody needs, but the science or what's been published to date has been seven to nine hours, they say, whoever they are. That kind of restful, intentional sleep is really important for our health, for our mind, body functioning and to be productive at work.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Another micro skill we talk about in that chapter, something called deliberate rest. In the education world, they talk a lot about deliberate practice, which is actually actively applying the skills and the educational methods that you learn. And so similar to deliberate practice and working intentionally, deliberate rest is... literally deliberately resting.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
So that can mean making sure you get your intentional sleep. It can mean taking a nap. It can mean exercising. Deliberate rest is also like having a social meal with friends who care about you, who you care about. It means reading a book, not because it's going to help you be better at work, but reading it for pleasure.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
These sort of things that take us away from our work, the more we do deliberate rest, when we actually sit down, we're even more efficient with our deliberate practice with getting the work done.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
I truly subscribe to what you're putting out into the world about we are the chief change officers of our lives. And I think that we all have the ability to do many things. And yes, I'm a physician and also I'm an educator and also I'm an author and also I'm a podcaster. And all these things are not siloed off. They're actually overlap.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And the more we pursue the things that bring us joy and satisfaction, the better we are
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
with the hats that we wear in all areas and i think similar to writing about something that's not in health care it's what we learn from our fields from our professional lives is applicable to many people and it's more generalizable than we would ever imagine and also for anybody that's ever had that large project that overwhelming goal that habit that they'd like to incorporate but that just seems like too big and too undoable i absolutely think that everything can
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
be broken down into small, intentional, step-by-steps that are additive, that translate to other things, and that basically, like, we can do these big things by just breaking them down into small, digestible steps.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
The true motivation behind not only those articles, but then what became the book was to make it easier for other people, to give them a copy of what I call like the workplace playbook. If we were to make a sports reference, teams will get a playbook. And I certainly felt along the way that I did not get a copy of that playbook.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And I thought all these what I just the example I just gave about letters of reference, if someone had just told me that I would have it would have made it would have saved me a few years of learning and being less efficient and allow me to be more efficient because I was less efficient until I learned that pearl, that lesson, that this is the way the workplace works.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And so the motivation was to create a book that would help people in their careers and not just doctors and not just women, but truly everybody. You have highlighted that we started the book with three truths. Number one, we want the reader to think of time as a currency. Time can only be spent. You can't put it in a savings account for later and you cannot get a refund.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And that even ties back to the story I shared about the patient that died right at the beginning of the shift in front of me. Time was going. I had seven more hours. I had to keep going. And in the emergency department, we do a lot of task switching. When one thing's done, one patient gets discharged, one cut is sewn, next, next, next. We're always pivoting. And so time is always being spent.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And so we want the reader to be very intentional about how they're spending their time and with whom they're spending their time. And the how is also what motivated the book to be a very efficient book. practical, useful read. So sure, you can read it cover to cover and you're right, it is chock full of content, but also it can be a toolkit that you can jump in and jump out of.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And so that's why we wrote a very granular table of contents. So people will be like, I need to learn about running a meeting. Oh, okay. Page 258, running a meeting. And we specifically wanted it to be readable and And when you're publishing a book and to make it publishable, you have to somehow make the argument that it's different from all the other books.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Someone that interviewed us on a podcast was like, I have a lot of these books on my shelf and I've read a lot of them. Why should I read your book? Why is your book different? And it's a fair question because if all of us or any of us that have traveled in airports or train stations, when we go to the bookshop, there's always that table of business self-help books. And this is different in that.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
If you've ever had the experience of picking up a book and it's put out there as a book for everybody, but you read it and you're like, this doesn't relate to me or my experience or this author's not speaking to me. We wanted to write a book that made no assumptions about where someone is coming from. their upbringing, their financial resources, their network, their pedigree. No assumptions.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
We want to tell you these secrets, these tips, the plays in the playbook. Time is currency. It can only be spent. Number two, the world is not equal. We all have different start lines and start at different places. But by learning these micro skills, we can fill in gaps. So hopefully we all get to the same end point in terms of navigating and being successful in the workplace.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And number three, we truly believe learning is limitless. If only it is accessible. And that speaking to accessibility means, do people have time to learn, to read a book, to watch an online video, to have a conversation with a subject matter expert?
