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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!
19 - Ripple of Change: How One Doctor is Fighting to Save Healthcare | Dr. Todd Otten, MD
Learn more about Dr. Otten or to support his documentary, please visit Medicine Forward.
His book, Ripples of Change is available at a bookstore near you!
Dr. Todd Otten pulls back the curtain on healthcare's darkest challenges while offering a vision of hope for its future. A board-certified family physician with over two decades of experience, Dr. Otten speaks candidly about his own battle with severe burnout that nearly ended his career and the devastating loss of four colleagues to suicide.
What makes this conversation particularly powerful is Dr. Otten's refusal to simply critique the system while remaining on the sidelines. As co-founder of Our Quadruple Aim and lead catalyst of Medicine Forward, he's actively building solutions to strengthen the patient-physician relationship that lies at the heart of effective healthcare. His book "Ripple of Change," co-authored with his patient Joshua Judy, offers a rare dual perspective of the healthcare journey from both sides of the stethoscope.
Dr. Otten shares the story of his "office utopia," where he mentored nurse practitioners through an open-door policy that prioritized collaborative learning and patient care. This approach stands in stark contrast to today's high-pressure, metrics-driven healthcare environment that too often values data collection over meaningful human connection. "Does data make the dying feel better?" he asks, challenging us to reconsider what truly matters in medicine.
The conversation takes a powerful turn as Dr. Otten discusses his upcoming documentary project, which aims to educate Americans about healthcare's systemic problems – from corporate greed to insurance obstacles – while activating a movement for genuine transformation. Despite these weighty topics, his message remains hopeful. For those considering healthcare careers, he emphasizes the beauty of medicine while advocating for mentorship, boundary-setting, and self-care as essential safeguards against burnout.
Through stories that range from heartbreaking to inspiring, Dr. Otten reminds us that at its core, medicine is about those profound human connections that transcend algorithms and metrics – like his poignant interaction with a 90-year-old cancer patient that created ripples of gratitude lasting decades. Subscribe to Shadow Me Next for more conversations that explore the human side of medicine with leaders who are shaping its future.
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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. I'm Ashley, a physician assistant, medical editor, clinical preceptor and the creator of Shadow Me Next. It is my pleasure 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-health 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 we will review highlights from this conversation and where I'll give you sneak previews of our upcoming guests.
Ashley:In today's episode, we welcome Dr Todd Otten, a board-certified family physician with over 20 years of experience in healthcare. Dr Otten is the co-founder of Our Quadruple Aim, a movement focused on improving patient experience, quality care, lowering costs and enhancing provider wellness. He's also the lead catalyst and board chair of Medicine Forward, where he works to strengthen the patient-physician relationship and catalyze positive change in healthcare. Dr Otten's journey into medicine was shaped both by his passion for human connection and a desire to help others. His personal story is a testament to the challenges of burnout, having navigated his own struggles with it in 2019, and sadly losing several colleagues to suicide. But it's his drive to make lasting change in the healthcare system that fuels his mission today. In this episode, we'll dive into Dr Auten's experience training young clinicians, his heartfelt approach to patient care and the inspiration behind his very powerful book Ripple of Change. We'll also hear about his groundbreaking documentary aimed at exposing the realities of burnout, corporate greed and mental health struggles in healthcare.
Ashley:Please keep in mind that the content of this podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered as professional medical advice. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. This is Shadow Me Next with Dr Todd Otten. Hi, dr Otten, thank you so much for joining us today on Shadow Me Next. This is going to be a very unique conversation, one that I have been excited about since we chatted on LinkedIn. So thanks for being here, thanks for dedicating your time.
Dr. Otten:Oh, absolutely A little bit of pressure to start, huh.
Ashley:Pressure's always good. We like it we like it.
Ashley:Dr Otten is the co-author of a book called Ripple of Change that I have really been enjoying. I expected to finish before we started chatting and then you know it's a book that you just read one page and you go, wow, I want to read that page again. So it really hooks you and it keeps you in there. It's a fantastic book and we'll talk a little bit more about it, but let's start. If you don't mind, let's start at the beginning. Let's go back all the way back to when you were considering your career choices, your career options. What drew you to medicine?
