Central Line
Episode Number: 73
Episode Title: Get to Know Your Host
Recorded: July 2022
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
VOICE OVER:
Welcome to ASA’s Central
Line, the official podcast series of the American Society of Anesthesiologists,
edited by Dr. Adam Striker.
DR. BROOKE TRAINER:
Welcome to Central Line.
I'm your guest host for today's episode. My name is Dr. Brooke Trainer, and
today we're flipping the script, putting Dr. Striker on the hot seat. We've
heard him ask all the questions and get real down and deep with all of our
guests. And now it's time to hear from him. Welcome to your own show, Dr. Striker.
DR. ADAM STRIKER:
Thanks, Dr. Trainer.
Certainly already a little more nervous being on this end of things.
DR. TRAINER:
It's a little more nerve
wracking being on the other side of the curtain, huh?
DR. STRIKER:
Yep.
DR. TRAINER:
So listeners will know
you as the host of Central Line. This will be the show's 73rd episode. But many
probably don't know that you are a pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist trained
in my hometown and alma mater of Indiana University, I might add. Go Hoosier.
So you often ask your guest to introduce themselves. So it seems only fair that
we start there and ask you to tell us a bit about yourself, your clinical work,
etc. So I'll hand it over to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
DR. STRIKER:
Well, you mentioned the
Hoosiers. Now, funny enough, I actually am a boilermaker. I started off at
Purdue as a – I know, I just just disappointed you. So I was an engineer, a
chemical engineer by training. And but that's how I wound up at IU for medical
school. I met a lot of people, both through college and and medical school. So
I have a lot of great friends from Indiana, but loved, loved IU when I visited
it and decided to pursue medicine there.
But really, you know,
everybody's got their own story about how they got into medicine. I, I really
plan on being an engineer, but I found myself really thinking about the aspects
of being a chemical engineer within a health care framework and looking for
opportunities there. And ultimately, with a little bit of encouragement from my
parents, I found myself looking into medical school being that I felt like what
I really wanted to do was be involved in medicine and taking care of people.
And that's kind of what I liked. And then saw how I could bridge from
engineering to medicine, how I could integrate what I learned in engineering
school and in a medical school. Would it work? And so that took a little bit of
doing actually. This was some some years ago where, you know, the resources
were not as probably readily available for people like us who had maybe a
little more unconventional pathways. And I don't regret at all going to an
engineering school. It was a great experience and it was a really a great
training ground for medical school. Ultimately, you think differently. And so
it really helped with a lot of concepts when I finally did get to to med school.
And then ultimately when
when I got there, I really I thought for sure I was going to do something like
emergency medicine. I just I love the idea of it. I was in college when E.R.
and Chicago Hope started, and those were exciting shows and seemed like that's
where all the action was. And funny enough, I did, there were we were looking
for jobs in between first and second year med school, me and my classmates,
something that had to do with medicine and all these great externships were
already taken and the anesthesia department was looking for students to do a
few weeks, basically learning about anesthesia and helping them out in the ORs.
And I knew nothing about it, but they said they would teach us clinical skills
and it would be interesting. And we got a free textbook and it sounded kind of
cool and nobody else I knew was doing it. So I decided to do it. And then, you
know, long story short, I ended up choosing that as my specialty. Ultimately, I
fell in love with it. I loved what anesthesiologists did. I didn't know
anything about really what they did other than they put people to sleep, which
is kind of a microcosm for our role on communications. Now, as we stand today
and dealing with the public and the lack of knowledge about what we do. So it's
it's interesting, but that's that's how I got started in anesthesia and I
haven't looked back since.
DR. TRAINER:
Yeah, I could definitely
see the connection between being a chemical engineer major and going into
anesthesiology. I could also understand going into cardiology, you know,
anesthesia and cardiology. But I haven't been able to figure out the pediatric
part of your fellowship. So can you give us some explanation or what really
drew you to specifically pediatric cardiology and anesthesia? I mean, this is
very specialized. And any advice that you have for rising anesthesiology
residents or even medical students who are contemplating going into a
fellowship or debating between specialties, whether or not it's even worth it
to pursue a fellowship and one that's so specialized, for example.
