Episode #226. Healthcare Innovation Is Broken, And More Tech Isn’t the Fix, with Stephanie Lahr

Summary

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Risk Never Sleeps Podcast: Episode #226

"Healthcare Innovation Is Broken, And More Tech Isn’t the Fix"

Host: Ed Gaudet
Guest: Dr. Stephanie Lahr
Release Date: May 26, 2026
Location Recorded: HIMSS 2026, Las Vegas

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Episode Overview

This episode features a candid conversation between Ed Gaudet and Dr. Stephanie Lahr, a physician turned healthcare executive and now a strategic advisor and leader in healthcare technology. Together, they explore why healthcare innovation often falters—not because of a lack of technology, but because of breakdowns in training, partnership, and the human element. The discussion spans Stephanie's unconventional career journey, her passion for bridging clinical care with technology, the realities of fractional executive work, and insightful advice for healthcare professionals and innovators.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Stephanie Lahr's Career Path and Philosophy

• Background: Internal medicine physician, former hospitalist, CIO and CMIO in South Dakota, experience with Artisight (smart hospital tech), now Chief Medical Officer at Uperform and consultant for multiple health tech firms.
  • Quote: "A progression from taking care of patients one at a time into a community at a time to being able to impact things right on a much broader scale." [01:18]
• On Fractional Executive Leadership:
  • Works with multiple vendors and health systems, providing both product feedback and commercial/industry insights.
  • Quote: "Fractional executive leadership, if you can do it right, really allows companies to tap in to the quality of individual that they may need...without the financial challenge of trying to do that full time." [03:40]
  • Offers clinical credibility, workflow wisdom, and strategic direction to early and large-stage health tech firms.

The Challenges of Healthcare Innovation

• Innovation Isn’t Broken Due to a Lack of Technology:
  • Emphasizes the importance of training and enablement platforms (like Uperform) for meaningful tech adoption.
  • Health systems frequently struggle not with acquiring tech, but with making it truly work for people.
• Why Tech Falls Short in Healthcare:
  • Critical thinking and human relationships are sometimes neglected in favor of shiny solutions.
  • Real transformation requires partnership, ongoing education, and alignment with user workflow.

Vendor-Provider Partnerships: A Prescription for Success

• Bridging the Vendor-Provider Gap:
  • Vendors should strive for relationship-building, not just transactions.
  • Quote: "Value and partnership are probably the two hallmarks of elevating yourself from being a transactional vendor to providing expertise, consultative advising, and partnership." [08:43]
  • Health systems rely on vendor expertise and need collaborative, adaptive partners who listen.
• Advice for Vendors:
  • Be collaborative, focus on value, learn from and adapt to health system feedback.
  • "Most health systems need to just buy, and in order to do that, then you need to have these strong relationships." [09:32]

The Human Side: Upbringing, Influences, and Risk

• Early Life: Grew up on a Montana cattle ranch, learned independence, resilience, and the value of hard work.
  • Parents left ranching for college in her youth, demonstrating adaptability and lifelong learning.
  • Quote: "There are no real rules. If you're doing what you are good at and what you need to be doing...then you go where the path takes you." [11:07]
• Non-Medical Talents: Event planner during med school—views medicine and wedding planning as both requiring emotional intelligence and managing high-stakes situations.

On Critical Thinking and Technology in Medical Training

• Teaching Critical Thinking in an AI Era:
  • Warns against overdependence on AI—must ensure new clinicians think critically, even as tech expands.
  • Quote: "Their number one job. Right. Is to make those decisions. And so how do we harness the data...but how do we leverage technology...without going so far...that without the computer, we don't know what we're doing?” [06:25]
• Balancing Tech Enablement with Clinical Judgment:
  • Advocates for tech as a partner, not a crutch.

Risk, Taking Chances, and Parenting

• Career and Physical Risks:
  • Left health system leadership for vendor world and entrepreneurship.
  • Enjoys paragliding, trusts her teens to do the same—values calculated, rewarding risks.
  • Quote: "I feel like some of the decisions that they make on their own are much riskier than running off the edge of a mountain." [16:24]
• Parenting as Risk: Parenting teens seen as the ultimate leap of faith.

