Shadow Me Next!
Shadow Me Next! is a podcast where we take you behind the scenes of the medical world. I'm Ashley Love, a Physician Assistant, and I will be sharing my journey in medicine and exploring the lives of various healthcare professionals. Each episode, I'll interview doctors, NPs, PAs, nurses, and allied health workers, uncovering their unique stories, the joys and challenges they face, and what drives them in their careers. Whether you're a pre-med student or simply curious about the healthcare field, we invite you to join us as we take a conversational and personal look into the lives and minds of leaders in Medicine. Access you want, stories you need. You're always invited to Shadow Me Next!
Shadow Me Next!
5 - Transforming Aspirations into Medical Reality, a Journey to Becoming an Emergency Room Attending Physician | Blaire Banfield, MD
Join us as Dr. Blaire Banfield, an emergency medicine attending physician, shares her extraordinary journey from aspiring psychologist to a life-saving ER physician. Discover how her experiences in neuropsychology, working with dementia and Parkinson’s patients, ignited her passion for medicine and prompted her to pursue medical school at Harvard and the University of Florida. Blaire's narrative offers a compelling look at the challenges and triumphs faced along the way, proving that dedication and resilience can pave the way to achieving your dreams.
Dr. Banfield's story doesn't just stop at medical school. She unveils the rigorous yet rewarding world of medical training, from her experiences as a medical assistant and hospital tech to the whirlwind of completing her medical degree in 2020. Blaire provides a candid reflection on the nuances of medical school, emphasizing the importance of aligning one's career with personal passions and the critical role of hands-on experience. Her insights paint a vivid picture of the emotional and physical demands of becoming a physician, balanced by moments of profound fulfillment.
Finally, step into the dynamic world of emergency medicine as Dr. Banfield describes the unpredictable nature of night shifts in a community hospital's ER. She shares practical advice for pre-health students and residents, underscores the significance of teamwork in emergency care, and highlights the personal sacrifices required in this demanding field. As you listen, you'll gain a deeper appreciation for the resilience needed to thrive in healthcare and the incredible reward of making a tangible difference in patients' lives.
Considering a Postbaccalaureate Pre-medical Program? Here is more information:
https://students-residents.aamc.org/medical-student-well-being/considering-postbaccalaureate-premedical-program
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Hello and welcome to Shadow Me Next, a podcast where I take you into and behind the scenes of the medical world to provide you with a deeper understanding of the human side of medicine.
Ashley:I'm Ashley, a physician assistant and the creator of Shadow Me Next. It's my goal to introduce you to incredible members of the healthcare field and uncover their unique stories, the joys and challenges they face and what drives them in their careers. It's access you want and stories you need, whether you're a pre-med student or simply curious about the healthcare field. I invite you to join me as we take a conversational and personal look into the lives and minds of leaders in medicine. I don't want you to miss a single one of these conversations, so make sure that you subscribe to this podcast, which will automatically notify you when new episodes are dropped, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Shadow Me Next, where I'll give you sneak previews of our upcoming guests.
Ashley:This is episode five where we shadow an emergency medicine physician. I'm thrilled to bring you a conversation with Dr Blair Banfield, an emergency medicine attending physician whose path to medicine is nothing short of inspiring. Dr Banfield didn't always know she wanted to be a doctor. After graduating college and working in neuropsychology, she realized her true passion for medicine and took an unconventional leap. She enrolled in a postgraduate program at Harvard to complete the prerequisites she had missed during undergrad, paving the way for medical school at the University of Florida. From there, she trained at the Orlando Regional Medical Center, a level one trauma facility, where she thrived despite the challenges of residency. In this episode, dr Banfield shares her journey from uncertainty to confidence, discussing life before medical school, the hurdles and triumphs of residency, and her current role as an ER attending physician. We dive into the strategies she used to navigate the unexpected, the lessons she's learned along the way, and what a day in the life of an emergency medicine physician truly looks like. Whether you're an aspiring medical professional, a current student or simply curious about the world of emergency medicine, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.
Ashley:This is Shadow Me Next with Dr Blair Banfield. Hi Blair, thank you so much for joining me on Shadow Me Next. I am so excited to have you today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to do this. Ah, super, okay. So, generally speaking, tell me a little bit about where you're at right now. You have finished medical school and you are full-blown working as a doctor in medicine. Is that correct?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Yes, it is, I am an attending emergency medicine physician now, which feels crazy to say, but yes, I have finished medical school, I have finished residency and I am now practicing at a small community hospital in Reno, nevada.
