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The Sim Cafe~
Discussions on innovative ideas for simulation and reimagining the use of simulation in clinical education. We discuss current trends in simulation with amazing guests from across the globe. Sit back, grab your favorite beverage and tune in to The Sim Cafe~
The Sim Cafe~
Finding Joy Beyond Achievement: Dr. Christine Park's Simulation Journey
Dr. Christine Park invites us to reimagine our relationship with achievement, rest, and purpose in this soul-stirring conversation that transcends typical discussions about simulation in healthcare education.
The former president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare shares her remarkable journey from surgery to anesthesiology to simulation leadership, culminating in her decision to embark on an early retirement to pursue coaching. What drives this transformation? A profound realization that came through what she calls her "Holy Grail experiment" – questioning what ultimate prize awaited at the end of the achievement path she had been following her entire life. Her surprising discovery: the prize itself held no appeal.
Dr. Park's reflection on measuring life choices by asking "When I die, will I say this was a good use of my time?" offers listeners a powerful framework for evaluating their own priorities. Her discussion of learning to embrace "rest for rest's sake" – inspired by Tricia Hersey's book "Rest is Resistance" – challenges our culture's tendency to define human value through productivity.
The conversation takes fascinating
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The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of anyone at Innovative Sim Solutions or our sponsors. Foster Simulation Supply is sponsoring this week's episode of the Sim Cafe. Looking for a competitive edge in simulation? Meet Foster Simulation Supply. We provide cutting-edge, customizable simulation equipment designed to give you the best value every time. Welcome to the Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelley Hauser. Join our host, deb Tauber, and co-host Jared Jeffries as they sit down with subject matter experts from across the globe to reimagine clinical education and the use of simulation. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation, sit back, tune in and learn something new from the Sim Cafe.
Deb Tauber:Welcome to another episode of the Sim Cafe. Today, jared and I are here with Dr Christine Park, and Christine and I are both from the Chicagoland area. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Dr. Christine Park:Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. So a little bit about me. I well, how far back you want to go. I was born in Detroit, grew up in the Midwest, started out my clinical career in general surgery before I switched to anesthesia, and I've been in anesthesia ever since. Yeah, what else? Oh, I majored in English literature in college, so hopefully some more writing and reading is going to be in my future.
Deb Tauber:Great. Do you want to share your journey into simulation?
Dr. Christine Park:Yeah, of course. Yeah. So the part about surgery and anesthesia figures is a highlight in this. So, as I said, I started in general surgery. I loved every day of my time there.
Dr. Christine Park:I started to have some questions about my relative lack of curiosity, and what I mean by that is stuff didn't bother me. So if the patient did well or didn't do well or I wasn't at home wracking my brain like why? And I kind of started to think that things need to bother you to a certain extent for you to have a career that's going to be successful and, second, that you don't become a dangerous, whatever it is that you are. Because it's the fact, it's that sort of stuff that bothers you, that drives you. So I made a decision to switch to anesthesia. To my great luck, it ended up being a perfect fit.
Dr. Christine Park:But anesthesia is where I had my first exposure to simulation. I mentioned that I had made it in English which figures here also, because that world was all about who and why and what did we know and what's all that qualitative, of qualitative curiosity that had kind of been left me for me in medical school. But here in simulation was the moment where it was like who knew what and why and how did the tone of voice matter in this and teamwork, and how do we get things done? And it was sort of instant, instant drinking from the Oasis and that's how I got into simulation and that's why I stayed in simulation ever since.
Deb Tauber:Thank you. Now can you tell us about your recent transition and what it's meant to you?
Dr. Christine Park:it. Yeah, thank you. So I currently am the director of the Simulation and Integrative Learning Institute, which is for the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois, and it was during this period that I also served as the president of SSH. There are many things to be proud of in the work that has gone on, and you probably know the Healthcare Simulationist Code of Ethic was something that I was greatly privileged to facilitate that coming into being, and you should be very proud of that work.
Deb Tauber:It is such a great thing to have when programs are working towards accreditation. I always encourage them to have that up because it's so important. Thank you for that.