DR. STRIKER:
Yeah, certainly. So, you
know, once I got into anesthesia and I really enjoyed it, but one thing I would
never, never have guessed if I had to pick a specialty or subspecialty when I
went into it was pediatrics. I was fortunate that I was at a program at Indiana
University at the time, and they still have a heavy pediatric load for the
residents. But at the time it was even more so. And you started off doing
pediatrics your very first year, and that was at Riley Children's. And the
experience there was very immersive, plenty of staff. There were wonderful
staff that were great teachers, great role models, and you ended up learning
quite a bit there, but also functioning fairly independently under appropriate
supervision. And so you got, as a resident, you got to do quite a bit of
pediatrics and do it in a way that was very engaging and where you learned a
lot about physiology and surgical problems within the pediatric population. So
I spent a number of months in that environment, but really some of the role models
I had as staff were very encouraging about pediatrics. And over time I started
thinking more and more because every time I rotated through there, they'd say,
Hey, Adam, why have you thought about pediatrics? We think you'd really be good
at it. Now, for all I knew, that was a recruiting tactic. I don't know. But, but
I started thinking about it, and I found that I really enjoyed my days there.
And they were oftentimes longer days because of busy service. But I enjoyed the
work during the day and I enjoyed my time there and I think I found I enjoyed
it even more than some of the other locations.
And so when it came time
to looking into subspecialties--and I considered ICU, I'd consider just going
out and getting a job. And a lot of my colleagues did that. But ultimately when
I was thinking about plans afterward, again, took my time, looked more into it
and decided, you know what, I think I would like to to do this. And I wasn't
100% sure. I was maybe 90% sure. But I felt at the time, pediatric anesthesia fellowship
is a year. There's even more subspecialty sub subspecialty training. If I said
that right, you can do advanced cardiac pediatric fellowships and paying
fellowships in pediatrics and whatnot. But the general pedes fellowship is a
year and I thought, this is not a huge investment of time, it's only an extra
year. I'm never going to go back and do it again if I don't do it. But the
worst case scenario, I've spent an extra year getting pediatric experience, and
if I don't want to do pediatrics as my primary practice, then I'm not very far
out. I can just go back and do kind of adult anesthesia, regular anesthesia, go
through it, pursue something else. That's why I decided to do it. I felt like
it was a good use of a year. It was a very high yield, low cost, if you will,
year both financially and time wise. And so then I did it and I really enjoyed
it more than so I ended up just working in the field in tertiary care
pediatrics since then. And part of that fellowship experience was cardiac. And
I really enjoyed the cardiac physiology, when it comes to pediatrics and
congenital cardiac physiology and problems and dealing with the anesthetics and
figuring out how best to proceed with an anesthetic, what are pitfalls when you
are dealing with congenital physiology? And it just I just really enjoyed the
thought processs and the challenges of each and every patient and every
specialty and every facet of anesthesiology has those.
And when you talk about
what advice to give to other residents thinking about furthering training, I
think one piece is to have an open mind. You never know what you're going to
like and everybody is a little different. Everybody has different aptitudes,
everybody has different interests. And try to just let it come to you and feel
it out as to what do you enjoy doing on a daily basis because you're going to
be doing it for a long time. But I will say that I personally I'm biased
because I went on to do a fellowship. If you're thinking about a fellowship, I
highly recommend it, whatever the subspecialty is, because right after
residency is the time to do it. You're still in the mode of learning, you're
still in the mode of training, and I imagine it's a lot harder to go back. It's
not that you can't do it, but I would take advantage of the time you have and
the ability to get into these programs. You know, worst case scenario, you can
always revert back to kind of what your original plan was. But I do think it's
worth it if you're thinking about doing a fellowship. I think a lot of people
might miss out if they if they don't pursue it. And a lot of the fellowships
after anesthesiology are not that long relative to your whole career.