Dr. Otten:Oh, thank you. A handful of things I would say I did well in school, which think is is probably a prerequisite to getting into medical school, I suppose, and so I was gravitating towards more challenging things. Um, and I think there was two components to one of them I think I was conscious of and I think one of them, in retrospect maybe, was subconscious, to be honest with you. The first part of it I was a supervisor at parks and rec and I was supervising kids and playing games with them and crafts, and I just love that human interaction, those relationships that developed, and so that was definitely a driver. And it was probably a sophomore, junior year of high school.
Dr. Otten:I really thought maybe I want to be a doctor and kind of just got on that path and stayed on it, to be honest with you, but subconsciously, prior to that I had had some traumatic things happen in my life, you know, as a kid, predominantly around some bullying, and I think that really shaped me in wanting to help others, you know, and it wasn't honestly until recently that I really realized that. But yeah, straight into college and did some track and field and then was straight into medical school. So it was kind of right on that road. And you know, a couple of decades later, a few more gray hairs, handful of kids, here we are.
Ashley:So often our experience in childhood shapes our career, and sometimes those experiences are really positive and I love talking to people about how their life was positively changed by, you know, a mentor in the medical field and that's what what compelled them. But you know, those those less fortunate stories are are present as well. So thank you for sharing that, and it does seem like just speaking with you and reading your book that is one of kind of your pillars of wanting to be in medicine is to address some of the mental health issues that are prevalent right now amongst physicians.
Dr. Otten:Oh, oh, yes, without a doubt, that is, I would say usually when people ask me like you know what drives you or why are you doing what you're doing now? And I think there's three components to it, and it's not all sunshine, rainbows and lollipops, as they say. But you know, I don't want to discourage individuals either. Medicine is an amazing profession. I love it, you know. I loved seeing patients, but the reality is in our landscape now. It's not easy, you know. It is difficult in this fee-for-service world, and that's really one of the things that we need to work on, I suppose. But I digress.
Dr. Otten:So the three drivers is I went through really pretty bad classic burnout in 2019, um, to the point where I was ready to just quit and walk away. Um, you know, I, I remember sitting in my backyard in tears, hating the job that I had loved for over a decade at that point, just hating it, you know. And it speaks to the difficulty and how hard medicine is. But again, it's a beautiful, beautiful profession, but unfortunately, over my career, with all those pressures and drivers and so on and so forth, I've also had four of my colleagues die by suicide.
Dr. Otten:It just has to change, and how those things negatively impact patients is extremely unfortunate, and so we've got a ways to go, and so that's what's driving me now, and I think on the flip side there are amazing people who wanted to turn this ship around, so to speak, and the corollary to that is is we need the next generation or the generation behind us. As I said, you know a lot of gray hairs and time's marching on. We need the next generation or the generation behind us. As I said, you know a lot of gray hairs and time's marching on. We need the next generation of young, amazing leaders to find good mentors, go forward, grab your opportunity and thrive, and it can be done, but you have to set boundaries and all those other kinds of things as well. So, long-winded answer to saying yes, I am extremely passionate about improving the mental health, not only for clinicians but also for patients. We need improvements in both of those buckets.
Ashley:I agree it's a complex field with complex problems, and patients are complex and physicians are complex and the problems can be so great, but the benefit to working in medicine every single day I still feel it and so many people I've talked to have remarked on it. The benefits of it are are felt so strongly and and what we do makes such a difference in the lives of our patients and it's, it's important and I love it so much. Tell me about when you were working in family medicine, tell me about what a day in your life looks like and perhaps, perhaps, how that's changed since you've taken on a new role.
Dr. Otten:For sure I, you know I think back my former employer. I had been there for 13 years and, honestly, the vast majority of it was completely amazing. You know you'd start the day and you'd be busy and it was, you could say, maybe organized chaos at times in a family medicine office. You know lots of messages and coming faxes and what have you. But you know it'd be eight or nine hours later and you'd be having a blast and the day would be done and it was like, oh my gosh, wow, you can tell you're loving it when you don't even know that time is just elapsing like that. Right, and honestly, if you get good and get efficient, it can be done where you're not doing pajama time. That's a different topic for a different day and I'll let the listeners look it up if you don't know, perhaps. But I think some of my favorite memories were when I was working in what we called the office utopia. I think it's chapter 13 in the book.