Ashley:Wow, that probably feels unreal, kind of like a dream realized. The road to becoming a physician is so long. I'm sure you're just so happy that you're in the place you're at right now.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:It's very, I think, sometimes it still shocks me that sometimes I'll look around looking for you know, quote unquote, the attending and it's me, which is crazy because so many years you always have you know that one thing ahead of you or that next step, and that person is already there and you see them as the you know, the person who has all the answers, and there's always someone there who has, you know, more experience, and now it's me and it's kind of crazy. It's really cool and definitely a lot of work culminated to be where it is and it feels kind of crazy, but it's you now.
Ashley:Yeah, I bet A lot of work culminated. That's no joke. Let's start at the beginning of all of that work, perhaps to high school, even. When did you first realize you wanted to pursue medicine? Maybe you didn't realize you wanted to be a doctor, but when did you realize that medicine was for you?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I feel like I was a little bit different. I had no thought necessarily of medicine at all in high school or college. Even I really liked psychology. I thought there was a lot of interesting aspects there, and so I was getting my degree in psychology. I still didn't really know what I was going to do with it, but towards the end I actually started getting involved with doing neuropsychiatric evaluations for patients with dementia and Parkinson's. So I guess that was kind of my first foray into it and it was really more just a job I could get rather than something I searched out. And as I did it I was working alongside medical doctors, phd psychiatrists or psychologists, and nursing as well. I got to see all these patients and I saw all these medical professionals working with these patients. I would say that was the first time I thought about medicine.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Before that I'd always been thinking a little bit more inside the box, for lack of a better word. I guess I just never saw myself as someone who was smart enough to go into medicine. To be honest with you, I thought that was for geniuses and people who are way above my ability level. And then when I started working in it and I met all these amazing people. They were like me and I felt like it was something that was actually attainable and I saw people doing better with things that these people were doing to help them and it had actual changes that you could see and measure with patients and I liked that this is something that if you put in work, you can change someone's life measurably and I think that really stuck with me and, yeah, and that actually started my decision to consider going into medicine. At that point I was already 22, 23, when I kind of made that realization and then I actually switched some things up and went back to more school to get some prereqs to be able to apply to med school.
Ashley:That's awesome, blair. That sounds like a very organic path to medicine. I think that's the story that everybody expects. We have a job and then we start working in medicine, with other people in medicine, and we realize you know what this is for me? This is where I want to be, as opposed to perhaps a family member saying, oh, you should be a doctor one day, or us watching Grey's Anatomy saying, oh, I love all this drama.
Ashley:This is exactly what I want to do as a job. Right, that's not real life, and I think our careers are shaped by our friends and our family to a degree, but at the same time, they should be something that we are interested in and something we really, really want to do. When you were on this journey to discovering that you wanted to be a doctor, did you ever struggle? Once you got there, did you ever struggle with? Oh my gosh, what have I done? Have I made the right decision? Is medical school what I wanted to do Is being a physician? What I want to be, I guess maybe imposter syndrome.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Oh, absolutely, I still, I mean definitely imposter syndrome every day. But yeah, even the not so much imposter, but just the is this really what I thought it was going to be and is this what I wanted? It definitely popped up in different places over different years and different times, definitely during medical school, definitely during residency, for sure. And you know there's different things that have either made me feel that way and then get over that or, you know, opposite, made me feel the opposite, and then I thought about it later, sort of thing. So absolutely, and then imposter syndrome is a whole other area. That is definitely always been something that's going to creep into things, and I know I'm not the only one. There's tons of people who feel very similarly.
Ashley:It's so true and honestly I'm feeling like imposter syndrome probably isn't even the right word for this. I think it's just that we get to do such incredible things in medicine and sometimes it's hard to believe that we get to do those things. Our training is just so overwhelming and for you it's so long in medicine. I think that once we get past that and we kind of survive all of that perhaps thrive, maybe some people thrive, I don't know. I felt like I was more surviving and then we get to actually do some of these things. It feels like whoa, this is so exciting, so neat. But I am prepared for this, I am qualified for this, I do have the training for this.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Absolutely. But the moment that I do remember that I am, it feels so nice and I do feel like, as I'm attending now, I feel it more and more, which is awesome. In training there's so many times when you're mid-procedure even and you're like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? I can't believe I'm avoiding to do this. But the more you do it and the more you do it correctly and things work out, you realize that oh okay, there's a reason there's this much training and there's a reason that I've got this many time. And yeah, it's pretty crazy once you get far into it and realize all the things that you didn't think you'd ever be able to do that you can now do, so cool.