DR. TRAINER:
Yeah, that's right. I
mean, I can't agree more. I'm biased as well, but I'm one of those late comers
to fellowship. I pursued a critical care fellowship about ten years into my
practice. There's been a lot of debate in the anesthesiology community on
whether pursuing a fellowship is really necessary or worth it. And are we
sacrificing lifestyle and money and time away from family by doing this? And I
agree with you wholeheartedly that it was worth it. And yeah, I think the more
knowledge is power, right?
DR. STRIKER:
Yeah. Well, and what you
did is we took the other tack, which is great. You know, if you're willing to
do that, that's that's a great way to do it as well. But I think a lot of
people getting out into into the workforce, if you will, and getting into the
routine of what they're doing now for the foreseeable future after training. I
think it's a lot. I bet you for most people it's not easy to do that. And it is
a sacrifice of time and money, but everybody has to make that decision for
themselves. But I will say, I just think when it comes to your well being, what
you want to do for a whole career, I personally just don't think it's that much
of an investment in time and money. When you think about your entire career and
your daily work life balance, if you will, and something that you really want
to you really like to enjoy for for some time.
DR. TRAINER:
Right? Yeah. So you also
serve as I mean, as if you don't have enough on your plate, but you also serve
as chair of ASA's Communications Committee, which is the committee that I'm on
with you. And it's how we met. And I've really admired your your leadership.
You've had a lot of involvement in a lot of the different campaigns and avenues
that we've pursued in that committee. But can you talk with us a bit about your
pathway to that leadership role, and particularly even more broadly in
organized medicine and the ASA? And talk a little bit about how your career
evolved to include the role as committee chair and even hosting this podcast,
for example.
DR. STRIKER:
Yeah, this is a … that's
a great question. Well, let me start off. We were always encouraged in
residency to be involved in professional societies. But, you know, when
everybody gets out to work, you're just worrying about keeping your head
afloat, figuring out your job, just trying to make sure you're doing a good job.
Really, I got involved in more professionally as a staff when I got to my first
job out of fellowship in Kansas City and I had a role model, Doctor Cathy
Perryman, who was the chief of anesthesia at Children's Mercy in Kansas City at
the time, was very encouraging of me to get involved with the Missouri Society
of Anesthesiologists. We were talking about anesthesia issues in general, and
she was heavily involved. And she said, you know, we really are looking for
people to be involved in the state society. I think you seem to really be
engaged in in these issues. And and if you want to do something active that
would help contribute to the optimization of solving problems or contributing
to making our lives better, as anesthesiologists, you should get involved.
So I started getting
involved at the state level society there and kind of in parallel, I was also
tasked in that group to start making checklists for the anesthesia machines. Nobody
had done that yet for the group. There was like the manufacturer's checklist,
but nobody had actually made it a department checklist that we would all use
every day for the machines. And I started doing research as to what the assay
recommended, and I knew there was more to it than just what the manufacturers
recommended. So as I was looking into that, I called up people on the Equipment
and Facilities Committee as I got referred to them by people I knew to try to
get answers on how best to make these checklists and got a little more involved
with that committee simply because I got to know them a little better. And I
thought, Hey, this sounds really interesting. They told me they had just worked
on revising ASA guidelines, on checking anesthesia workstations out, and they
were in the process of implementing that, but they were still doing more work.
And I thought, Hey, this sounds really interesting. And so I asked them, you
know, do you need help with that? I'm happy to help. I think this was really
fascinating. And they said, yeah, absolutely, we could use help with cataloging
these hecklist. We're trying to maybe get different examples from different
institutions. And so I started to get to know them.
And then at the same
time, I was getting involved with the Missouri Society of Anesthesiologists.
And then when it came time to to recommend people for committees, you know, my
name came up and I told them I was involved just with working with the
equipment facility committee. And I said, that would be great to get on that
because I really liked working with them. And sure enough, I got on that this
was a number of years ago and so I started my work with the ASA and then I
really enjoyed working on that committee. And then the more I got involved, the
more I realized what other opportunities were available at the ASA with other
committees and other work products, and so started getting involved in other
committees.
And then after some
years I got on the Communications Committee and really enjoyed that and then
took over that a few years ago as chair of the ASA Committee on Communications.
