EP30 – If It’s Not Documented, It Didn’t Happen – Lessons from the Ambulance That Save Doctors in...

In every operating room, in every ward, in every clinic, and every team meeting, a silent battle brews. Conflict, negotiation, identity. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast, where I, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, Explore the hidden negotiations behind modern medicine. Let's trade burnout for boundaries and learn the art of healing with precision and power.

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Hello, my peaceful warriors. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast. I am your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, and I am so excited to have on the podcast today Trevor Allen, Esquire. Trevor graduated from the Washington University School of Law this past May. He was on the Dean's List in fall '22, spring '24. He won the Judge Amanda Brackman Moot Court Award. He also was awarded the Order of Barristers Excellence in Oral Advocacy Award. He also currently is now a clerk for the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District. He also served as an associate at Thomas Miller and Simpson, which is a medical malpractice firm, and we're definitely going to get into that. But before he did all of those amazing things, Trevor was a paramedic. He worked for Beacon Ground Transport. He was also a clinical trainer. He also worked for an ambulance service. He has an amazing dog that I just love named Gwen. He also is an amazing baker and he is one of my daughter's best friends. Trevor, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm happy to be here.

I'm so glad you're here. I think one of the most amazing things that you did is that you were really able to bring together 2 worlds of experience when you were working for the medical malpractice firm. That was between your second and third year of law school, right?

That's correct.

Okay. So all of a sudden you've taken all this wealth experience that you have working as a paramedic and you're able to put this in a completely different arena, being a law student and then ultimately, of course, a lawyer. What was that like for you?

In a lot of ways, it was really gratifying, as you said, to be able to bring the 2 different spheres together because, you know, as often as I was doing deposition summaries, which is not a lot of fun and doesn't require a lot of expertise. Every once in a while, I'd be handed a project that was like, hey, sit in on this physician's expert phone call and then tell me your thoughts on that afterwards. Or, you know, research what this expert witness is going to say and kind of come up with questions that we can do to discredit them. And so when I had those more specialized tasks, you know, especially dealing with expert testimony, it was really was able to lean in on my past as a paramedic. I remember specifically there was one. conversation I had with one of the partners there where he came in and he starts talking about this call he just had with an expert witness about an intubation case. And it was a really tough intubation. The airway was really bad. And so one of the things that I interrupted to ask was, well, did they use a bougie? And I remember the partner just kind of clapped his hands and pointed at me and he said, that's exactly what the expert asked. And so it was really, you know, very, very gratifying and very validating in a lot of ways to be able to take that experience and really apply it hands-on in all of these different cases because there's a lot of nuance on both sides of that aisle. You know, it's an art on both sides. And so to have the experience on both sides, I think was a bridge that a lot of the attorneys that I was working under really was grateful that I had.

Absolutely. I love how you say, this is so beautiful, that you were able to kind of walk that line on both sides, that you were able to put yourself in that situation. And because of that, you had a very different frame of reference. You know, one of the things that we talk about in conflict resolution is this idea of being a boundary spanner, that there's sort of this invisible line between these 2 areas of expertise and people who are able to have a foot in both sides. It's not only about having that base of knowledge that you're able to communicate with both sides. It gives you an insight into that way of thinking, into that worldview. So as you're sitting there as the attorney who's looking back at these medical things going on, did you ever feel like in reviewing those cases that you sort of thought to yourself, I wish that this doctor had done this, I wish that clinically this had happened? Could you see where those breakdowns were occurring more easily?

Absolutely. And I think the number one place that I can see it is documentation and That's actually kind of something that I am very fortunate for my paramedic experience is because there was a number of trainings that we had on the job where we had medical malpractice lawyers come in and go through some of our run reports and kind of drill through all of the different ways in which there were holes in it. Because I don't know the statistics lately, but EMS is one of the more litigated areas from my understanding. A lot of that comes down to poor documentation. And so over that summer, in a couple of these cases where I'm reading through these patient care files and there's a lot of ambiguity in terms of the care that the patient got. And I'm sure that these doctors were doing the things that, you know, they're supposed to be doing. And you can tell from their documentation overall that there's a continuing pattern of good care. But if it's not documented, then it didn't happen. And so any small lapse in this documentation, I think, is one thing to say that you're going to provide good care, but if you don't have evidence of that good care, it can really come back to bite you Oh, 100%.

That's true. And I love how you just said that because I preach that to students all the time. If you didn't document it, it didn't happen. It doesn't matter what you did, what you thought about doing, what you said. If you didn't write it down in the chart, it didn't occur. And one of the best things I've ever heard, I actually heard it from my office manager, and I'm not sure where she heard it from, but it's gold. She says, every time you document, and it's sort of a weird way to think about it, But you really want to think about having that document, that written thing up on a whiteboard or up on a projector in a courtroom. You want to think about what's this going to look like if I ever have to put it up in that situation and everybody's reading that? Am I going to be happy with this? Does this accurately reflect my thought process and what I did for the patient? And it's so interesting to me because even though I feel like that's really, really taught to us, at least I felt like it was taught to me. And not even just by medical malpractice firms. I mean, just in this course of clinical training, it is remarkable to me how many times that doesn't happen in medicine.