Dr. Christine Park:Well, I hope that it is inspiring for people and it really is intended to be inspirational and aspirational rather than these are the rules that you should follow, and I really do hope that it is serving that purpose for people out there. Yeah, so there's all kinds of great stuff, but what's interesting is, about 10 years ago, a work colleague passed away before the age of 50. And in all the talk about this person afterwards you know it was like oh, what a tragedy. The career was cut short and this person had all these grants and these titles and all these other things, and I really at that time took the time to do what I call the Holy Grail experiment with myself, which was to say, let's just assume that whatever it is I'm striving for just happens to fall in my lap. You know, just whatever.
Dr. Christine Park:This title, that title, this grant, what have you? And just keep going. The next thing falls in my lap. You know, just whatever this title, that title, this grant, what have you? And just keep going. The next thing falls in your lap. The next thing falls in your lap right at the end of this amazing path what is the holy grail that's waiting for you and what that holy grail is going to fall in your lap, and you're going to have it. What is that thing?
Dr. Christine Park:And what I realized in my great surprise surprise, but not surprise is that you know, when you're a good student or you know you're like a faithful, hardworking, good student, you kind of get put on this path and I never, until that time, really had an opportunity to question that. You know of achievement, achievement, achievement, achievement. And I realized that I really wanted none of the. I didn't want that thing, which was the Holy Grail. I don't know what. I never got to it. Like what is that? A Nobel Prize? Are you the president of university? Whatever that is? I realized I didn't want any of that and I really wasn't very interested in any of the antecedent steps either. So I would say that my path to retirement and to coaching really started about 10 years ago and since that time I tried to live my life by a metric of when I die. Am I going to say, yeah, that was a good use of my time?
Dr. Christine Park:The answer is no, I really don't go for it. And that includes, you know, my boss could say how many grants have I had in the last 10 years? Like you know, maybe almost none. So I try to follow joy and this decision now, which is coming a full ton plus years before the quote-unquote normal age retirement, part of that intention.
Jerrod Jeffries:so that's a very long answer to a short question that you got but I love holistic, instead of chasing the carrot continuously, which which I think in the west maybe it's, it's more Europe probably included as well, but there's always the next, what's the next thing, what's the next thing? And the goalposts always move and then you only have such a short amount to really enjoy, maybe what other civilizations or countries really share. And I think your more holistic line of thinking in terms of okay, what is important? Really resonates with with a lot of people as well.
Deb Tauber:so good on you yeah, and how do you find your joy? What do you consider joy?
Dr. Christine Park:I read this amazing book not too long ago called rest is resistance, by this author named tricia hersey, and in it she talks about the importance of rest, and she does actually tie it explicitly to the history of enslaved labor in this country and the idea of defining ourselves by how much we produce and using that as a measure of value of a life, of a person. And there's much more to that book that I could ever give credit in just a few minutes. But one of the things she talks about is our sacred right to rest, and what I think many of us, including myself, experience, rest as is. I need to rest so that I can go back to work, so that I can bring my best efforts to work. This idea of rest for rest's sake has not been part of my way that I see life, or really my entire life. And so you asked about joy. I think leaning into that has been something that brings me a lot of joy. Just to the question, what are you going to do this weekend? You know what? I don't know, it might be nothing that I used to feel some amount of guilt about. Now it just feels great. It's like freedom. You know, that is something that brings me. I am learning to let it bring me joy. Let me put it that way. It's sort of not how I was educated to think and, of course, talk about being a dog lover and animal lover, and I learned a really good lesson about letting the people around us, and in this case, our dogs just let them bring you joy.
Dr. Christine Park:When my dog, leo, was a puppy, puppy I had come home late from work. I was at a really bad moon. He was late for his walk. I'm just like let's just get this walk over with I. Honestly, I was outside like angrily stomping down the sidewalk and these two guys they looked like football players saw my little white, fluffy dog and I said, oh, can we pet your dog? They pet Leo. And then they said, oh, I'm 50% happier. I was like, wow, I did not let myself be 50% happier coming home to see him. In fact, I was angrily taking him on his walk because you know that's what I had to do. Angrily taking him on his walk because you know that's what I had to do. And so you know, since then, I really tried to always look at them with pure joy.
Deb Tauber:Thank you. How many animals do you have?
Jerrod Jeffries:We have two dogs and three cats right now. There you go. I picked out is that you're still learning. I absolutely love that, when most people think that learning stops with education, but you know, you're learning to relax. You're learning to do nothing. I think that's an important piece as well, because I think that's where the beauty begins.