But it was really a stepwise approach of involvement both at the state level
and the national level at the ASA that that got me to where I am today.
There's a lot of
different ways to get involved. But I, I tell new staff and residents it starts
small, but there's plenty of opportunities to get involved, even if you don't
have a formal role. And that's that's how I started. And I'm sure it's all a lot
of people started. I looked for I a task in my group and then I ended up just
getting to know people, the ASA because of that task. But there's there's a lot
of ways to get involved, both your state, national levels, societies where it
just may be an interest you have within the field that causes you to start
doing more and more.
DR. TRAINER:
Yeah. And that was
actually going to be my follow up question was what advice for young ASA
members or new anesthesiologist or even just members who have question now, how
is it that I get involved in this committee or that committee? And they're
eager, they're motivated, they want to be more engaged, but they're just not
sure where to start or who to talk to or what what to do to position themselves
as candidates to be even considered for these committees. Any advice?
DR. STRIKER:
Well, nowadays it's very
difficult to get on committees because there's a lot of interest from a lot of
a lot of anesthesiologists around around the country. And so it's not it's not
easy just because the interest has gone up over the years. So it starts small.
But to get on a committee doesn't necessarily happen right away. It can for
some people, and it depends on the committee. They're certainly going to be
more popular committees than others. There's over 100 committees or review
committees to get that you could possibly get on.
But the advice I would
give is, number one, if you have an interest, you don't have to have an
official role to be involved if you have an interest in anything -- blood
management, pediatrics, obstetrics, finances, governmental affairs, whatever it
is, find the committee. And they're there on the website for members. And find
who's on the committee, who chairs the committee. And usually you can find
someone that you might know or you know, someone that knows. And if not, that
doesn't mean you can't get in touch with. I would get in touch with one of the
committee members and say, How can I help? I'm really interested in this. What
advice do you have for me with regard to this special interest that this
committee works on? And what can I do and they'll get to know you? And that
that is very helpful. And then in addition, as I told the residents where I
work with currently, you know, you try to get involved with your state society
because that's the state societies tend to have a lot of influence with the
powers that be that choose the committee members. But also they have a lot of
say from their region with who they'd like to represent their areas on these
committees. And a lot of times the committees are chosen based on a number of
factors, but in general, they try to make the committees diverse in terms of
background, diverse in terms of practice, diverse in terms of geographic
region. So you have a wide variety of thought and expertise and experience to
draw upon for the betterment of the society and the specialty. So that's a
good, easy way to start getting involved and get known.
You don't have to wait
to get on a committee to be involved. There's plenty of opportunities to help
out. I'll give you a great example. When I was on the Equipment and Facilities
Committee a number of years ago, we started up a environmental task force. It
was borne out of the Equipment and Facilities Committee. It was a few individuals
that felt strongly about environmental issues as it related to anesthesia. And
for years it was a subcommittee of that committee. So you had members from the
Committee on Equipment and Facilities that were a member of this subcommittee,
this task force. But the subcommittee was open to anybody that wanted to join.
And so anybody that had an interest in environmental sustainability or in
environmental issues was welcome on it. And there was a lot of opportunity to
be involved in and do subcommittee work products and help out. And so even
though you didn't have an official role, and that's still the case today, and
it's grown quite a bit as environmental issues have become even more popular
with the membership, and certainly the importance has grown as well. Obviously,
that's a that's one example of how you could be involved and not necessarily
have an official role. But you're intimately involved with with committee work
product.
DR. TRAINER:
Yeah, absolutely. And I
will say the communication that's come out of the communications committee, including
ASA's branding and just branding anesthesiology broadly, how it's expanded and
grown to the point where now they've even developed a product that is helping
anesthesiologists brand themselves with patients. It's helping communicate our
value and what we have to offer with our C-suite administrators and even our
surgical colleagues. How would you say that the responsibilities and objectives
of that committee have evolved since you've stepped into your role as chair,
especially when you consider what's happened with the pandemic and even the
movement for us to be a more diverse and inclusive organization.