Ashley:So your path to deciding you wanted to become a physician was a little non-traditional. Your path to deciding you wanted to become a physician was a little non-traditional. What about your actual application process and getting your prerequisites applying to medical school? Was that non-traditional too?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Yes, so I might agree. Like I said, it's in psychology. For that degree the only thing that was crossed over, I think, prereq wise, was that I took biology Everything else I pretty much had to take, but I had not taken it undergrad because I'd already graduated at this point. So there's a lot of different ways you can do that, and I wanted a little bit since no one in my family was in medicine and no one had applied to medical school before, I didn't really have anyone who I can look to to sort of lead me down the path of applications.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:So when it came to doing my prereqs, I wanted to do them on a program that was sort of solidified, so that I would be able to have access to mentors or even advisors who could help me with the application process. You don't have to do that. You can absolutely just take classes sort of piecemeal and a lot of people do take classes sort of piecemeal and a lot of people do. But I wanted some formal organization or a path in itself, just so I had something to follow, because I really didn't know what I was doing. So I actually applied to a bunch of different programs and I got into a couple of them and I decided to go to one in Boston at the Harvard Extension School. So I did all my prerequisites there and it took about two years basically doing at least one to two classes every semester and then working while I was doing that as well up there.
Ashley:For those listening, I will go ahead and include a little link about these programs so you can learn a little bit more about them, because they are very, very interesting. Blair, how did you feel when you got accepted to medical school? What was that feeling?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I remember that day like it was yesterday. I could tell you exactly. I was at work, I was a medical assistant. It was the year I had finished all my prereqs, I had applied and it was one year. Basically it takes about a year to apply and go to interviews and all that stuff. So I was working as a medical assistant at a dermatology office and I got a phone call. I had interviewed about two weeks before and I got a phone call and I recognized the area code and I actually was about to pull a patient back to the patient room. I just dipped into the break room and they told me that I got into medical school and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:That's one of those feelings where you think, if you work really, really hard, sometimes you're like, if I work really hard, things go right. But I think all of us have had a situation where we worked so, so hard and things have not gone the way we wanted them to go, despite all of our work. And this was the first moment in a long time that I had worked so, so hard for something I wanted really bad and it hadn't worked out and I it felt amazing, definitely one of the top feelings I have experienced in life, really just to have all that work come to fruition. And now, really honestly, I do believe that the hardest part as far as when it comes to luck and just getting the right eyes on your application, the hardest part about all of that is getting into med school. So that part had worked and I just truly couldn't really couldn't believe it.
Ashley:That's amazing, a dream, a dream realized for sure. And, and, like you said, it was a lot of hard work and a lot of effort, a lot of effort on your part with finding a program and having to go back to school and get all of those prerequisites again. And it is nice when our hard work ends with us actually realizing that success. And then, of course, the real work begins right, Medical school? Oh, absolutely, let's take one step back real quick.
Ashley:You mentioned working as a medical assistant as well before medical school, which means you had quite a bit of clinical experience and patient contact before that. Is that required for medical school and if it's not, do you think it helped you either get in or be more successful as a medical student?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Great question. I know for PA you guys have very specific strict hour requirements, which I think is awesome. So outside of working as MA while I was taking my prereqs, I also worked as a tech at a hospital in Boston Tufts Medical Center. I had patient contract there as well and it came up a lot at my interviews. I really do believe that it helped get in, but I also think it helped me as someone who was non-traditional and didn't have medical people in my family. It helped kind of solidify for, I guess, a lot of people, in other words, that this is still something that I would want to do.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:The only experience I had prior to that was my very specific scenario, working in neuropsychology. That's a very specific type of patient population, so it was nice to be able to see patients, all kinds of different scenarios as a tech and then also the medical assistant. That's usually where that came up in conversation on interview trails is you know what's the difference between these patients to when you were a tech or when you're an MA? And I was able to talk about that pretty easily because obviously I've been doing it for some time. So I do believe that it not only helps get in, but I think it helps me make sure that this is something I want to do. Those are the people you're actually taking care of in the real world of medicine, and you have to be around them to make sure that you warrant him. That's what you want to do. You're really there to take care of these patients.