Dr. Otten:I was supervising three nurse practitioners all right out of school and they were incredible. We had an open door policy. There was teaching. I distinctly remember there was three chairs in my office. At times all four of us would be crammed in there. One of them would be sitting on the floor, indian style, just because we wanted to go over cases and soak it all in.
Dr. Otten:It was such a magical time to be honest with you. There was a rainbow unicorn above my desk that was put there when I had gone away on vacation and it was like we were in a flea market. You know, there's all these Lego figures that patients had given me and notes on the wall and so on and so forth, but it was just an absolute blast and you knew you were making a difference. You know the peoples whose lives you touched, whether it was young kids who they were getting vaccines or doing wellness checks, or an adult with a complex health history or somebody who was at the tail end of their life. They needed that emotional support and maybe their family needed the courage to do the right thing and put them in hospice or stop doing unneeded treatments and causing patients to suffer. You know those are some of the best moments, and so certainly highs and lows, but I would say the highs by far outweighed the lows in terms of direct patient care, for sure.
Ashley:You mentioned that you were training three nurse practitioners right out of school and I would love to talk just a little bit about that. First of all, thank you for doing that. I've talked to so many colleagues of mine who are APPs that's what we call advanced practice providers PAs, nps, et cetera who have just kind of been thrust into medicine and we don't get that physician supervisor, that physician mentor that we were really hopeful for in school and coming out of school. It's kind of why we chose this profession, for that collaboration. Why is that so important to you to work with PAs and NPs and perhaps other young colleagues?
Dr. Otten:Well, probably a few reasons. I think, inherently I enjoy teaching. I think it's part of it. I enjoy that interaction of you know, maybe challenging somebody a little bit with a question and trying to get them to take their thinking to the next level. I think that ultimately I realized, like you know, as an individual, if you're only focused on that circle around you, you only really have so much impact. But if you're teaching others or empowering others or impacting others, your sphere of influence is tending to grow and I think, subconsciously, that was probably part of it as well.
Dr. Otten:I think for those that are coming out of school or considering it, you know the job market for clinicians is, I would say, very much in our favor for the most part maybe not everywhere, but I would include that in. You know, when you're interviewing, how's the mentorship? Do you spend time learning? Do you spend time teaching? How's the backup? Are you there to answer questions when I'm unsure of myself? Honestly, I think the best clinicians, if they heard stuff like that, would be incredibly impressed with an interviewee if they heard that.
Ashley:I love that sphere of influence idea. That's exactly what we're trying to do here on Shadow Me Next too, in a little bit of a different way. I was only impacting so many pre-health students, allowing them to shadow in person, and I realized that, while I love talking about what I do and I feel so passionate about being a PA in dermatology and you know my work, my, my pajama work as a, as a medical editor there is so much more out there and you know this. This podcast really does allow people to kind of expand and search out more and and just really widens their ability to learn about medicine, which is so perfect. Before we hear what Dr Otten's quality question is, keep in mind that there's more interview prep, such as mock interviews and personal statement review over on shadowmenextcom. There you'll find amazing resources to help you as you prepare to answer your own quality questions.
Dr. Otten:When we interviewed for those nurse practitioner positions, I had a set of, I think, three or four canned questions and a couple of them were clinical. But one of them was very much intended to throw the candidates off and to see how they could think on their feet and what type of answer they would come up with. And when I was a kid, I used to read comic books and I won't go down the rabbit hole of comic books right now, but I used to ask the candidates tell me your favorite superhero, what's your favorite superhero and why? And you just get some wonderful answers. You know a lot of creativity, a lot of thinking outside of the box. You'd also get people that would just stare at you and and and that was always concerning to me Like they couldn't come up with anything at that moment. I'm like well, what are you going to do if someone's like having a heart attack right here? You know, like I don't want you just staring at them.