Dr. Christine Park:Thank you so much for saying that, because I sometimes feel a little embarrassed like, ah, this is something I should have known years ago, you know. So sometimes it feels a little bashful to say, oh, I'm just learning, so thank you.
Jerrod Jeffries:That means so much to hear that yeah, and I think that it's the same as when people fail it's viewed as a negative and it's like they failed because they tried, you know, and in addition, it's a lot of times you have to unlearn, then you have to unlearn and then relearn, and it's like you know, if you're still moving and still trying, and so that's where you're kind of pushing, so really it's well done thank you.
Dr. Christine Park:Thank you so much yeah, thank you.
Deb Tauber:I needed to hear that today. Sometimes I feel like I'm resting too much yes, I'm very familiar with that now. Do you have a favorite simulation story that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Dr. Christine Park:Yeah, I do, I do so. Five years ago, me and Bob Kaiser, sandy Yingling and other people in the sim community, we created this simulation experience called First Step, and it's for second year med students before they go to clerkship, and the idea is for us to curate the space for them to experience patient death before they go to clerkship, in which case it's just totally haphazard, like it happens, it doesn't happen, like we can't control anything about how they're going to take in and process patient death. But guess what we can control for that in simulation. So we use this not as an effort to teach students how to do their job, how to show up as a professional, but it's really about their own inner journey around experiencing patient death.
Dr. Christine Park:So, for 15 minutes in the license, have an hour and 15 minutes of post-event processing, including we have therapy dogs, we have a written reflection period and then we have a debriefing, and I think for many students it's the first time that they're in simulation space where it's not about performance to some degree, and so there are two things that are my favorite, which I can't choose between, and one of them is that the development of this was fully, fully interprofessional, including people who are not clinicians, who have expertise in the medical humanities, social workers, nurse this sort of beautiful coming together of mine, and we have done this event in an interprofessional sense which is so powerful for people to understand and to come together around. This processing of death as the basis for interprofessionality, as opposed to this, is how we do our work, so that is one thing which has been maybe one of the most deeply meaningful things to me in in simulation, and then, yeah, oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Deb Tauber:Yeah, no, I completely agree. Those end-of-life simulations are just so important to get your arms around the things. That is a health care provider.
Dr. Christine Park:You think you're going to save lives and stamp out diseases, but in the end sometimes it doesn't work out 100, and I find that our in general, it seems to me that our nursing colleagues, in their education and in their practice, come from a much healthier space than the medical education does, and that's at least my observation.
Dr. Christine Park:The second favorite thing that came out of this was in one of our debriefings there was a medical student who was sitting there just really, really quiet and we were wondering, like going on for this person, like are they uninterested or, you know, are they processing something? And finally they spoke up and they said you know, when I was a freshman in college, my one of our roommates just never came back from one of our breaks and I realized that to this moment I have never allowed myself to process that death and like that was a moment where, you know, talk about dying. It's like if I died right now I would say that I feel like you know that my life had meaning, because and that to me, is where the real power of simulation is life-changing transformation like yes, it's great we can teach people how to put in a center line, we can be able to teach people teamwork, etc. Right, um, but this person is, it's not changed for life, just even as a doctor or as a health care provider. This person is changed for life as a human being because of allowing for space for them to grieve something that they have never grieved before and to sort of take away this idea of urine simulation to learn how to.
Dr. Christine Park:In this situation. It was urine simulation, just for you to explore yourself. Those were two sort of big highlights for simulation for me. They happen to come from the same program, yeah.
Deb Tauber:Thank you, Jared. Do you have anything you want to add?
Jerrod Jeffries:No, I think, like you know, this is a question. They're all powerful in their own way when they come to seeing the impact of simulation through so many different lenses and perspectives and I think yours is right up there when it comes to really realizing how short time is but also the power of reaching out and helping one another through an education perspective, through a real life clinical scenario or situation, and even that of simulation, to make sure that we're getting things right.
Dr. Christine Park:Yeah, absolutely.
Deb Tauber:Now can you share with our listeners the biggest thing you'd like them to know, Something that kind of when you learned it, just a personal aha moment.