Ashley:I'm so glad you brought that up, because that's largely one of the points of this podcast right now is to give people a glimpse into the life of you as a doctor and the types of patients that you treat and your career satisfaction. Right, we need to see if this is a life that is going to work for us and for some people. They might hear me talking about my job as a dermatology PA and think how boring. She sees the same things every day. She sees the same people every year.
Ashley:That's not for me, and meanwhile I hear stories about someone I spoke with who's a corrections nurse and I think I would be terrified to go to work every day and work 12 hour shifts. Are you kidding? I don't know if I could do that job and she absolutely loves it. So you know, I think that it is so important to immerse yourself as much as possible, and this podcast hopefully being a way for people to do that really peripherally, to find out where they need to step in a little bit deeper. I'm so glad to hear you say that. I don't know how you had time to do all of that, blair. Oh my gosh.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I was a lot younger and a lot more energized, and I had a lot more coffee.
Ashley:True, coffee is a good one. So let's jump into medical school real quick. We'll just do a nice brief general overview, because medical school looks very different for different people. So if you can, in the Reader's Digest version of that gigantic four-year chunk of your life, tell us a little bit about what that looked like logistically and then perhaps tell us a little bit about how you felt about it as a whole now, looking back on it during the process, I'm sure it was a little overwhelming, stressful, sometimes very sad. But looking back on it, good feelings, bad feelings what do you think?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Yeah, it's hard. It's four years, definitely very, very tough. Maybe not my favorite four years of life. Especially, unfortunately, is the year I finished medical was a famous year. It was 2020. So that was the year I graduated.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:It was a very interesting time for a lot of reasons, but I think how I would best describe it is it was probably one of the hardest four years of my life. I was also probably the smartest I had ever been. During those four years I was working at my absolute peak. I believe you just have so much more knowledge in your head and it's so readily available that that part was really really cool, just knowing so much information. I will say I knew so much information. I don't know that I necessarily knew how to apply it yet and that's what residency is for, but it was very cool. Thinking back on it now, I could have told you every muscle and tendon and their connections throughout your entire body. Now that mostly has gone away, I guess I'll tell you the important ones I need to know. But I had so much more information in my head back then and I really do love learning and I really having that information that you know your fingertips was really really cool. And you have incredibly smart people that you could just shoot an email to and ask any question in the world I think even doctors that you can ask anything because you're one of their med students. They want you to learn and they will take the time to teach you.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I think the hard parts are the time commitment. Absolutely that is the hardest part. The hard parts are the time commitment. Absolutely that is the hardest part. I think it depends on the person what the time commitment needs to be. When it comes to learning for me, I go very head first and I study really hard for many hours a day. I definitely had some classmates who did not require that much time and you know, it just depends on your study style and who you are as a person. I needed that, I think, and it worked out for me. They got worked out. I matched in my number one residency, all these things, so I think it worked out. But I definitely was studying, I would.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:My first two years I would describe as I went to University of Florida, where they had I believe it's still the case, but they had lectures that they would tape so you could go to lecture in person or you could watch them. When they were released directly after the lecture, they would put them on a website and you could watch them back. I chose to do that mainly because I could pause things. I wanted to go and look something up or write down extra notes, things like that, and I really liked having that ability. Usually I would wake up around 7 or 8 am. The lecture is actually getting started. By the time I would get to school they would have finished the first lecture so that I can log on and start watching the first lecture afterwards and start doing notes.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:So I would do usually lectures for the first, about four hours of studying, five hours, take a little lunch break. Then I would go back to the study hall and I would usually sit in one of the study rooms. I would probably get to campus at around nine or 10 in the morning and I would usually study until about 1130 PM, try to be at home around midnight. Obviously, within there I would take coffee breaks and food breaks and things like that, but I pretty much would just camp out at one of the tables and I would just study for hours and hours on end. And I would do that usually about five to six days a week, depending on what we were studying or depending on when the next exam was. And I would usually take one day off a week and every morning I would go to the gym and back.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:When I wasn't very organized, I would go to the gym first thing in the morning and then I'd go to school for study, but I was still usually getting at least seven and a half to eight hours of sleep a night. So it worked out pretty well. It was pretty organized, but yeah, I definitely was. You know a lot, a lot, and that was the first two years and that's when you're doing your didactics, which is when you're actually sitting in classes. The second two years is when you are in the hospital doing rotations and that schedule is obviously significantly different. I did still do a fair amount of sitting down studying, but that one would have to just be when it would work out for your schedule, because depending on what rotation you're in, they can't do it to the same degree. For example, surgery rotation is very time demanding, so you have to just make the time when you can to try and study for the test at the end of your rotation. Pediatrics is a good one. Pediatrics you had a fair amount of time to yourself to study if you wanted to work it that way, or you could even pick up more hours to go and work more in the hospital. There's a lot of different ways you can handle that.