Ashley:Oh no, that's a really good point. I think in interview questions at this point we should be used to getting those that are just coming out of left field right, and sometimes the questions out of left field are really just meant to be just that a question out of left field and catch you off your feet and really see how you think and see if you have, you know, resilience and tenacity, that sort of thing.
Dr. Otten:My personal one is Spider-Man. You know I can relate to the kid who was bullied, you know, and so I think that's why it always resonated with me. And then the other quote that came from that was with great power comes great responsibility, and as a clinician you have a lot power and and therefore a lot of responsibility. I mean literally, at times you have other people's lives in your hands, you know, you can't forget that. Um, so yeah, I always went with spider-man, but I heard by wonder woman and batgirl and all kinds of fun things. So it was great and there was layers to the answers, sure, you know the best answers would give you layers, and that was really kind of what I was looking for.
Ashley:And you would certainly learn a lot about people in a question. That's a fun question. It's enjoyable to think about, you know, reading comics and watching superhero movies and things like that. So I'm sure it's a little.
Ashley:It's a question that should also be disarming, I would think a little bit too, let's talk about changes in healthcare always the case, and I think that is when you were describing it. I just thought about how wonderful it would be to just sit and just talk about patients all the time and not feel the pressure and the rush of clinic, but just be able to digest some of the things that we've seen and dealt with in clinic. How, in your opinion, you mentioned burnout earlier how has provider burnout impacted patient care? I mean, this is a huge issue right now and, in your opinion, what is it doing to our patients, aside from what it's doing to us? How are patients suffering?
Dr. Otten:Oh, big time. I mean, we have proven in this country we can spend a lot of money and not have the best outcomes compared to other developed countries around the world when it comes to our healthcare delivery system. And, frankly, in my opinion, a big part of that is burnout, and all the studies prove it right. When you've got a clinician that's not at their best, you're not getting the highest quality care, mistakes are made, lawsuits go up, costs go up, so on and so forth, and so this RVU driven fee for service model that we are all struggling to navigate at times is super problematic. Honestly, I think we need to slow down and really take a step back and say what are we really doing here? Are we trying to generate profits or are we trying to care for human beings, which is our purpose?
Dr. Otten:I have a friend, dyke Drummond, who talks about polarity a lot, you know, and balancing those polarities profits and purpose, or people and profits, however you want to describe it. You know so the downstream effects of burnout are horrendous. And if we think about just, you know I'm a physician, so I'm obviously biased to physicians, but the statistics are going to be similar whether you're an APP or you're a nurse or whatever, burnout's through the roof as a patient, do you want to be talking to somebody who's worried about how their marriage is or their bills, or they've got substance abuse issues, I mean, and that's part of burnout, or all these things? I mean that's 50% of our workforce. Think about that. Is that what you want? Do you want that from your clinician, or do do you want them well rested and thinking at their best and at the top of their game? Of course, we all want the latter and and as a, as a system, we need to strive for that.
Ashley:So you're right. It's interesting. Recently, and I'm gonna say in the last year, um I I have a practice where I see the same patients over and over much like yours, and develop these fantastic relationships with them. I've noticed recently that some of my patients have started asking how I'm doing, and they don't just mean what are you doing this weekend with your girls? Are you guys going to the strawberry festival? They mean how are you doing? As a clinician, I've noticed that a lot of my other doctors are looking really tired, are feeling very stressed and are getting a little snappy with me. How are you doing? And hearing that question from my patients that I do care about, but I'm, you know, I'm just I'm offering a very small element of their healthcare. It's concerning and I'm so grateful that they asked me and, of course, I'm doing fine right now because I have an excellent outlet in speaking with other people about this exact problem. But they're picking up on it obviously.
Dr. Otten:Well, and as you say that, I have a bit of a almost bittersweet response to that.
Dr. Otten:I think it speaks to the reality of where we're at and some of the things that have occurred and the unfortunate events in Manhattan a few months back, if you will.
Dr. Otten:But on the flip side, it also warms my heart that the patients are thinking about the clinicians and concern for them.