DR. STRIKER:
A great question. When I
joined the Communications Committee a number of years ago, the task of the ASA
Committee on Communications, I think this actually is probably misunderstood by
a lot of the membership. The real primary purpose is that this committee is
dedicated to increasing public awareness of anesthesiologists, as well as the
specialty of anesthesiology, and in addition, improving resources and making
them available to all physician anesthesiologists so that they can communicate
the critical role that assay members play. And misunderstandings, I think,
people probably assume that communication is involved in anything the ASA puts
out, but which isn't necessarily true. We're a more strategic committee that
offers input, advice to the larger body and how best to accomplish this. But
we're not intimately involved as a committee in every message or every
statement the ASA puts out. That stuff comes from ASA leadership, and we felt
if ASA leadership asks us, we will specifically weigh in on certain issues.
Like our most recent made for this moment campaign, the ASA Committee on
Communications does a lot of vetting of images. And when I say campaign
material, it's not campaign in the political sense, but campaign in like the
the made for this moment campaign of getting the message out about who
anesthesiologists are. The Committee on Communications does a lot of work in
that regard, but that's the primary role of the of this committee.
And when I joined a
number of years ago, it was about making sure our we had interviews in
different media outlets. It was about making sure people would come to our
website. It was about making sure that we had social media hits, you know,
those kinds of things. How much play are we getting in the press? And that
seemed to be where the focus was. Then the committee had worked on a campaign
called When Seconds Count, which was to help educate the public on what
anesthesiologists did and provide information to the public about the specialty
of anesthesiology and drive try to drive traffic to that site so that people
could learn more about it.
Over the years, though,
it's become apparent that the public simply just doesn't know as much as we
would like them to about who anesthesiologists are. And a lot of times they
don't even know what we do. And we felt like at this point, especially over the
last few years, it's imperative that we take a more aggressive approach into
trying to rectify that. I think all of us would agree that anesthesiologists
are critical in health care, and for each patient, they're critical. And how do
we make sure that our patients know that? How do we make sure the public knows
that? Because if they don't, the patients don't know it. If the public doesn't
know it, then anesthesiologists will be further devalued in any number of
senses to the point where they won't be available to patients or the health
care system. We all believe that it's critical that we're involved.
And so we felt as a
committee and as an organization, that we had to be a little more proactive.
And so hence the Made for This Moment campaign was created and invested in. And
it's an ongoing, large, proactive project that is attempting to target various
audiences in different ways so that that message can resonate about who
anesthesiologists are and what we do. And so it's remembered. I think most if
you ask a layperson anywhere out on the street, they're going to know what a
surgeon is. But I don't know that a lot of them are going to know what nesthesiologists
are. In fact, research has borne that out. A majority of people actually this
was a few years back, did not know that anesthesiologists were physicians. And
so there's a lot of work to do and it's going to be an ongoing task. But I
think that's probably the biggest evolution, if you will, of the Committee on
Communications over the last the last few years.
DR. TRAINER:
Yeah, that's right. I
think even my experience on the committee has sort of taught me a thing or two
about communicating with patients. I mean, I used to introduce myself, hi, I'm
Brooke Trainer, one of your anesthesiologists going to help you go back to
surgery, make sure you're comfy and safe for your procedure, never saying or
introducing myself as doctor. And then I was quickly called, Hey, nurse, can
you get me that or this? You know? And so that has to do with a lot of the
stereotypes of females in the workforce, and it's changing. And we are a more
diverse workforce, but patients don't always know that. And you're right, like
a lot of times they think that we're ancillary staff or maybe not a physician.
And so I think what we're what the communications committee is doing is very
meaningful to helping patients understand our value.
So I want to talk more
about the show and and you and get to know you a little more and get our
listeners some more information to to share with you. But let's take a quick
break, a patient safety break first, so stay with me.
DR. DEBORAH SWINGLE:
Hi, this is Dr. Deborah
Swingle, chair of the ASA Patient Safety Editorial Board. Mass casualty
incidents exert extreme stress on health care institutions. Hospital incident
command systems and crisis standard of care protocols exist in most hospitals,
but gaps in knowledge of protocols can leave clinicians feeling unprepared.