Dr. Christine Park:Yeah, about six months ago, so that's kind of breaking news. One day last summer I was outside I was looking at these flowers. I was looking at them because they were a gift from my parents and so I really, really vested in the fact that these flowers are going to succeed. So there was a half of a bunch that was like really thriving, that were like blooming was great. There was another half that was like it was really struggling, like well, you know, not even no flowers like the stems were mostly brown and just struggling. I was looking at them and I was thinking to myself I'm curious, how long is the side that's blooming, how long are they going to bloom in the side that's struggling, like is it going to make it to the end of the season? I'm really curious. I was like watching this curiosity Now, this is, in a way, maybe going to sound sacrilegious for the simulation community, but I thought to myself, what is my curiosity doing for these flowers right now?
Dr. Christine Park:I was like, well, actually nothing for these flowers right now. I was like, well, actually nothing. And in fact, my curiosity is serving my need to know. I wonder, right, I have a sort of a need to satisfy, right, my curiosity about these flowers.
Dr. Christine Park:I thought, oh geez, what would happen if I could take curiosity out of the situation, like what would be left? And I thought to myself, okay, well, if I remove curiosity, what I would be doing is I would just be watching. That's it. And then, as I was just watching these flowers, it suddenly occurred to me oh my God, I'm going to be. What I'm seeing now is that I mean, you guys, I'm getting very trippy here with you. Please go ahead.
Dr. Christine Park:We're going deep, I thought to myself. What I can see just by watching is that the triumph of life of these flowers is not whether it bloomed or didn't bloom. The measure of success is just that it lives. And so it is for these flowers, so it is for all of us as humans, right? It's not about what we achieve, what we did, how much all this other stuff, right?
Dr. Christine Park:Anyway so I've been since that time. I quite haven't resolved this, this dynamic of curiosity. To what extent does it serve us, and to what extent would it make sense for us to maybe remove some of the curiosity, and what could that look like? I have not solved any of those questions, and so I'm really interested to find out as my thinking continues.
Jerrod Jeffries:To exist.
Dr. Christine Park:Yes, to exist yeah exactly, Christine.
Deb Tauber:do you have any questions for Jared or I?
Dr. Christine Park:I do have a question for you, so maybe you both can solve this question around curiosity. Which is, if we were to remove curiosity from, let's say, debriefing, what would be left Just as a riffing sort of brainstorm?
Deb Tauber:I think some anxiety would be left in the room. Anxiety, yeah yeah, because without curiosity, if we're not, and especially, to use the language of curiosity, are we giving our learners space to think or are we presenting in that we're coming from a place of judgment? That's a question to you.
Dr. Christine Park:And I think it depends. I think that we can hide judgment behind a ruse of curiosity, and that's I think it depends. And I've been toying with what would a curiosity let, what was less curiosity, but also not less curiosity at the expense of more judgment. I don't mean that. I mean, is there a way I could remove my lens of curiosity and even some judgment? Right? So if I know, if I go into a debrief and the students didn't do some even real, super basic things that I thought that would be done, and I say I'm curious, what information did you have that led to your decisions around the care of this patient? There's definitely judgment behind that, it's true. Even if it is good, bad or in between, there's definitely so. I don't know the answer, no answer. But how might I go into a situation without curiosity but still create these? I don't know. I mean, I don't even know if it's possible.
Jerrod Jeffries:Yeah, I feel like a lot of assumptions that would probably jump into it as well. I mean, there's obviously curiosity is one of the cornerstones, the main driving factor of a lot of debriefing into the judgment piece. But it's just, I think that almost a series of assumptions was taken over. It's just like when you see right, when you're trying to teach kids to be more creative instead of just in set zoom, and then as adults we kind of see maybe a quarter of a picture, that's that's a picture of a camera, see maybe a quarter of a picture that's a picture of a camera or that's a picture of a dog, and then you can be something completely different. Or if you turn it to another way or angle or perspective, you change it.
Jerrod Jeffries:But I think that would remove and of course I don't know the answer either. This is my take. But if you remove curiosity, you're just trying to take shortcuts into how it grew and then you're leading by a series of assumptions and predetermined notions to deb's point and that you're you're not really seeing the full picture or the amount of variables that can into an outcome. But okay, this is a shortcut my brain made because of this lack thereof and it's and it's not really as as fruitful I absolutely would have thought that exact same thing, until I ended up with these flowers where I realized that without curiosity, just watching, I would.
