Girl Doc Survival Guide
Young doctors are increasingly in ‘survival’ mode.
Far from flourishing, the relentless pressure of working in medicine means that ‘balance’ is harder than ever to achieve.
On the Girl Doc Survival Guide, Yale professor and dermatologist Dr Christine J Ko sits down with doctors, psychologists and mental health experts to dig into the real challenges and rewards of life in medicine.
From dealing with daily stressors and burnout to designing a career that doesn’t sacrifice your personal life, this podcast is all about giving you the tools to not just survive...
But to be present in the journey.
Girl Doc Survival Guide
EP195: Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving Reflections and Insights on Perception and Overdiagnosis
In this episode of The Girl Doc Survival Guide, Christine expresses gratitude for listeners and contributors, especially highlighting recent enlightening discussions. Dr. Claudia Mello-Thoms shared insights on subconscious perception in dermatopathology, while an upcoming episode will feature Dr. H. Gilbert Welch discussing over-diagnosis and the limitations of static tissue samples in cancer diagnosis. The importance of accurate diagnosis and mindful treatment in dermatopathology is emphasized. Listeners are encouraged to tune into these valuable conversations.
00:00 Introduction and Thanksgiving Gratitude
00:25 Subconscious Perception in Dermatopathology
00:48 Upcoming Conversation with Dr. H. Gilbert Welch
01:19 Overdiagnosis in Pathology
01:38 Dynamic Nature of Cancer Diagnosis
02:07 Closing Remarks and Community Thanks
Christine Ko: [00:00:00] Welcome back to The Girl Doc Survival Guide! It's post Thanksgiving, and I just wanted to give thanks and record some things that I'm grateful for. For one, I'm grateful for this podcast and for anyone who's listening in and especially, I'm grateful for the people who are willing to talk to me about things that get me thinking. For example, recently Dr. Claudia Mello-Thoms told me that perception is actually subconscious. What I perceive, for example, under the microscope when I'm making diagnoses for dermatopathology, is actually subconscious, and whenever I'm trying to explain what I'm seeing, that's actually then jumping up to consciousness and trying to use words for what I've seen.
Either next week or the week after, I'm going to release a conversation that I had with Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, who has written about overdiagnosis, [00:01:00] detecting cancers that would not have had an effect in terms of any type of symptom or ultimate death for a patient. As a dermatologist and also a dermatopathologist, I definitely want to do my best to give patients the right diagnoses and not the wrong ones. Importantly, over-diagnosis is actually a correct diagnosis in terms of pathology. So it's not really a concern in the sense of giving the patient the wrong diagnosis, but ultimately giving the patient a course of treatment that might be unnecessary overall. Dr. Welch pointed out to me post conversation that we might be expecting too much of pathologists given that it's one static time point in which tissue is taken, and cancer is a dynamic disease. Perhaps we should be more open to the idea [00:02:00] that one time point, one tissue sample, might not be enough to know what's going on.
I'm grateful for both of those conversations. Please tune in to Dr. Welch's conversation once it's released, and listen to Dr. Claudia Mello-Thoms if you haven't already.
Thank you to everyone who is a part of the community that I have around me.