Anesthesiology
departments can and must prepare by educating staff and allocating proper time
and resources for training and rehearsals. These range from classroom based
teaching, such as lectures, workshops, game based learning and tabletop
simulations to small and large scale hospital simulations. Pay extra attention
to vulnerable populations such as pediatric, pregnant, geriatric and mental
health patients. And don't forget to address mental health care for patients
and staff. The time to prepare is now.
VOICE OVER:
For more information on
patient safety visit asahq.org/patientsafety22.
DR. TRAINER:
All right. Welcome back
to the show. One thing I do want to talk about the podcast and how things
started with Central Line. But before we do just want to close the loop on your
role and your work with the Communications Committee. I know there's a lot of
work products that have come out of that committee. One being the enhanced
patients toolkit. And I know this gives us their members, gives members a lot
of good information on communicating effectively with colleagues. But can you
give us some of your best tips and sort of talk a little bit more about that,
that work product and how it's benefiting and how members can benefit from it?
DR. STRIKER:
Yes, thank you for
asking. The this is a good example of some tangible resources that the
committee has provided the membership. You know, it's easy to just talk about
how we should be better communicators, but we wanted to go a step further and
actually make some real, tangible resources available, as is charged by the ASA
for the Committee on Communications. And so when we started the Made for this
Moment campaign, we targeted different audiences: policymakers, C-suite
executives and and our patients. And as a committee, we decided patients was probably
the most important piece, because as time goes on, if our patients remember us
and know who we are and know how valuable we were to the care they received,
they're going to want to continue to have anesthesiologists involved in that
care.
And so the toolkit you
mentioned, the Enhancing Patient Communications Program, was put together by a
subgroup of the Committee on Communications, and it's an actual work product
that we've produced that you can access online. It's very easy. If you go on to
the ASA website and the member page, you can easily find it or it's on the made
for this moment campaign web page or access to it is links to it, but you can
easily find it. Download the toolkit and it's got a lot of tips on how how to
improve your communications with patients. It is by no means an instruction
manual of how to proceed.
The goal was not to
start from a position that nobody knows how to communicate with patients. It
was quite the opposite. We understand that there's a lot of great communicators
within the ASA and the anesthesiology community. We wanted to provide a
pamphlet of helpful tips, hints, suggestions that could help any
anesthesiologist, whether they're a trainee or a practicing staff or seasoned
staff, optimize or improve their communications. So there's there's a lot of
great tips, things like simple things that I think make sense when you read
them, but may not be thought of in a vacuum. Things like avoiding jargon. So
often we talk about what we're going to do. We're going to put a put a central
line in and then put an arterial line in and then we're going to we're going to
put an epidural in. And we take for granted that these terms are so easy for us
to understand. And we forget that the level of understanding of our patients is
is different. And everybody may have a wide gap of understanding between
patients on medical terms. And so the avoiding the use of jargon, tailoring
your message to each patient and situation is so valuable. That's just that's
just an example. And that seems I'm sure that seems obvious to a lot of people
and I'm sure a lot of people have thought about it.
But when you look at
this toolkit and it's presented in an organized manner, it really helps, I
think, crystallize how to tailor your own communications, try to adapt to each
situation. And you can't go in with a script for every patient because because
every situation is different. It sounds sounds subjective. It is subjective.
But you've got to feel out the room a little bit. You know, I can go into one
room and joke around with a family of a patient and the patient themselves, and
it eases the tension and everybody's relaxed and they remember me. But you go
into the next patient and it's a very stoic patient, or maybe they're very
anxious or the family is very worried, or maybe they've had some bad experiences.
They're not in any mood to joke around, and I think most people would
understand that. But I think it's important to recognize that each situation is
a little different. And what you're there for is to reassure the patients. It's
to explain to them what to expect. It's to make sure that they know that you're
there for them throughout the entire perioperative process. And there's a whole
pamphlet of different suggestions, different situations, what what might work,
some examples. Having it written down and having it in this format really I
think, emphasizes the importance of it and helps. I really think it makes a big
difference with helping individuals improve their communications.