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
do people have the money to pay for this education these resources do they go home and do they have what is called the second shift where they take care of children or elderly parents or pets trying to make no assumptions so we wanted to write an efficient read that would give people access to that learning there are so many chapters in your book we won't have time to go deep into all of them
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
So as you point out, we wrote a chapter called Microskills for Polished Communication. And audience members may say, gosh, what did they possibly write? And I will highlight, as you asked, a few. And truly, all of them are helpful. And when we've had readers who are mid-career and late-career,
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
They said, oh, I didn't think I was going to learn anything from this book, but they really point to the Polish communication chapter as where they really learned specifically with email. So I'll start with email. We all think we know how to email because literally we've been doing it for years. It's a part of every industry.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And you've noted and this has been published on that younger generations don't like email. However, many people feel that email is not going away anytime soon. So we specifically talk about writing emails that people actually read because people decide whether or not to read an email within 10 seconds.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And if it's a long email that's chunky and just like long paragraphs, they're less likely to read it. So we give specific advice on creating a title that you're actually telling what the email is about in the title of the email. So we go into the use of tools, the two line, the CC line, which stands for carbon copy, and a favorite is the BC, the blind carbon copy.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And a lot of us either avoid it because we're not sure what to do with it, or we've been taught, unfortunately, to use it in a malevolent manner. In other words, to...
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
get someone trouble to create a paper trail and we basically really feel that the bcc should not be used nefariously that the bcc can work towards having positive communication and actually creating health for yourself so for example say i have to keep track of a communication and i want to make sure i follow up a week from when I send it.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
When I send, for example, I send an email to you and I want to make sure I follow up, then I can BCC myself and then a copy of that email will go right to the top of my inbox when I send my email to you. That's one example. Another example is say we're at the same company and someone in our department gets a promotion.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
if you put the whole email list to the department congratulations vince got a promotion then everybody is going to want to respond congratulations congratulations next thing you know we have 50 to 100 emails that everybody's getting to their inbox which isn't really necessary so what i can do is say i'm making the announcement of your promotion i can put you
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
in the two line and the email list of our department in the BCC. And I can say, everybody congratulate Vince. She got promoted. And then all the congratulations go back to you and me. And so you can see all the colleagues that are congratulating you, but all those colleagues don't get the 50 to 100 emails. There's just the final way, and this is something that relates to you and to me.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
We were introduced thanks to a mutual friend. So it's very simple. If you want to introduce or create and grow the network of someone in your network, say, I'm going to introduce you to my friend, Tom Smith. Dear Tom, please meet Vince. Please take the conversation from here. You or Tom can reply, thank you, Risa. I've placed you in BCC. Dear Vince, when's a good time that you and I can meet?
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
It would be wonderful to have a conversation. So then everybody knows that I have seen that this loop was closed. I don't continue to get emails as you and Tom communicate. But also, it's not hidden from you that I have seen the message. Because that's a big thing. We talk about, say...
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Say I'm going to BCU, we actually think you should tell the person receiving the email, Dear Tom, I've spoken with Vince, parentheses, in BCC, and you and I are going to connect first, and then you can connect with her. In other words, he knows, everybody knows, there's no hiding because he can't see you when I've placed you in BCC.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
I really like that you described it as being respectful. Someone else has said that a lot of the book is about how to be kind to yourself and others. But just to close the loop on what you just shared, I have worked in places where the supervisor wanted to be CC'd on everything and be part of that dialogue.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
And other times where in adding the supervisor, people felt like they were being publicly embarrassed and the person did not want to be CC'd on everything. And so I think that goes back to the polished communication. How you communicate if you're working on a team should be discussed with the team and how everybody wants to approach this as a team communication.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
So we have a specific chapter on micro skills for networking. And we, first of all, it's important, I think, to share that each micro skill about which we speak, we start with a story, like an actual vignette that my co-author and I have had the experience with in the workplace. And then that illustrates the micro skill we're teaching.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
We then say why the skill is important because we don't want people to just take our word for it. They have to, the reader has to think, okay, this is important. This could help me be better at work. Then we actually have what we think is a very important of a why this skill is hard. Because what's easy for someone to learn and incorporate into their work.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Functioning is more difficult for someone else based on some of those other factors about culture, upbringing, personality, preferences, all these things. And then fourth, we have the critical actions where we literally break down the how-to. And circling back to how this book is different from other business self books, we literally tell the reader how-to.