Dr. Otten:You know there is a sacred bond in that relationship that has been eroded over the years and trust has been lost and those little moments, those little touch points, can help restore that. And when I first published the book I mean that was one of the simple things we talked about was thank your physician, ask how they're doing, and so when I hear that these are going on, it warms my heart that it's happening, because I think it's critical and, honestly, I think it speaks to how I think we're going to make massive changes within the health care landscape. It's not going to come from one organization or one state or whatever. Masses in a unified direction. If you will speaking together, clamoring or shouting for change, you know the reality is there's 300 million plus people in this country who are not satisfied with what is going on in healthcare. I would make the case that there's a small percentage that are satisfied with the status quo and the primary driver for that, I think, is money, unfortunately.
Ashley:No, you're absolutely right, and that sacred relationship in medicine is likely what drives a lot of us to continue doing what we're doing, and for patients, it's what brings them back to the office time and time and time again your relationship with your patients. One of them you developed a really great relationship with, so much so that you guys decided to coauthor a book, Ripple of Change, and it has been. Honestly, one of my favorite things is getting to hear both perspectives. It's such a unique approach to discussing medicine to hear from you, who is a medical doctor, and then also to hear from your patient. So your patient, Joshua Judy, and you co-authored the Ripple of Change. This book is incredible. It achieved the number one new release on Amazon in its category. Why do you think this book is resonating with readers so much?
Dr. Otten:Oh, there's lots of directions I could take this. Well, let me give you a little bit of backstory, how it developed, I suppose, first, and then maybe I can explain why. I think it resonates with a lot of people, which was ultimately our hope, right? Everybody aspires, when they do something like this, that it touches many, many individuals. So I started writing Ripple of Change probably two years about two years after going through burnout, and for me it was the starting point, was a little bit catharsis. I wrote a poem called Medicine is a World of Gray, which is kind of a dark look at when primary care is a struggle and what's really going on. And then I wrote a chapter called Anatomy of Burnout, which is really my journey through burnout and how it affected not just me but my family, my friends, my colleagues, least of which my patients.
Dr. Otten:And so I was in this writing process and Joshua had been my patient for oh my goodness, at least a decade at that point and he was having his own health struggles with cervical radiculopathy which is a pinched nerve in his neck. No HIPAA violations, it's all in the book, so it's all out there already. But we were struggling and he was getting to a dark place because of pain. You know, when you're in chronic pain it is very difficult to be positive when you're always hurting like that. And so we had a conversation and I brought up what I was doing and he's a bright, articulate guy and so I gave him a little more information, told him about the quadruple aim, and he's like, what's the quadruple aim? And I'm like, don't worry, you'll learn about it as we go. But anyways, my prescription for him that day was really to just write. That's really the only instructions I gave him. And he wrote a beautiful piece.
Dr. Otten:We got together, talked about it and then he had the idea for the yin and the yang. On the spine there's a yin and a yang symbol. It's in the form of a pill capsule, and the reason for that is is I wrote him for a medication with devastating side effects. Just, they were horrible. And it's it's the exact same drug that I still take to this day to help curb my post-concussive headaches from playing sports. And so you think about this, this beautiful world of medicine where you can have these just drastically different responses to the exact same drug.
Dr. Otten:And so as we weave our two stories back and forth together, you know it starts in this kind of dark place for both of us and then morphs into really healing and opportunity and ideas and things that you can do to navigate the healthcare system better.
Dr. Otten:We tried to fill it with a little bit of something for everyone, which is why it's a longer book, so don't be intimidated. It's a big font and I think part of it too is there's lots of stories, there's lots of humor, and we try to just fill it with actionable items and I think it's people that really get through it really appreciate that and they're like no, this isn't just Dr Otten complaining, this isn't just Joshua Judy relaying his struggles. These two guys are trying to inspire people and empower people so that they can have a better journey through the healthcare system or play just a little bit of a part to make it better, and I think that really is landing with a lot of people and I'm thrilled about it. That was the you know, if I had a dream, that was. The hope is that it would touch some lives and make a difference.