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I really liked the second two years. Like being in the hospital, like applying the knowledge that you had. I felt that kind of connected the dots and I think that those last few years made med school significantly more enjoyable as an experience. It made it more tangible, rather than just sitting and studying in a book and not really knowing why you're doing it. The second two years really made sense as to why you're doing what you're doing. So I really liked the second two years a lot more than the first two years.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:You're doing what you're doing, so I really liked the second two years a lot more than the first two years. I think the first two years is definitely sitting in a room studying for about 12 hours a day and then, depending on the school you're in, they will have different testing schedules. Ours is averaging out to about one test, about one to two tests a month, it would just depend. So just prepping for those kind of constantly, and then, you know, maybe one day a month to going out to dinner with some friends and hanging out and being a real person, because I also think that that is really hard to schedule in, but probably one of the most important things you can do while you're in medical, so that you don't feel like a robot. You feel like a real person who is doing this for real reasons, and I think that's the whole point of all of this.
Ashley:I agree with you and I do think maintaining connections is absolutely one of the hardest things to do, while you are literally elbows deep in textbooks at a table for 12 hours a day and it seems like going out to dinner with friends and calling family members and going to the gym is not contributing to your medical education.
Ashley:But it is because it not contributing to your medical education, but it is because it's contributing to you and you are the person who is being medically educated and it is so important and I think it can be so easy to get lost in studying. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. It's one of the harder elements of things because it seems insignificant until you get back home from dinner with your friends and you're sitting there thinking, oh, thank goodness that I just had that hour and a half. Ideally, it reinvigorates you and it motivates you to keep studying. You mentioned earlier that you were in such a flow in medical school because you had so much information and knowledge but you didn't know how to apply it and you said that's what residency is for. You did your residency in emergency medicine.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Yes, I did. I did my emergency medicine residency in Orlando, florida, at a trauma one hospital there.
Ashley:Oh, very cool. So tell us, how did you learn, how to apply all of that information that you spent 12 hours a day, six days a week, studying for?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Residency, which is a very interesting part of the medical training method. Emergency medicine, I can speak to that at least. The residency is three years. There are four-year programs as well, and that's the whole topic of why you would pick one over the other. When it comes to applying to those residencies, they're at a multitude of different types of hospitals. There are small community hospitals, which is actually what I work at currently, and when we say community hospital, we mean a hospital that is not generally associated with a big tertiary center, which is a hospital that has every specialty under the sun and every niche type of surgeon. You could imagine that would be a tertiary care center. Every niche type of surgeon you could imagine that would be a tertiary care center. A community hospital or a community center is a little smaller than that. So they have some surgeons, they have some specialties, they don't have everything. So that's one type of training option and model. And then there's the tertiary care center.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Oftentimes, those tertiary care centers will usually be called a trauma one, one meaning that there are different levels of ability to handle trauma and they grade those from. I think it's four, three, two, one, and it has to do with how often you have surgeons available. What sort of types of surgeons? You have a number of them and a number of ORs available. A lot of different things and one is the highest level. So that means that you have 24-hour access to pretty much any type of trauma surgeon and ability of the OR that would be required. So the program I trained at was a Trauma One Tertiary Center, so it is one of the biggest hospitals in Orlando. Other hospitals send complicated patients to us so I got to see a very wide breadth of types of patients. I saw patients who walked through the doors themselves. A very wide breadth of types of patients Patients who walk through the doors themselves and patients that were sent from multiple hours away for a very specific thing. But yeah, so when you walk into residency you are straight out of medical school. You have very little actual training with patients.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:You do your rotations in third and fourth year, but that's pretty guided if you have a resident and you have an attending who are really walking you through that process. Now you are the resident who is going through that process, so you are the one who is walking the room seeing the patient getting the whole history doing your exam. You are making your own independent differential of possible diagnoses and ordering the appropriate things. Based on that, you can, of course, ask for help, and early on you absolutely do.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:But the goal is to rapidly, as quickly as you can learn what you can do on your own to get things going, meaning that you know, if there's 25 patients currently in your ER and you're seeing, you know half of them, another resident's seeing the other half and you have one attending who's splitting their time, half of them, another resident seeing the other half and you have one attending who's splitting their time between both of you.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:They're not available to see every single patient immediately, so you get good at seeing patients coming up with what you think is going on and ordering those things to get that process started or stabilizing them if you need to, with eventually the attending coming in to help you out and over time, that speed as they come on to help you out, it slows down and slows down until you're essentially practicing independently. And that is when you are right before graduation and getting ready to be that attending, to be the last line of sort of defense, if you will, to be the decision maker and the one who ultimately is making the diagnoses and deciding between sending the patient home, going to surgery, staying in the hospital a lot of different aspects.