DR. TRAINER:
Yeah. Our relationships
with patients is not only good to show them the value of how we contribute
meaningful to their care, but also relationship building, mitigating
litigation, improving patient safety scores and outcomes, and building trust
and rapport. I mean, so that's all soft reminders and gentle ways of giving
examples to them on how to do so.
DR. STRIKER:
So absolutely. I'm glad
you brought that up. Patient satisfaction scores. I mean, research has shown
that they are directly correlated to how well health care workers, specifically
physicians, communicate with them. So right, there's there's tangible value in
that. Aside from us making sure that we're conveying who anesthesiologists are,
there's value to the institution, value to the health care system. Readmission
rates are shown to drop with proper communication with patients. Complication
rates will therefore drop. You're right, there's a lot of tentacles to this.
It's important. Communication is so vital. And it's one of those things that I
think everybody just assumes they're good at. And it's not it's not scientific
in a book sense. I mean, it is if you study communications, but, you know, it's
not learning math. It's not learning equations on how to describe blood flow.
So I think for a lot of us that are science based, you know, we just assume
that this is no big deal or that we're all good at it or this is easy, this is
the easy stuff, when in reality it's actually not that easy, but it's so
important, right?
DR. TRAINER:
This is the art of
medicine. You're right. Not the science necessarily. You're right.
So fast forward and
pivot a bit. I wanted to get back to talking about the podcast. It's true. I
believe that ASA did not have an official podcast when you help start up
Central Line. And I know you've been very humble about your involvement and
your your initiative in this endeavor, but you have helped expand the reach of
the society with this podcast. And so I wanted to ask and I'm sure many others
are curious, did you have any specific goals in mind for the series when you
help start it up? And and is this how you hoped the podcast would play out and
is it stacking up to what you sort of intended for it to be?
DR. STRIKER:
The short answer is yes.
It's actually it's grown to a point that has exceeded my initial expectations.
Initially, the podcast series was developed to provide ASA with an additional
channel to share stories and information of interest and importance to
anesthesiologists. We wanted it to be a series that would be of interest to all
practicing anesthesiologists, trainees and non trainees. But that would cover a
wide variety of of topics. Not necessarily. We didn't want to focus on the
science part. We wanted to focus on current events or events of interest,
things of that nature, and we want it to be accessible to everyone. But we felt,
we had talked about a podcast idea in communications some years ago, you know,
amongst other brainstorming ideas and how to get information out to the
membership. But it did come to fruition finally a number of years later, and
goal was to make it a series that was wide variety, had a wide variety of
topics and wide variety of guests. We wanted to showcase ASA members and their
work they're doing. We wanted to get, they don't have to be ASA members, but we
have a lot of great expertise in the society and we wanted to have a different
avenue for our members to have access to that.
It's been quite a
fascinating ride because we started off small and it's expanded progressively
over the last couple of years. And over time we've expanded our topics, we've
expanded our footprint, if you will. We originally were producing episodes once
a month and now we're producing them semi-monthly because we decided to add the
Inside to Monitor themed episodes. So every month we have an episode dedicated
to focusing on a feature in the ASA Monitor, which has ASA members contribute
to it, and those have been some of the most informative episodes we've had. But
it's also helped expand the footprint of this podcast in that we're a little
more frequent and reliably produced, if you will, so that people can depend on
getting this a little more regularly. And then we have about a handful of bonus
episodes each year, on all sorts of topics.
One thing I wanted to
see with this podcast is I wanted it to be something that the ASA could be
proud of, that it could be something that could be referred to, that was
informative, that any ASA member would feel comfortable listening to and feel
like it was valuable and something we look back on and are proud of. We
certainly never had any other ideas about making this more entertaining. This
we hope it's entertaining, but we wanted it to be informative and engaging. And
you know, the goal of it is not for shock value. The goal is not to garner suspense
or make it a series or anything like that. I'm sure a lot of podcasts out there
are very, very interesting in that regard and I'm and get a lot of listeners.
But we wanted it to be a product that our members were proud of, that they
could always rely on, that they could count on being not only a solid reference
of information, but but interesting and and thoughtful and hopefully make them
think about issues that they weren't they weren't abreast of before.