Chief Change Officer
#320 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part Two
Because I remember reading a finance book that said, go start, just make a budget. And that task was so overwhelming and so paralyzing that I never made a budget. And finally, I actually found a finance book that literally walked me step by step how to manage and organize my finances that felt very empowering.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And you're there's a critical care physician in Canada who have first introduced me to the term called a failure friend, the friend that you can call up, not necessarily because you've failed, but there's been a failure, like, for example, a death. And sometimes it feels like a failure. Sometimes it's actually not a failure. It's just a sad because you witnessed it and helped with that transition.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And you just need these people sometimes to be able to call and just get it off your chest and speak about no judgment, no problem solving, no, oh, here's what you can do next time. But literally, I just need to talk about this.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And there are things that I think are coming to the surface in terms of important, not just for physicians, for many people in health care and in other fields, but I'll say in the case specifically of physicians, what happens in the emergency department and on an emergency department shift, you just can't really explain it completely.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And certainly people get a view into that when they watch the doctor TV shows.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
So I made the decision to stay in what they call academic medicine, which means that when you, if you go out into a private practice or in a community hospital, often there are no other expectations except going in and working your shift. When you stay and work in an academic center, in a teaching hospital, there are doctors in training.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
and other healthcare team members where you end up teaching them. In my case, I would teach them about emergency medicine, but within emergency medicine, my specialization became the use of ultrasound at the bedside. And when I really completed my training in ultrasound and then started teaching, it was a new technology for the emergency department.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
It was very common in radiology, but not for the emergency department. So it became very, let's see, there was a large demand to teach ultrasound. So that's really a lot of my teaching and education has been in the use of ultrasound at the bedside. And within the training programs, there was a demand across the country, but also
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Across the world, I have traveled to teach ultrasound in many other countries, both to physicians as well as to nurses, as well as to midwives, as well as because ultrasound happens to be a very relatively affordable service.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
technology to help make patient care decisions and the technology has evolved to be even more affordable even smaller and the motivation what I've really loved about the teaching and specifically teaching ultrasound is you're helping people deliver safer care and make better decisions for patients and it just that it's a really good feeling
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I truly believe that fields and people have more in common than not in common. And the way the U.S. education system works, you go to four years of university before then you do specialization commonly. And so many colleges and universities, you get what they call a liberal arts education. And I have always enjoyed learning many different subject areas, studying many different languages.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And part of it is I've always felt that the more you know about all different areas, the better it actually makes you as a physician and as a professional. And one example I'll give is in university, I actually concentrated my studies in sociology and in ethno-racial studies. And simultaneously, I was completing my pre-medical courses.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I knew that would make me an even better, more understanding, more empathetic person. physician to knowing that people come to the emergency department at the end of the day sick is sick everybody wants food shelter clothing education and to feel good and healthy to function in society and in their lives and if i have a sense of someone whose first language is not english
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Someone who lives in a city versus someone who lives rural. Someone who is elderly versus an elementary school child. Like having that sense of groups and even the way people came to the U.S. and how people have moved in terms of socioeconomic status within the U.S. Those types of factors help me provide value.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
better patient-centered care because I'll have an understanding, never assuming that I completely ever understand someone else's experience or have had that experience myself. I've always felt the responsibility is me to educate myself. So educating oneself also takes the form of reading books, all kinds of books, fiction, nonfiction, and also writing.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I've always believed in the power of communication. And I always thought that Verbal speaking was more my strong suit in terms of communication. However, when you're at a teaching hospital, there's an expectation that you write. So my first ventures into writing were writing scientific and medical papers.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
So I have a whole sort of period where I was only writing for medical and scientific journals. This concept of writing for non-medical, non-science audiences came as I started being exposed to other mostly physicians who were doing the same.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Realizing that our opinion matters, our voice matters, and if we're coming from an informed, educated place to talk about science, to talk about medicine, healthcare, etc., that it is helpful for us to speak up in this way, and speaking can mean writing.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I was very into reading, for example, leadership books, people management books, communication books, and like the articles that are published in, for example, Harvard Business Review or Fast Company. Because I think people don't realize healthcare is an industry. It's a company. These are organizations just like all the others. We think they're different, but they're not.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And so I found many of those articles relevant to my own experience. And flipping it 180, I realized that what I was seeing in healthcare and in medicine and my own experience of navigating the workplace, it can be...