Ashley:I think that's a really great way of describing it. So, in essence, you're practicing medicine with oversight that becomes less and less and less as you develop more confidence and more experience and you see more things and you do more things.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Absolutely. It is literally seeing as much as you possibly can is really, especially in emergency medicine, but I think in every specialty you want to see as much as you can during residency, when you have someone to ask about it and you have someone who's more experienced with it. What would you do in this scenario, or what do you think about this? Because that's the time to learn it is those, however many years of training you do, depending on your specialty. So for emergency, I did three years of that and it was obviously vital. You know from people who've seen it 50 times. You're seeing it for the first time, getting that knowledge from them and moving forward, and in residency, at least for emergency medicine, you are also rotating through some other specialties as well, which is, of course, for emergency medicine, very, very vital because you see all of these things in the ER.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:So getting to see, you know a very specific type of hip fracture with an orthopedic surgeon is amazing, because you now have that specialist can tell you all about it. I may not be the person who's going to be doing surgery on that later. That specialist can tell you all about it. I may not be the person who's going to be doing surgery on that later. But if I have the person who is telling me all they know about it now, I can make sure that that patient is prepped as ready as possible. I can tell them as much as I know about it, I can optimize them for the surgery and do all of that just from my training with them. And I'm not even an orthopedic surgeon, I am the emergency doctor. So I think all of those things combined is really what residency is is getting as much knowledge from everyone that you can in a short amount of time when you were in some of those other specialties.
Ashley:did you ever think I should not have chosen emergency medicine, because you did choose emergency medicine and then you matched into an emergency medicine residency? Did you ever think I should have become a surgeon? And if you did, how did you wrestle with that thought process?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:During residency. I don't know that. I felt that I think it has something to do with why I chose emergency medicine. When I was in med school and I was doing the rotations in medical school I wasn't positive what I wanted to do. I was leaning a little bit towards emergency medicine, just because I like chaos and excitement. But I didn't know.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:And when I would do my rotations I remember my very first rotation actually was surgery and I actually really liked it. I liked the anatomy portion of it. I liked that you can fix things with your hands. I really enjoyed that. But when I got done I remember talking with my attendings and nowadays it's not entirely the case, but oftentimes for surgeons and most specialists they have gotten to a point with specialization where you really do sort of the same thing pretty much all the time. That broadens. Obviously if you're a trauma surgeon you do a little bit more. But generally speaking, if you're a surgeon at some hospital they may just want you to do gallbladder surgery. So you're going to do gallbladders every day in and out and not. You know some people. If you love to do surgery, then gallbladder doesn't really matter to you versus another surgery, then that's fine.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I think once I heard that, I was like I just can't imagine myself only doing one type of surgery or one type of procedure for the rest of my life. So then I would go to the next rotation and I would like that too. Like OB I for the rest of my life. So then I would go to the next rotation and I would like that too. Like OB. I really liked OB, but then when I got to the end of OB I was like I see myself only taking care of women for the rest of my life. I don't know that I can see myself doing that.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:So it kind of came to that I liked every rotation in different facets, but I couldn't see myself just feeling one thing. It seems to be the thing that I kept running into on every rotation when I was a resident. It wasn't the same. I was more practicing in actual medicine at this point, but when I was delivering babies or when I was on orthopedics and I was setting bones, I was seeing the same thing every day. I was setting a radius every single day. I was reducing a hip dislocation every day. I was delivering a baby every day, and while I loved it, I just couldn't see myself doing that same thing every day. I like variety too much, so not really I don't feel like, oh man, I wish I had done OB. I like that. I get a little bit of everything, so it works for me.