Music and Pop Culture—Personal Touches

• Music Tastes:
  • Lifelong Moody Blues, REO Speedwagon, U2, Tim McGraw, and classical fan.
  • Quote: "I'll go to a Tim McGraw concert at any moment, anytime, anywhere, any place. I'll drop what I'm doing to do that." [16:52]
• Desert Island Albums [17:24]:
  1. Moody Blues
  2. REO Speedwagon
  3. U2
  4. Tim McGraw (greatest hits)
  5. Classical (open to recommendations)
• Favorite TV Shows:
  • Murder She Wrote, Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Who doesn't want to be Beverly Crusher as a female doctor?” [21:02])
  • Enjoys the comfort and nostalgia of 1980s television.

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Notable Quotes

• On Innovation:
  "Healthcare has a lot of opportunity for advancement, and both people and technology are going to be needed in order to do it." [07:48]

• On Career Advice to Her Younger Self:
  “Enjoy the ride, be patient, learn from others, stay humble.” [14:15]

• On Finding Joy in Medicine:
  “We, I think, have a real opportunity to bring the joy back to medicine.” [26:46]

• On Training the Next Generation:
  “When you save the first life that you've saved, it's really powerful. And when you've supported somebody through a death and their family, that's also... you get to be with people in a way that really is a privilege that is unique to the practice of medicine.” [24:20]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Stephanie’s Background & Fractional Executive Work: [00:52] – [04:51]
• Critical Thinking, AI, and Medical Training: [06:00] – [07:36]
• Vendor-Provider Partnerships: [08:24] – [10:00]
• Personal & Family Background: [10:00] – [13:22]
• Career Advice and Pivot Lessons: [14:09] – [14:29]
• Risk and Parenting Stories: [14:29] – [16:24]
• Desert Island Music and Pop Culture: [16:40] – [22:22]
• Advice to Future Doctors and Healthcare Professionals: [23:12] – [26:03]
• The Joy of Medicine & Closing Thoughts: [26:13] – [26:47]

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, relaxed, sprinkled with humor and warmth
• Stephanie balances seriousness about healthcare's challenges with optimism and self-deprecating wit.
• Frequent asides about music, family, and television keep the episode relatable and human.

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Conclusion

Dr. Stephanie Lahr advocates that innovation in healthcare is fundamentally about people, partnership, critical thinking, and the right kind of enablement—not simply more technology. Her perspective emphasizes humility, lifelong learning, genuine relationships, and a willingness to take risks. Whether advising vendors or young doctors, she champions the joy and privilege found in healthcare at all levels.

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This summary condenses the episode’s core themes and memorable exchanges while preserving the guest’s authentic voice. For full context and additional insights, listeners are encouraged to access the complete episode.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome to Risk Never Sleeps, where we meet and get to know the people delivering patient care and protecting patient safety. I'm your host, Ed Gaudette. Welcome to the Risk Never Sleeps podcast in which we learn about the people that are on the front lines delivering patients care and protecting patient safety. You. Easy for you to say. I'm Ed Gaudet, the host of the program live from HIMS 2026 in Vegas with Stephanie Lar.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Or as we say in Boston, La, because we don't pronounce our Rs.

[B]

I've been called worse.

[A]

Okay, me too. Welcome to the program.

[B]

Thanks so much for having me.

[A]

Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah. And so start off with sharing a little bit about yourself, your organization, your current role.

[B]

Sure. So I'm an internal medicine physician by background. Spent many years as a hospitalist clinically, then moved into system leadership. Was the CIO and CMIO at a health system in South Dakota for many years. Left there a few years ago and decided I was going to move into the vendor space. So a progression from taking care of patients one at a time into a community at a time to being able to impact things right on a much broader scale. From that vendor side, joined Artasite, who I know you are interviewing here today too. I saw my friends from Artisight having conversation with you, so did work with them for a couple of years in that smart hospital, very exciting space. And over this past summer decided it was time to change things up again. And so I actually started my own company blending that background of clinical executive health system leadership and then the commercial experience that I had at Artesite doing fractional executive leadership and strategic advising for a number of companies. One of those companies that's near and dear to my heart and takes up good portion of that time is Uperform, which is a training and enablement platform. When I was at Monument, my training team came to me and said, hey, we need to do things differently. Our end users don't respond well to the way that we're doing training. We're. It's ineffective and we think that there's a better way in comes you perform. We became customers. I stayed on as a strategic advisor to them when I was at Artisite. So when I started this fractional work, they said, well, do you have a fraction that could be for us? And so joined them over the summer as their chief medical officer. And it's really been a wonderful time to join them formally in the industry. I think we're in fact class just for this year created a segment for training and education, elevating that to this. Understanding that the platforms that support all, all of the other stuff we're trying to roll out right now are probably equally as important for us to be paying attention to. So a really fun time to be able to be a part of that.