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
relevant generalizable and helpful to others in other fields as well i started writing articles some were with other authors some were alone some were with my co-author with whom i wrote the book and these articles really did well people are like wow i'm really glad you wrote that article i'm going to share it with my mentees or there would be these secrets of the workplace that they weren't really secrets but no one talked about and one example is
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
writing a letter of recommendation. It's very common in many workplaces that you are asked to draft your own letter of reference. And the first time my supervisor asked me to draft my own letter, I thought he was asking me to do something illegal or that he was being lazy. And I was just so confused. It came out of nowhere. I did it. And then I found out actually it's exquisitely common
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Good morning. It is wonderful to be with you. And what an honor that I am the first medical doctor to join the show.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And my co-author and I flipped it and actually wrote an article about why we are actually the best people to write our own letter of recommendation. Unless the rules say you cannot and it's illegal. We know ourselves. We remember our relationship to this person. Often these supervisors don't remember when they met us or how we're related.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And also, if we're applying for a position, we know the details of the position, and we're best able to say why we're good for that position. And we very much emphasized in this article that it's a draft. You hand it to the supervisor. They make it their own. They can add superlatives like, she's the most competent, most da-da-da. But basically... It really makes sense.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And in terms of helping them help you, you've actually lightened their load because you've created a draft for them.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
The true motivation behind not only those articles, but then what became the book was to make it easier for other people, to give them a copy of what I call like the workplace playbook. If we were to make a sports reference, teams will get a playbook. And I certainly felt along the way that I did not get a copy of that playbook.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I thought, all these, what I just, the example I just gave about letters of reference, if someone had just told me that, I would have, it would have made, it would have saved me a few years of learning and being less efficient. and allow me to be more efficient because I was less efficient until I learned that pearl, that lesson, that this is the way the workplace works.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And so the motivation was to create a book that would help people in their careers and not just doctors and not just women, but truly everybody. And You have highlighted that we started the book with three truths. Number one, we want the reader to think of time as a currency. Time can only be spent. You can't put it in a savings account for later and you cannot get a refund.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And that even ties back to the story I shared about the patient that died right at the beginning of the shift in front of me. Time was going. I had seven more hours. I had to keep going. And in the emergency department, we do a lot of task switching. When one thing's done, one patient gets discharged, one cut is sewn, next, next, next. We're always pivoting. And so time is always being spent.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And so we want the reader to be very intentional about how they're spending their time and with whom they're spending their time. And the how is also what motivated the book to be a very efficient book. practical, useful read. So sure, you can read it cover to cover and you're right, it is chock full of content, but also it can be a toolkit that you can jump in and jump out of.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And so that's why we wrote a very granular table of contents. So people would be like, I need to learn about running a meeting. Oh, okay, page 258, running a meeting. And we specifically wanted it to be readable And when you're publishing a book and to make it publishable, you have to somehow make the argument that it's different from all the other books.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Someone that interviewed us on a podcast was like, I have a lot of these books on my shelf and I've read a lot of them. Why should I read your book? Why is your book different? And it's a fair question because if all of us or any of us that have traveled in airports or train stations, when we go to the bookshop, there's always that table of business self-help books. And this is different in that.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
If you've ever had the experience of picking up a book and it's put out there as a book for everybody, but you read it and you're like, this doesn't relate to me or my experience or this author's not speaking to me. We wanted to write a book that made no assumptions about where someone is coming from. their upbringing, their financial resources, their network, their pedigree. No assumptions.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
We want to tell you these secrets, these tips, the plays in the playbook. Time is currency. It can only be spent. Number two, the world is not equal. We all have different start lines and start at different places. But by learning these micro skills, we can fill in gaps. So hopefully we all get to the same end point in terms of navigating and being successful in the workplace.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And number three, we truly believe learning is limitless. If only it is accessible. And that speaking to accessibility means, do people have time to learn, to read a book, to watch an online video, to have a conversation with a subject matter expert? Do people have the money to pay for this education, these resources?