Dr. Christine Park:I made absolutely no assumptions and no judgment. In fact, I became much more interested in the flowers themselves as opposed to my own need to know something. So it makes me just wonder like what if I went into a debriefing instead of leading and maybe it's the semantics, but maybe instead of leading the words? I'm curious, what was your experience If I were to, just if you just went in with open arms? Tell me about your experience Without sharing, like the I'm curious suggests, I have a curiosity that needs to be satisfied. So there's some, even if it's a tiny bit amount of centering myself in this equation what I was thinking in terms of watching the flowers, right, a tiny bit amount of centering myself in this equation, what I was thinking in terms of watching the flowers, right, I feel like it's a conversation that we could have over a wonderful dinner sometime somewhere and take a deeper dive maybe.
Deb Tauber:Now, Christine, what kind of flowers were they? Were they perennials? Were they annuals?
Dr. Christine Park:I love that you asked that question. So they're called balloon flowers and they come in this sort of purpley blue color and also white that are perennials in certain zones and also what's really interesting is they can grow wild and their roots are actually edible and they taste kind of like a cross between a parsnip and a potato, and by studying them and looking at them and being curious about them, were you ever able to get the ones that weren't doing so well to get better?
Dr. Christine Park:What I discovered is that I didn't need to intervene, that I could just let it be.
Jerrod Jeffries:Let it be.
Dr. Christine Park:Instead of right, like my anxiety, like oh my God, that side is struggling, I need to do something Like, well, you're living now and you're trying your best, I'll water you, I'll take care of you, but I'm going to remove my sort of judgment that I need to rescue you or do something. Know, interesting. I bet you weren't in for this trippy of a conversation when we started, right, I just won't let it be to be playing in the background for the for the opening and the closing
Jerrod Jeffries:the show notes so the Beatles get a little little shout out, yeah, yeah to exist is enough so that gets us to our final question.
Deb Tauber:Are there any final words? You would like our listeners to remember this conversation by?
Dr. Christine Park:yes, and part of my transition into I'm putting retirement in air quotes, into working as a coach to help people kind of understand. A thing which had took me so a really long time to understand is that is, how much choice that each of us actually has this idea even of. I have to. Right, I have to work for x number of years because I don't have enough money or I have to meet this deadline, or so many I have to. But for most of us my question is how true? Is it really?
Disclaimer. Foster Simulation ad/ Intro:that.
Dr. Christine Park:I have to. I could, for example, choose to not work another day in my life. There would be some very serious consequences. The bank would foreclose on our house. I mean all kinds of things are going to happen. The bank would foreclose on our house. I mean, all kinds of things are going to happen. So I choose not to have those consequences and it's as a result of that that I choose to keep working. So I think that these kind of energy shifts, you know from the feeling of I have to submit this report to my boss because they've been on my case about it, feels so powerless. If we were into instead to say, well, I choose to work over the weekend to deliver this report to my boss, feels much.
Dr. Christine Park:I feel the stance feels much, much different you know, or it's possible that by working through an exercise like this, it's like oh, I actually don't have to submit this on monday, in fact, I don't have to work over the Monday, in fact, I don't have to work over the weekend, in fact, it would be fine if I submitted on Wednesday instead. But I think we are much more free and able to make choices in our lives than we think we are, so that would be my parting comment.
Deb Tauber:Thank you, I very much agree, I think, with that. We'll let it be. You're here, right?
Dr. Christine Park:Thank you so much for having me today.
Deb Tauber:Thank you. Yeah, if our listeners want to get hold of you, if they want to use you for your coaching services, you want to talk a little bit about that for a second.
Dr. Christine Park:Yeah well, thank you for the invitation. I can be reached at my email, which is christine, at thechristineparkcom, and I would be delighted to offer a free discovery session to anyone who wants to learn more about what coaching might be about. Thank, you.
Jerrod Jeffries:Thank you so much.
Deb Tauber:We appreciate you and happy simulating.
Disclaimer. Foster Simulation ad/ Intro:Thanks again to Foster Simulation Supply for sponsoring this week's episode. Foster Simulation Supply the competitive edge you need to succeed. Thanks for joining us here at the Sim Cafe. We hope you enjoyed. Visit us at wwwinnovativesimsolutionscom and be sure to hit that like and subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Innovative Sim Solutions is your one-stop shop for your simulation needs A turnkey solution.