[A]

Fascinated with the fractional movement. There seems to be a lot of roles going that, that route. Now when you do, when you work for one organization, do you give them 100% of your time or are you giving them just a fully fractional.

[B]

Yeah. So working with multiple groups, multiple companies, in some cases health systems are bringing me in for advising and things like that. But a lot it is on the vendor tech side as you they could use somebody who's used the technology, bought the technology, built and sold the technology. Right. It's. So I kind of have that combination. Yeah. And I think when you think about early stage though, Uperform is not early stage. Well developed company and needed a chief medical officer and it was a great fit. But a number of the other organizations I work with are much earlier in their growth and the idea of having a full time person, one, they probably don't have enough work to support that and they definitely don't have the cash flow to be able to get those high quality individuals. So I think that fractional executive leadership, if you can do it right, really allows companies to be able to tap in to the quality of individual that they may need to support where they're going without the financial challenge of trying to do that full time.

[A]

And do you find yourself more of a conduit to the product teams or to the commercial teams or a little of both?

[B]

Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. Obviously on the product team side I can provide a really real and frank feedback about people will use this, they won't. This is how the workflow is. Is that, does that make sense or does it not? And even thinking about roadmap, are there other opportunities where we could be going and broadening things out on the commercial side as well, there's an opportunity to be able to do thought leadership and help them understand the industry, bring that back, create relationships and things like that. So it's a combination of it all.

[A]

How'd you get in healthcare?

[B]

Well, medical school. Right, so.

[A]

So you knew right out, right out of high school that was your path.

[B]

I did, yeah.

[A]

So let's go back even before, like what was it about the medical profession?

[B]

Like, yeah, it was funny. I think when I was growing up there were three things that I thought I might want to do. One was be a doctor. One was be an astronaut.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

And one was being was like fashion and design and the astronaut and fashion. I'm all about fashion, but now I just buy, not build. And so great to be here in Las Vegas because, again, living in Rapid City, South Dakota, I can come to Vegas to shop. The astronaut part. Yeah, that just didn't play out. I actually feel like it was just who I was. It wasn't something where I didn't have some. You hear people, some will have a big experience where there was a traumatic event in their life or they went through their own health crisis or something like that. For me, it really wasn't about that. I loved the science. I love problem solving. I love critical thinking, and I love being with people and moving things in a positive direction.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it just felt like it was the right place for me to go.

[A]

Yeah, you brought up critical thinking. I'm always blown away with how many people don't know how to critically think, and it's such an important tool.

[B]

It's a little worrisome, too, as we think about where things are going with artificial intelligence. How do we really maintain people's ability to critically think? I've got teenagers that are in school and are needing to understand how AI tools can impact their education. But it's a fine line between helping them learn and cheating and not really learning. And I've seen both. My daughter's had some homework assignments that we put through ChatGPT that she wasn't quite getting. And then we asked it to explain it in a way that I hadn't been able to. And it was really helpful. At the same time, if you just ask it for the answers, it will spit it out. And so I think even in medical education, there's a lot of attention right now in this whole concept of how do we continue to train physicians, nurses, et cetera, but particularly the physicians, because that critical thinking, that's their number one job. Right. Is to make those decisions. And so how do we harness the data that we have, this expanding evolution of all the things that we can do now from both diagnostic and treatment perspective, it's more than the human mind can really take on its own. But how do we leverage technology to do that without going so far with it that without the computer, we don't know what we're doing?

[A]

Now, will you stay in this fractional role, or will you go back and be an operator ever?