Ashley:That's great. I'm so glad to hear that. Let's take a quick pause. We have a segment on the show called Quality Questions and it's where you tell me an interview question that you've had in the past that really has stuck out in your brain. Do you have any of those?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:That's a great question, do I have one of those? I had this man who was interesting and I remember him asking me if you had a chief resident ask you to lie to an attending about something, what would you do? And I thought about it for a second and I said well, if he or she meaning my chief resident asked me to do that, I'm sure there's a reason. They asked me and I went to provide more information and he stopped me actually mid-sentence and he said why did you say he or she? And I said well, you said chief resident. He said yes, but most people would just say he.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:And I said I thought I was. I kind of thought I was being punked. I thought it was like a joke or like maybe he was just trying to, like I don't know, make a point that oh, it's good that you said he or she. But I said oh well, I'm a she and I plan on being a chief resident someday, so and just kind of trailed off because I maybe thought he was kidding. And then he scribbled something on his paper and changed the question and moved on to another question. So I don't know what that was, but I did get waitlisted at that school.
Ashley:No, blair, that's so interesting. You know awkward questions. For whatever reason. I'd like to think that sometimes awkward questions are asked in order to see how you work under pressure or working out, because, lord knows, we get awkward questions as medical providers all the time, right, and we still have to maintain an air of professionalism and answer these questions sometimes, but a lot of times when I hear about some of these interview questions I wonder if it's just not a reflection of the interviewer, and that's awkward.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I think that's what I took from that moment. To be honest, the upside was that I'd already gotten accepted to another place, so I wasn't.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I left the interview laughing. Thankfully that's the only thing I remember about that interview. To be honest with you, it definitely also changed your picture of that person in that program to some degree that they would let certain questions be asked to students. But you know that's okay Because that to me was a sign that that was not the program for me. I was lucky I already gotten in somewhere else, so I think that takes a little bit of the edge off. It doesn't feel as do or die in that moment. It was definitely. It stood out. I remember it to this day.
Ashley:And you know that brings up a good point. You it's hard to imagine when you're actually in the interview, because it feels like they're just interviewing you. But you are in fact evaluating the program too, based on the interviewers, based on the whole process, you know, based on their facilities, et cetera.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:So so that's perfect.
Ashley:I'm actually really glad that you brought that up, because that is an important thing to remember for any interview, regardless of whether it's in medicine or anything else. It's not one-sided. You are definitely doing your due diligence and making sure that this is a place that you can see yourself fitting in.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:When I used to interview during residency, when we'd interview incoming residents, I felt strongly about that point and I would always remind the interviewees that they have done this much in their practice. They've already gone to med school. They've done the hard stuff. Like all of medicine is hard and training is hard. But remember, you are the thing that is the pride at the end of the day and at this setting you have to make that decision for what's right with you. So you interview us to make sure we're right for you, just as much as we are making sure you're right for our program. I feel like when you're an applicant it's really easy to forget that you know you're important.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:You see everything as you need something from someone else, but really you have to remember and I know it's hard, but remember you are worthy and you are important, so you have to make those choices for you and be a little selfish sometimes, it's okay. At the end of the day, it's your life and your training and your time, which time is incredibly valuable in life. So just give yourself credit and know that you are applying just as much as the program is applying to you. Yeah.