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Do they go home and do they have what is called the second shift where they take care of children or elderly parents or pets? Trying to make no assumptions. So we wanted to write an efficient read that would give people access to that learning.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
why medicine what drew you to that path in the first place thanks for this question and i've thought about this like how do we put together our narrative like how do we become we become and I believe I'm one of those people that it's always been in me. It's a calling. Medicine has been a calling.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And the reason I share that is some people, they're told you should become a doctor or they have a parent who's a doctor. And in my case, nobody in my family is a physician. And I grew up in a small town in the smallest state in the United States, so in Rhode Island. And
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I went to the public high school and I would say that my parents, when they decided their parenting style with my brother, my sister and myself, they had very traditional values and roles and expectations. They definitely had this line of boys do this and boys are expected to do that when they grow up. And in contrast, girls do this. Girls look like this.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And girls have different societal expectations and what they may do professionally. And those sort of divisions and those expectations really rubbed me the wrong way. And I think from childhood, from early childhood, I saw the differences and I didn't like it. And so I think I've been on a journey to prove that I want to do and become the individual that I want to become.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And it has nothing to do with gender roles. And there's one story that I tell that I didn't even know why it rubbed me the wrong way, but every night we would sit down as a family for dinner at 6 p.m. Dinner would finish, and my father would say, Okay, girls, help your mother clear the table. And I would always say, Why do you say girls? Like, why do we have to help mom clear the table?
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
How about everybody clears their own dish? And then he would look at me and say, Risa, help your mother clear the table. And then I would say, what about him? What does he do? Meaning my brother. And he said, he takes out the garbage. And I actually said, I prefer to take out the garbage. I'll take out the garbage and he can do the dishes. And it sounds like so bizarre, but...
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I ended up reading a book during my early career that completely explained why this bothered me so much. And it was called Women Don't Ask, Negotiation and the Gender Divide. And they actually used almost that exact example about, again, this is the household I grew up in, these, quote, traditional values. I realized everybody's household was different.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
They put out the explanation that girls are given these chores, these roles in the house that promote dependence rather than independence. Also, they're often like the monotonous everyday things that need to get done in the household. They're not these isolated events or once a week events. There's two or three times a day events.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And they're much less likely to get, for example, monetarily rewarded. You might not get an allowance, but say you take all the garbage or say you actually mow lawns and you can go to the different neighbors in the street and ask them, if you can mow their lawn and get paid. Same thing with shoveling snow.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I literally always wanted to do those types of activities as opposed to the ones in the house. One sort of final little piece to this story, at the American Thanksgiving, again, it was just in me. The meals would end, the main meal, and there was a break between the main meal and then coffee dessert. And all the women would get up and clear. And all the men would sit and relax and talk.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I would sit. And intentionally, purposely. And my father would look at me and he'd say, Risa. And I'd say, Dad. And he'd say, Risa. And I'd say, Dad. And he said, are you going to get up and help clear? And I said, no, I want to sit here and relax and let my meal digest and enjoy just the way you are. And again, I just didn't like this division. And it was really because I really wanted...
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
equal access, equal opportunity, and equal support and encouragement to be and pursue the things that I wanted to pursue and be as an adult, as a professional, and in my personal life as well.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Great question. And I'll more directly address the why the doctor. As I said, it was always in me. Like, I really loved when I had the opportunity to learn the bones of the body. I really was fascinated when we brought in our baby teeth and we left it overnight in the classroom in a glass of soda and we saw the disintegration of the teeth. Like, I really loved understanding...