[B]

If you'd have asked me When I was in med school, if I would ever be the CIO of a health system, I would have said first I probably would have said, I don't know what that is. And then I probably would have said, well, that makes zero sense whatsoever. I would never do that. And there I was, and it was a wonderful time. And then if you'd asked me early, as I moved into that space in informatics and it if I would go work for the vendor side, I probably would have said no. So I think what I've learned is never say never. I think healthcare has a lot of opportunity for advancement, and both people and technology are going to be needed in order to do it. And so it's really, to me, more about where's that best fit in real time. And so we'll see.

[A]

Having the dual role and understand both sides. What advice would you give to vendors? There's. There tends to be a lot of shaming. Vendor shaming that happens. And both sides are really difficult, right?

[B]

They are.

[A]

It's difficult to be a CIO or CISO or a CEO of a health system. It's also difficult to be a vendor.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

What advice would you give to vendors to help them?

[B]

I think value and partnership are probably the two hallmarks of elevating yourself from being a transactional vendor to providing expertise, consultative advising, and partnership. Because as the CIO at a health system in the rural Midwest, I had an amazing team, but we were relatively insulated from the larger ecosystem of what was happening out there. And I relied heavily on our vendor partners to help challenge us and push us forward. And so I think there really is a good symbiotic relationship there. And most health systems are not going to be in a position. And I think we could get into the conversation philosophically as to whether they should be building the technology. Right. I think at times we've had that conversation. Am I going to buy or build? Most health systems need to just buy, and in order to do that, then you need to have these strong relationships. So I would say for vendors, one, focus on the relationship, focus on providing value, focus on collaboration, and then learn from the health systems and be willing to adapt, knowing that you don't know everything about what they're dealing with and find ways to integrate them into that process of making your vendor side better.

[A]

Great, great advice. Are you from South Dakota? That where you grew up?

[B]

I'm from Montana.

[A]

Oh, yes. God's country.

[B]

I grew up on a cattle ranch.

[A]

He hates when I say that. You did. Did you work the cattle no, it

[B]

was a big operation like Yellowstone. Okay. Well, not like Yellowstone. Don't even get me started on Yellowstone. We didn't heard cattle.

[A]

It's a TV show.

[B]

We didn't herd cattle with a helicopter.

[A]

You didn't?

[B]

No.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

We. Yeah, there and the. Yeah. So many over the line things in that trail. But it would provide it a lot of entertainment. But when you think about the beauty and the, the area, I mean. Yes, that's all true. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

That's cool. What was your favorite part of that? Growing up on the ranch, I think

[B]

there was an independence and a lot of imagination. I grew up on a ranch that was miles out of town. I rode a school bus for an hour in order to get to school in the morning. And so it wasn't like you just went up the block to get together with friends and those kinds of things. So I think there was a lot of building out imagination and things like that on the farm because there was no one necessarily to go and play with. And then I watched my parents work really hard to carry on a legacy that had been in my family for generations. So this round still upper. It is not. Yeah, but it was. That probably is a great part of my upbringing as well. When I was in middle school, for a variety of reasons related to things that were happening in the farming industry, my family decided they needed to get out of farming and my parents went back to college and we moved to Bozeman, Montana where they became students at Montana State. And while I was in middle school, my parents were college students and recreated themselves and became an engineer and an accountant and went on to have completely different careers. I think that was really formulative in my upbringing and being able to see what people can do and that there are no real rules. If you're doing what you are good at and what you need to be doing in order to make the best of life, then you go where the path takes you.

[A]

And so great role models, right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So if you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing if you could do anything?

[B]

It may sound ridiculous, but I really can't imagine doing anything else. I love, love being at this intersection of health delivery and technology. It was a while. It was serendipitous and a winding road. It was very purposeful. When I practiced as a hospitalist, I loved the work of taking care of patients. But I saw an opportunity for things to be better, process wise and clinically. And I really believed that technology was the way to do that. So I got To a point where I was at a crossroads and it was, am I going, am I staying on this deeply clinical path or am I gonna start to blend things together in a different way? And I feel like I've created something that I'm really proud of and that I love doing every day. I don't know, I guess we talked about fashion earlier. Maybe I would have been doing something like that. I was a wedding planner while I was in medical school. What? So that was fun. Event planning and sometimes dealing with a bride is almost as intense as dealing with a patient in the icu.

[A]

Right, Priscilla?

[B]

Yeah, there's that intensity. So who knows? But I really, I just, I love this space for that.