Ashley:Absolutely. I have really enjoyed reading it and it's funny I started reading it as I was coming off a conversation that I had recently with two PAs actually, about data and data collection and how AI is being employed with data collection and medicine to really kind of change the face of medicine, so to speak, and it felt very exciting to me but at the same time it felt so foreign. It's so foreign. Data collection is not my thing, but that's probably where it's going to benefit is AI is going to do all the data collection for me.
Ashley:But there was a line in your book that says does data make the dying feel better? And it was just. It's such a stark contrast to what I was just talking about and really brings you back to yeah, we can get so wrapped up in all of these big exciting changes in medicine but at the same time, we have to bring it all back to the point of taking care of people, forming those relationships, gaining and earning their trust and continuing to gain and earn their trust throughout their entire relationship, with us not focusing on the data, which I think is what is fueling so much of our burnout right now is trying to stay ahead of the game. Collect all of this information, check all the boxes, but it's about the patients ultimately, right.
Dr. Otten:A hundred percent. You know, I think data is important, but it should not be the primary driver. You know, there are so many other things that we should be focusing on as opposed to checking all these boxes. And you know, honestly, sometimes the right answer is not what the textbook tells you, you know, and it's not what the data tells you to be. I mean, and that's the beauty of medicine, being a physician, that's why it's an art, right? You know, I'll tell you a story and I think there's some, there's some power behind this.
Dr. Otten:I had been at my previous job for, oh geez, probably all of a month out of residency. Fortunately, I had a lot of experience prior to that in the Navy, and so me being out of residency for a month was probably not the same as your average person out of residency for a month. I mean, I'd have been out of school for almost 10 years at that point. But there was a patient who was in his nineties and, um, beautiful man, just wonderful man, but he had nuance of diabetes and he was thin and it was just. It didn't make sense. When I saw this guy for the first time, like I'm, like something is wrong, like red flags were going up in my mind. And so I examined him and literally I could feel a mass in his abdomen, you know, around his stomach or his pancreas a little hard to tell at the time. So we ordered some blood work and we ordered a scan, you know, and I saw him back in a very short period and, sure enough, he had metastatic pancreatic cancer, you know.
Dr. Otten:And the reality is there was not a whole lot of great options out there, but his daughter came in and we talked through it and we went through the choices and forgive me if I get a little bit choked up here he looked at me in the eye and said you know, dr Rotten, if this is you, what would you do? Right, and you know, I'm like, second time I'm meeting this man, you know, and he's 90 some years old, and I'm weighing all this in my mind Do I send him to an oncologist? Do I? You know, all these chemotherapy, radiation, big surgery, or it's all swirling at this point? And I looked at him and I said I would spend time with your family. And you know, is that the textbook? You know, no, Was that the right answer at that time for that man and his family? Yes, do I regret it? No, he stayed at home, exercised still for a few more weeks and died peacefully in hospice about three months later.
Dr. Otten:And no unneeded treatments, no unneeded costs. You know, I think about that. That's such a, for me, was a beautiful poignant moment and fast forward. You know whatever, how many years, 15 years I was doing a book signing and his daughter came up to me and said do you remember me? And I said oh yeah, I know exactly who you are. She gave me a big hug. That's, that's what medicine's about right there. That's what it's all about.
Ashley:Thank you for sharing that story. It's bringing me back episode two of this podcast. We have a PA student, audra Cotter, who is on bringing me back Episode two of this podcast. We have a PA student, audra Cotter, who is on, and she remarked on one of the most eye-opening things that she has experienced in medicine is that in second year, her clinical year, pancreatic cancer was her example. Actually, she said pancreatic cancer was a page in a textbook and I read all about it and the symptoms and the treatment options, which, of course, were medical, surgical treatment options. And she said and then, on clinical rotation, all of a sudden pancreatic cancer became a 64-year-old woman who has children at home and bills to pay. And she said that was the power of clinic. I understood this disease, but now in clinic I understand the consequences of this disease and how these people are experiencing this disease. And it was pancreatic cancer was the example.