DR. TRAINER:
So any interesting
interviews with the anesthesiologist that stick out to you? Any topics that
stick out to you? Any favorite guests or surprising moments that are you'd like
to share?
DR. STRIKER:
Well, we've had a lot of
interesting guests. The ones that have been the most impactful have been the
ones that we've had that have shared their personal stories and struggles with
not only specialty of anesthesiology, but the field of medicine because of their
race, because of their sexual orientation, because of their background. We've
had some very, very moving episodes that have I felt privileged to be a part
of, but have caused myself to really think about medicine in general and look
at it through a different lens. And so those are the ones that I didn't really
anticipate when we started, but have been the most impactful for me, the ones
that when I hear how some very respected individuals in the anesthesiology
community have struggled to get to that point, more so than I could have ever
imagined, it leaves quite a quite an impression, and those are the ones that I
think I'm most impacted by. In that respect, I'm always going to feel very
privileged to to be a part of it, to be able to share in those stories, but
also try to play a small role in trying to bring those stories to more people
because they're so important. But those are the ones that I think leave the
leave the largest mark.
DR. TRAINER:
And any tips or pearls
that you have for folks following in your footsteps. Podcasts are pretty
popular and effective communication tools, and I know our society has even
considered launching one, but has been really hindered by all of the logistics
of getting one started. But if there are any listeners out there that are
considering starting up a podcast or just somehow getting even involved, any
advice that you have for them?
DR. STRIKER:
Well, it starts with a
great production team. We have, the ASA has a great production team and the
production team is committed to to making this work. They keep us on point.
They make sure the production value is good. And so you have to have some point
people, at least one point person, but hopefully more than that that are
willing to commit to making the podcast work, commit to making the production
really top notch, and to make sure we stay on schedule. And I think you have to
have that champion.
If you want to start up
your own podcast and you're dedicated, you can do it yourself. But it really
starts with that commitment, the commitment to regular episodic activity, that
you're releasing things not necessarily frequently, but constantly. But it
really helps to have a team of individuals that can help keep that on track.
I would say that
assuming that's in place, another piece of advice, assuming you're going to
have guests on be prepared. This is from my experience, if you're going to just
get on and start talking with someone off the cuff, if you're an entertainer or
somebody who's in show business, that that may be easier to do. But if you're
trying to get listeners to listen about a specific topic or a certain guest, I
can't emphasize the importance of having some preparation on what you're going
to talk about and how to articulate that.
You know, the whole
point of each episode is to showcase the guest and the topic that the guest is
covering. I try to facilitate that information. I try to highlight the topic
and the guest and not get into too much conversation because I think it's more
important that that person or persons and their information gets out to to the
membership and our listeners and I, so I try not to make it about just a off
the cuff conversation, if you will, which may be engaging for the people
participating. But I have to think that the listeners would rather hear the
guests on there and the people or the information that the guest is trying to
convey.
DR. TRAINER:
Yes. And you have also
been an amazing guest on your own show. And this was really fun [for me. Dr.
Striker. You've been really such an amazing mentor, dedicated leader, someone
who leads by example and you're genuinely passionate about advancing our
profession and improving the image of our organization and truly inspiration to
me. And I've certainly learned a lot about you today and through your
leadership over the years on the committee. I'm sure your listeners have
enjoyed this peek behind the curtain of your life as well. So thanks for
letting me join the show, really.
DR. STRIKER:
Oh, my pleasure. Dr. Trainer,
you've done a fantastic job, but I just thank you for those extraordinarily
nice words. That's very generous of you. I don't know that I deserve that.
Thank you. That means a lot to me.
DR. TRAINER:
And this is goes back to
your humbleness, you know, so that's one of the things that you are most
admired for. So we do thank all of our listeners for listening today and we
hope you join us again for the next Central Line. I'm going to pass the mic
back to Dr. Strikeer for hosting next time. But please remember to follow and
review. We appreciate you.
DR. STRIKER:
Thanks, Dr. Trainer.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
VOICE OVER:
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