[A]

That's a hard job, wedding planning. You get to see a lot of emotion.

[B]

A lot of emotion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Any fond memories of that? Anything that went.

[B]

Yeah, probably the best stuff was really. I didn't deal with a lot of bridezillas. Most of them were pretty amazing people just in a super high stress situation where they wanted everything to be perfect. Perfect.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so I think probably the most fun part about that was when you could see them just having a great time. Right. When all of it had finally come together. And some of them were my friends. And so watching my friends is on their wedding day. Be able to just enjoy that and. Yeah.

[A]

All right, so if you go back in time and tell your 20 year old self something, what would you tell 20 year old Stephanie?

[B]

I would say, enjoy the ride, be patient, learn from others, stay humble.

[A]

Yeah. Stay humble.

[B]

Yeah. And kind like the song. Amazing. Tim McGraw. I'm a huge fan.

[A]

All right, so we're going to get to music in a sec.

[B]

Oh, are we now?

[A]

Okay, what's the riskiest thing you've ever done? You seem like a risk taker.

[B]

Some might say leaving a health system and going to the vendor side, starting my own company were risky. Physically risky. I have gone paragliding.

[A]

Oh, what's that like?

[B]

Oh, it's really amazing. So I did it once in South Africa off of Table Mountain in Cape Town. And literally the parachute goes up and you run off the edge of the mountain and then you just go fly and float around through. It was fantastic. I did it again in Costa Rica. And then last year, maybe even more nerve wracking than doing it myself. We were in Switzerland and my kids did it and so they didn't have enough spaces for me to go to. So my two teenage kids, while we're like, my son was still wearing his skis, like he skied off the edge of the mountain, and my husband and I just watched them, like, soar off into the sky, and we're like, well, I hope we see them later.

[A]

What, did you go to the top of Mont Blanc?

[B]

We weren't Not. We were not in that area, but it was a really beautiful area of Switzerland to be. Yeah.

[A]

Skiing and doing second reference to Switzerland today.

[B]

Oh, very interesting. And now that we're talking about kids, I would say maybe having kids is the riskiest thing I've ever done. I don't know. It's. I. It's definitely the most stressful thing I've ever done.

[A]

How old are your kids?

[B]

13 and 16.

[A]

What? And they were paragliding or.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, my God. Wow. That would have been.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What'd you do, just go for a drink after? Like, they're like.

[B]

Yeah, we actually. Literally. That is what we did.

[A]

All right. Well.

[B]

Yeah, we'll see a minute. Yeah. Because they. The company that, you know, they were doing it with said they would bring them back to us, so we just waited and hoped that was the case.

[A]

That is trust right there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's incredible.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know. I feel like some of the decisions that they make on their own are much riskier than running off the edge of a mountain.

[A]

That's good, though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And when they do a podcast later in life, they can say, oh, I

[B]

did this exactly when I was a kid.

[A]

When I was a kid. Yeah. That's cool.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Daughter and a son.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Do they bring you into their music, their love for music, artists?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think a little bit it goes back and forth. I'm a big country music fan, and both of my.

[A]

Tim McGraw.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, we'll circle back to that. I'll go to a Tim McGraw concert at any moment, anytime, anywhere, any place. I'll drop what I'm doing to do that.

[A]

Really? Have you met him in person?

[B]

I've been shaking his hand, and he probably wouldn't remember me, other than maybe the crazy fan who seems to show up at a whole bunch of concerts. So probably better if he doesn't remember me. But then it goes the other way as well. So my kids are big country music fans, probably in part because I am. And then there are some things that they bring me into a little bit, but.

[A]

All right, so you're on a desert island. You could take five records with you. What would you bring?

[B]

So my parents are huge Moody Blues fans.

[A]

The question.

[B]

And I think I would have to take Moody Blues album with me.

[A]

Just the first reference to Moody Blues on this show.

[B]

Okay, well, good.

[A]

I'm winning.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

You are winning

[B]

then. My very first concert was REO Speedwagon.

[A]

Oh, Time for Me to Fly.

[B]

Wheels Are Turning was the album, I think, out at the time. And so I. Again, I'm just thinking about five albums that maybe take me through the progression of my life.

[A]

So are you taking this question seriously?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I really am. And so that's going to be number two.