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
the functioning of the human body, learning the names. I'm a big word person. I loved words and I studied Latin even in high school. And I just loved that a physician had a knowledge base, was decisive, and it was a very practical field. And it just, I really, I always liked blood and guts and I liked watching scary films that were gory. So I just told myself like, this seems right.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And then when I went to university, I told myself, if I do well in these classes, then that's a message. And I did well in my pre-medical studies classes. And then when it actually became time to spend time in a hospital to get that exposure, I was surprised with how comfortable I felt in a hospital, in a medical environment.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I thought it was interesting, the patients that came in, their questions, their cases, their problems, and to have that knowledge to help people was very attractive. To your question regarding emergency medicine, when I went to medical school, I was very attracted to surgery and the general surgery specialties.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And one of the reasons was because there was an actual doing things with your hands and that action-oriented part of the practice that I really liked. However, I knew I didn't love surgery. I liked it. And I really felt that to pursue that path, you have to love it and you have to always want to be in the operating room. depending on what you call it, the theater or the operating room.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I was comfortable. I liked it, but I didn't love it. And when I looked around, the surgeons I met loved it. So I did a year of research in my third year of medical school. And when I returned for my final year of medical school to get right back into the mindset of clinical medicine, I did an emergency medicine rotation. And immediately I was like, oh my goodness, where have I been? This is it.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I see men and women and children and elderly. I take care of patients presenting with heart attacks and strokes and cuts and fractures and abdominal pain and pregnancy related. I just loved it. The variety, the practicality, and also I got that fix of doing procedures that you would do in an operating room, but you don't have to go to the operating room.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
So again, like if someone has a cut or if someone has broken a bone and you can create the splint. So I was using my hands and doing those quote procedures, but it wasn't something that took the same intensity, both time-wise, resource-wise, and intention as going to the operating room.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Is that what keeps you going? So you're onto something. I definitely like the variety. I like that there's always going to be every day, every shift is going to be different. And I think you and I have touched a little bit. I know we'll probably get more on sleep. I identified as someone that didn't need a lot of sleep. I actually hadn't gotten fully on board that sleep was necessary for health.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I really... There's so much that I wanted to learn and do in life, personally and professionally, that I thought, I don't need a lot of sleep. I can sleep when I'm old or when it's time to sleep, then I'll sleep. But now there's so much I want to do and... Emergency medicine is shift work. And so you work days, you work nights, you work weekends, you work holidays. Weekend doesn't mean.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And I liked that variety of even I might have a Wednesday where I can get all of my errands done while the rest of the world is working their 8 to 6, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday work week. So I liked the variety both of the schedule. of, yes, the actual shift work. And also you end up identifying with your cohort.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And what I found with other people that pursued emergency medicine is they tended to be very down to earth, rounded. And also it was okay to say that you have other interests and pursuits outside of medicine because you know very much when you're on and when you're off and you do have time to create and develop other interests.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
It's a very insightful question because I do think that if emergency medicine is attractive to you, there's a reason. If you're not able to have that sense of professional detachment or necessary detachment to make decisions to take care of patients in like emergent situations, like sometimes you have plenty of time and the patient is not that ill.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Sometimes they're very ill and you need to act quite quickly. So I think it is something that is modeled. So you see it when you're working with your teachers, your faculty members. It's something that over time you develop your ways to do that compartmentalization. That being said, I actually don't think it's modeled or taught as well as it could be.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
I think it's a work in progress in terms of realizing the importance of helping doctors in training take care of themselves mentally and emotionally, decompress. And also, there are aspects that are just very devastating, as you would imagine. And I think the pivoting, because I do remember the first time I had a patient die in front of me when I was
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
a first-year doctor in training, it was right at the beginning of the shift. The patient died. I spoke with my faculty member, my attending, and we spoke about it. And he said to me, OK, just fill out what they call the death packet. When a patient dies, there's paperwork that you have to complete.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
you for example contact the oregon bank you make sure the family's aware all these things and so there's almost a there's a checklist and it's a packet and at the time it was a paper packet now hopefully it's digitized it's mostly digitized but medicine is slow to change even though things have become accepted in other fields it's slow but it was a paper packet now it's a digitized mostly digitized packet so it was right at the beginning of the shift
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
And he said, all right, finish the death packet and then start picking up more patients. And I remember like, Risa, you got to take care of this. And like, you've got seven more hours because it was an eight hour shift. And so you realize real time you learn on the job. And even that pivoting and that needing to compartmentalize happens.
Chief Change Officer
#319 Resa Lewiss MD: Micro Skills for Moments That Actually Matter – Part One
Even if it's not taught and talked about, you end up learning it on the job, so to speak. And what I'll say one more one more thing that becomes important. And we talk about this in the book is this concept of a personal board of directors.