Dr. Otten:That's the beauty of medicine. It's not just all science, there's that human component to it. Those relationships, those bonds, those love, those fears, those good days, bad days all roll into one. I mean again, I've said it earlier in the podcast and I'll say it again it is a magical profession, which is why I am so motivated to try and fix it as much as we can, because as it stands it's largely broken and we can't have that.
Ashley:You're right. In the book. I believe it was Joshua Judy who provided this quote, but he said I only knew the field of medicine to heal, not destroy, and certainly not destroy the healers themselves. It's such a poignant quote to me and it really ties into what you just said about looking to fix these elements of medicine. I it really ties into what you just said about looking to fix these elements of medicine. I think one of the ways you're doing this is developing this incredible documentary. So tell us a little bit about this, tell us how that quote perhaps ties into this documentary, what it's all about and how you hope it changes things.
Dr. Otten:Absolutely. When you were saying that quote, it had me thinking of my career. I've had the unfortunate experience of losing four of my colleagues to suicide. You know a friend from medical school who is probably the smartest person I ever knew, one of my partners who was a mentor to me and you know I I don't think I ever actually asked him how he was doing, and I regret that them how he was doing, and I regret that.
Dr. Otten:And so I am super motivated with this documentary, where the goal is is is multifold and and, and we're still early on in the process of this. You know gathering information and interviews, and, and so I joke that we're building the airplane as we're flying it, and there's some truth to that, right Cause you don't know how it's all going to play out till you interview people Like you don't know what they're going to say and how many gold nuggets are going to be laid out for you, and so on and so forth. And so it's this fun winding path, but ultimately what we're really wanting to do is pull back the curtain for the American people as to what is going on in healthcare, not just from mental health and suicide, but corporate greed, profiteering, insurance issues. The list goes on and on and on, and the average American healthcare consumer is not fully aware of a good percentage of these things, and they deserve to be and need to be, and we need the American public to understand how bad things have truly gotten for to the point where you know we've got somebody who goes and shoots a CEO in Manhattan, for goodness sake. So we want to really open people's eyes and I think by educating the American public we can then activate, and hopefully we'll have an.
Dr. Otten:The plan is to have an evergreen call to action so that we can really transform things. So think, educate, activate, transform, with a whole bunch of fun, emotional, hopefully, some humor, you know, built in there, et cetera. So, yeah, ironically, one of the quotes that's stuck already which kind of makes me laugh is when I said, yeah, I was taught to just suck it up buttercup, and we decided the name of our production company is Buttercup Productions. So a little bit of levity in there too, despite the heavy topics.
Ashley:Has to be. That's life right. If you're just approaching every single thing in life and not really feeling the weight of the issues, are you really truly experiencing life? Thank you for creating this documentary. I am so excited to watch it. I think it's going to be fantastic. What would you say to encourage those who might be interested in a career in healthcare? Or perhaps, what hopes? What hopes do you have for the future of medicine?
Dr. Otten:You know, you hear a lot of doom and gloom, and we're on the verge of the system imploding and you hear a lot of the negativity. I think the reality is, though, it's an absolutely beautiful profession. I wouldn't trade a thing. I don't think I would trade anything in my journey for the world at this point, to be quite honest with you, so I would encourage you to follow your dreams. Having said that, I think getting a mentor early on would be an amazing thing. Having said that, I think getting a mentor early on would be an amazing thing. I think learning to set boundaries is critical, the capacity to say no, but, ultimately, self-care is paramount. You have got to take care of yourself as you go through the journey.
Dr. Otten:If you're not doing well, you are not nearly giving your best to other human beings. So, yeah, I think there's hope and we need the generation that follows behind myself to help us move forward.
Ashley:Thank you so much, and thank you, dr Otten, for spending so much time and sharing so many incredible stories with us today. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Otten:Oh, it was an absolute pleasure. I hope everyone that had an opportunity to listen learned something, and feel free to reach out to me. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm very responsive there and medicineforwardorg is the nonprofit organization where I'm the lead catalyst, and I'll leave it with this. Our mission statement is catalyzing positive change so physician-patient relationships can flourish.
Ashley:That's incredible. Thank you so much.
Dr. Otten:Thanks for having me.
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 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. You want stories you need? You're always invited to shadow me next.