[A]

Keep on loving your great song.

[B]

Great song. Time for Me to you too. Probably would be a third album. I saw them early when I was young, and then I actually saw them here in Vegas a couple years ago.

[A]

In the Sphere.

[B]

In the sphere.

[A]

That's incredible.

[B]

There was a great concert, and again, I just liked the. Here were these guys who honestly, in many ways sounded as good as they did 30 years ago.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And are still putting out music.

[A]

Great band.

[B]

And so there's that Tim McGraw. I don't know which album. It would be hard for me to say which album, but maybe a greatest hits album. That's a good way to cheat and get.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know if you can do that, but that's okay. I'll let you do that.

[B]

Okay, thank.

[A]

You're on a roll.

[B]

I appreciate that. Okay, make it extreme. And so now that's four. So fifth and final. Ooh, boy. I might have to go classical.

[A]

I was channeling that.

[B]

Real. Yes. I don't know exactly what.

[A]

Karl Orff, Karina Barana.

[B]

Ooh.

[A]

Do you know that?

[B]

I don't.

[A]

Ooh, you should listen to that. Incredibly powerful.

[B]

Yeah. So I'm gonna leave the fifth one open to suggestion, and you might toss

[A]

yourself off a cliff after listening to

[B]

it, but I doubt it. I doubt it.

[A]

Just kidding. All right, interesting. Favorite TV show. This is a new question. Yeah. Today for the first time. Okay, new question.

[B]

My favorite TV show ever.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I would have to say. I feel like it's going to be something from the 80s.

[A]

Oh, like a Laverne and Shirley.

[B]

Oh. You know what my family would say, this is going to be terribly embarrassing. Murder she Wrote.

[A]

Okay. That was my dad's favorite.

[B]

Well, so it's funny. It's. I loved it as a kid. I watched it with again, parents and whatever.

[A]

And watch it now.

[B]

So there is a Murder She Wrote channel that runs 24 hours a day.

[A]

No.

[B]

Yes. And you gotta love Angela Lansbury. Right.

[A]

She was real deal.

[B]

She was an amazing woman who really actually broke through a lot of glass ceilings, had an amazing Career. Some of the acting in the show is straight up terrible.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it was the 80s. But I have been known at my house to just have it on in the background. My kids will roll in from school and they're like, mom, seriously, Murder She Wrote. Haven't you seen every one of these episodes a hundred times? I'm like, that's so great. Yes, I have. I'm not really watching it. I'm just. It's just.

[A]

Yeah, it's just in the background.

[B]

It's Company in the background. Exactly. So maybe not favorite ever from the standpoint of high quality.

[A]

That's great. No, I might keep this question in the show.

[B]

I definitely spent more hours, probably at this point now watching Murder she wrote, given the 24 hour channel, than any other show you ever watched.

[A]

Kolshak, the Night Stalker. Oh, okay.

[B]

Was that 80s?

[A]

Okay, start Starsky and Hutch.

[B]

Yes, Starsky and Hutch. Yeah, yeah. I, I. Star Trek and the original and the Next Generation. I was a big Next Generation fan. What? Beverly Crusher? Who didn't. I. Who doesn't want to be Beverly Crusher as a female doctor? Right.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Why are you scowling like.

[A]

Yeah, no, I like the original. I'm an original. I'm an originalist.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

I read the books too, when I was a kid. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's how I first got into. Sorry.

[B]

So Star Trek, not Star wars for you then, or are you.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Yeah. You could add this question in the future if you'd like. Are you Star Trek or Star Wars?

[A]

Probably. Probably Star Trek.

[B]

Me too.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I did like Star wars, though. I. I saw it in the drive in theater. We grew up next to a drive in theater, so we sneak in as kids. So when he came out in 77. The original 77. Yeah. I was snuck in and we watched it and right there on the big screen, it was amazing.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah. I start Star Trek definitely for me.

[A]

The first one or the fourth one? I was at fourth. The Hope.

[B]

Yeah. The way once they started making prequels

[A]

and the numbers were different.

[B]

Yeah, Come on. Very different.

[A]

You're not quite in Tarantino. Let's go.

[B]

Come on.

[A]

This is ridiculous. I think they're Pulp Fiction or something. Changing up the sequence.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. But no, it's probably Star Trek. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But again, Next Generation gave me something I could relate to a little bit more. Again.