Ashley:I love that you asked them that let's shift gears. In the last couple of questions that we have. Let's talk about your current job. So what does a typical shift look like for you in the ED?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Sure. So the hospital I currently work at is kind of in a downtown setting. This job is a community hospital, so it is not a tertiary or K center, which we kind of talked about earlier, or a trauma center. So we do not get trauma unless they walk themselves in, which sometimes happens. But EMS does not bring us trauma. So my general setup I am in year two of working there the way our group has it set up early on, you do a lot more nights and that's just. You're new sort of everyone has that option. But I'm a newer person. I pretty much work exclusively nights. We currently do nine hour shifts. We've changed it a couple different times and I have a lot of different reasonings for that. But everything is decided upon as a group. So for us we are a small independent group, democratic group more accurately. That's a whole different conversation. We can have a long discussion of the different type of structures of emergency departments and how they're staffed and things like that. But what I can say is that I have a lot of say in my shift, which is great. But yeah, so I work.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Generally speaking, my shift is I come in at 9 pm and I leave about 6 am. I see everything. You walk through the door so you can come in for really anything that you think is an emergency, and that has been as much as gunshot wounds and what ends up being appendicitis or heart failure, as well as blisters on feet, and I've seen someone with chapped lips come in before. So it's a very broad, broad definition of emergency sometimes and that's okay. So I work with a PA who is also on at night. They work a little bit different hours. I think. They come in around 6 pm and they leave at 3 or 4 am, just kind of depending on the night and how busy it is, and I have a scribe who works with me so they help me with my notes. Not every place has that, but we do and I really like that. It makes documentation a lot easier and they're just fun and they're usually younger people who are also applying for PA and med school, so it's really cool to be able to shop with them as well.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:But yeah, so I see patients where they come in and she can go in, kind of come up with a differential. They start talking with them, doing an exam for the necessary labs and imaging if needed, and then from there decide is it something that needs to stay in the hospital? Is it something that can go home? Or sometimes some in the middle where they can go home with the plan to come back tomorrow for a recheck? There's a lot of different ways to treat different things and, you know, medicine isn't quite as cookie cutter as we wish it was sometimes. There's always an obvious right answer to everything. Sometimes it's a little bit of gray and that's a little bit more art than it is science.
Ashley:But I like that about it as well. Blair, as we wrap up, do you have any general advice for pre-health students, people who are looking towards becoming a physician, and they think you know, is this right? For me, this is a lot of schooling, a lot of training, and I'm just unsure if this is what I want to do. What advice would you give those people?
Dr. Blaire Banfield:That's a great thought and I definitely was there a lot of times. I think one of the big pieces of advice that I remember getting, actually before I applied to med school, was, as I was doing my post-bacc classes and things, and I was already feeling like I was working a ton, and that wasn't even half the battle. One of the things I kept thinking about was oh my gosh, it's so much time, it's so much time. And someone said to me the time's going to pass anyway. What do you want to be doing during it? And I think that that was important for a couple of reasons. One it is really true the time is going to pass. Do you want to pass it with being a little more comfortable and not working every day and maybe doing something else? Or are you okay with maybe putting off a little bit of time so that later on in life you can have more again and you also are doing something that you've clearly at least thought about or dreamt about? So I think it comes down to yes, it is a ton of time, it is a ton of work, but I guess at the end of the day, do you want to also be able to say I'm do this for a living, which is pretty cool.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:I mean, there's a lot of problems with medicine, but it is pretty cool when I get to leave work and my mom calls me and she asks how it was and I, you know, explain. I'm a really critical patient and my mom, who doesn't know anything about medicine, just says, did they die? And I get to say no, no, they didn't die. I could save someone's life. But I'm not going to lie. It is a ton of work and I missed a lot of days and I still miss some Christmas days.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:So I think that's a big thing is just how much does it mean to be able to say that I am a doctor and I work in medicine and I do save lives? That is not critical to you, which it does not have to be. That does not make you a bad person for not wanting to give up Christmases and birthdays and things like that. For that it is completely normal and I think that's important to know as well. If you don't need to say that in your life and you're still perfectly happy, then don't do it. But if you want to be able to do those things and do crazy, you know life-saving procedures, you don't mind missing a little bit, then I would say to totally do it. That's one big piece of advice that I think I got and I think is still true to this day.
Ashley:The time is going to pass. It's what you do with it that matters. Blair, thank you so much for joining us on Shadow Me Next today. It has been a fantastic conversation. I'll make sure not to report to my ED with chapped lips. I'll do my best, but no promises.
Dr. Blaire Banfield:Thank you so much. Let me know if you ever want to chat again about more emergency medicine, more residency, really anything I would love to chat.
Ashley:Thank you so very much for listening to this episode of shadow me next. If you liked this episode or if you think it could be useful for a friend, please subscribe and invite them to join us next Monday, as always. If you have any questions, let me know on Facebook or Instagram. Access Access. You want, stories you need? You're always invited to shadow me next.