[A]

So why you got into medicine? Because of that. That's what I was looking for earlier.

[B]

Maybe it had a subliminal impact.

[A]

Really interesting.

[B]

But And I do think it had an impact on my health technology journey. I've said to a number of times, like, I just want to be able to practice like Beverly Crusher, like, hey, computer, tell me this. Hey, computer, make this happen. That's be my partner. Now we're actually almost there, right? Almost Try quarter yet. Not even really sure what that thing ever did.

[A]

Oh, my God. I know the truth.

[B]

This is like beep and glow.

[A]

We're gonna have the equivalent of like a tube in our house. And that's where we're gonna get all of our medical. Our diagnostics. Right. Only time we have to go in is for some type of surgery. And that may change too. Can you imagine the Da Vinci at home?

[B]

Yeah. I'm a little worried about the sterility factor, but no, you just close the

[A]

tube and it sterilizes itself. Yeah, it's all self contained.

[B]

That's self contained.

[A]

Y.

[B]

Okay. I'm never saying ever. Right.

[A]

All right. What advice would you give to kids that are coming out of school that want to get into healthcare, want to go into become a doctor?

[B]

Yeah, well, I have one of those in my house right now, so we have this conversation on a regular basis. I am still very much in favor of healthcare careers. I have a lot of physician friends who have said I wouldn't want my kids to become physicians. I don't feel that way at all. I love every part of the career that I've had. And I think again, if you love critical thinking and problem solving and the science of the human body, and you love being with people, impacting care, are empathetic and want to have a legacy of helping people. It's a great way to bring all of those pieces together. Medical education, medical school and residency were probably some of the best years of my life. They were super, super intense, but amazingly impactful. Amazing, lasting relationships. When you save the first life that you've saved, it's really powerful. And when you've supported somebody through a death and their family, that's also. These are very unique experiences that being part of that ecosystem, whether it's as a physician or nurse or lots of different clinical bedside care pursuits, you get to be with people in a way that really is a privilege that is unique to the practice of medicine. And I would say keep going.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

A friend of mine reached out yesterday and said that their daughter was told, hey, it's going to be all consuming and you'll probably have no life and not do anything else. And so she's now having second thoughts and I said, get me on the phone with her. That is, that's, that's. No, that's garbage. Right. You can do other things. You can be a wedding planner.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

My husband and I met doing triathlons while I was in med school and residency. We want well rounded humans at the end of the day, being the people who take care of us, being our Doctors and nurses, etc. So I would say if you're passionate about it, the one thing I. The people who should not go into health care. There, I think there was a time, and this has probably changed, where people equated being a doctor or being in health care as like this ticket to easy money.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I don't. But there, there was a time it was prestige and money. Right. Like, if you're looking for prestige and money, there's other ways to do this. If those are your drivers. Think about investment banking. Think about. There's other ways to manage that.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

But man, if you love science, if you love critical thinking, if you love human relationships.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's a really wonderful career path teetering

[A]

at the edge of burnout, but in loving every minute of enjoying life and being empathetic and connecting with people. And that's the path, right?

[B]

It is, yeah. Burnout, A whole, whole other podcast of a conversation we can have around. Yeah, I'd love that. What goes into that and what are we going to really do?

[A]

Yeah. As we embrace on this AI journey.

[B]

Yeah. Hopefully enablement is what we can do. Right. A lot of. I think the, the challenge in burnout comes from friction.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And always we can reduce friction with technology and AI. So as long as we keep our eye on that ball.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We, I think, have a real opportunity to bring the joy back to medicine. As I like to say, bring the

[A]

joy back to medicine. Great way to end the show. Thank you, Stephanie.

[B]

Yes. Thanks for having me.

[A]

Yeah, you're welcome. This is Ed Gaudette from the Risk Never Sleeps podcast. If you're on the front lines protecting patient safety and delivering patient care, remember to stay vigilant because Risk never sleeps. Thanks for listening to Risk Never Sleeps for the show. Notes, resources and more information and how to transform the protection of patient safety, Visit [e-mail] that's C E N S I N E T Com. I'm your host, Ed Gaudette. And until next time, stay vigilant because Risk never sleeps.