Absolutely. And that was something that I'd see on all of the positions I worked as a paramedic consistently, because I don't know exactly how quality review or quality assurance happens outside of EMS, but in EMS, there's generally like once a month, once a quarter, depending on the organization. We'll get together with the medical director. And so like firefighters from 3 different counties will all be sitting in this big room in a hospital. And then the medical director will put your report up on the board and start tearing it to shreds. Even with this very public aspect of it, where, you know, every single person and their brother on the fire department is seeing these run reports that are, a lot of cases, not very well written, you still don't see a lot of compliance with the documentation that's needed. Especially on refusals where somebody would call 911 and then refuse care. Those were often very bare bones. And it's more important to document what you didn't do or what you checked for and that you ruled out in those instances. And so many paramedics in those cases just think, okay, well, if they want to get out, so I don't need to do a big assessment because they say they feel fine. And it's often those cases where you need to be extra diligent. And that's Something that, as you said, even though it's been drilled into these people, it's been, you know, every single one of these quality assurance meetings, there's at least one report that's absolutely awful, but it continues to happen. And it's got to take constant vigilance because if you didn't document it, it just didn't happen.

Oh, amen. There's so many things I want to get into on what you just said. One of the first things I want to get into is that you guys had regular scheduled structured times. To go through that documentation where you knew everybody you worked with, and like you said, all these firefighters were in this room, and then your chart's put up there, and then it gets just destroyed, but in a constructive manner so that you can learn from what you did and you can get better at it. In terms of private practice or in terms of medicine, once we get out of training, those are things that might happen in training. You might have an attending, or you might have a resident or a fellow, somebody who's ahead of you that you know. Let's say you documented on the chart, and then the patient like bounced back to the ER. And then they're pulling your previous chart to see what you documented, to see if you documented appropriately or you justified your reasons for sending the patient home or whatever interventions you made. So that might happen in training, but once you're in practice, that's not happening unless you have a bad outcome or unless you're having to turn those charts over to somebody else. So unfortunately, the only times we may get that in private practice is when we're having something bad happen. Which is not the time that you want to learn to go back and look at that, right? I mean, that's the worst time. But the other thing that I think is really interesting about what you just said is that even though this was something that was happening and you guys had structured time to do it, sometimes, and maybe even oftentimes, the documentation didn't get better. What were you seeing as potential obstacles for that not improving? Because, I mean, I think that's everywhere in medicine.

I think first and foremost, and I don't know if this is unique to EMS, but high turnover is one of the big problems that was plaguing it when I was still in. And whether that's just from the poor pay that's in EMS specifically, or just the rising burden that it takes to work in medicine in the modern era, but you just constantly see, especially with EMT basics who weren't doing more advanced care, a constant flood of new faces. And so it would oftentimes be the same lessons every single time. But then also the flip side of that is a lot of times the people who end up staying long-term aren't necessarily the most motivated to improve. They're the people who are more complacent. And so you'll see the people who are more engaged, who are doing their work well, will move up in the chain in what little way they can to middle management in EMS. But you also see a lot of people who see it as a joke in EMS. And I do stress that it is a joke that EMS stands for earn money sleeping. And so there are people who kind of are attracted to the position because it does sometimes have those kinds of perks. And so there's a complacency I think that's very easy to fall into, especially when it comes to things like private transport where you're doing a lot of inter-facility or a lot of discharges. And complacency is, I think, absolutely the enemy in any kind of professional job, whether that's lawyering or medicine, where you lose your vigilance for one minute and you make a mistake that can be critical and affect someone's life for You know, the course of someone's life.

I think that's such a great point. And I absolutely agree with you. This is such a weird analogy, but this is what I always thought about when I thought about losing that vigilance. When you come out of training and you go into your professional career, we were always taught where I trained in Dallas, that is, if you always practice the way you were trained, if you always do what we have trained you to do, that you'll be okay. You'll be fine. You know, hang on to that. And one of the weird analogies I think about is that the nurses used to say when the OB residents would do our peds rotations, part of what we had to do is we would actually go to the nursery and we would do physicals on newborns. And they would say that when the interns or residents first got there, they were very vigilant about, you know, if you were doing the physical, you would re-diaper the kid. If the kid had a dirty diaper, you would clean the kid and put the new diaper on. But after about a week of watching upper-level residents, Do the physicals and just leave the dirty diaper there for the nurses to come back and change. They started doing it, and so they could always kind of see as the other younger doctors are watching the older doctors have those bad habits. They kind of figured, oh, it's okay for me to do that too. And I always thought about that because to me, it's like you know that vigilance is I'm going to keep putting the clean diaper on the kid. I'm not going to lose that habit because it's a good habit to have. I don't want to leave my work. Undone for someone else to come behind me and take care of it. So I absolutely agree with you. I think that complacency of thinking this will never happen. I will never have that outcome. I will never have this happen to me until it does. And then people was like, well, gosh, I wish I would have. And I think that's such an important point. Were you able to participate in mediations when you were working for the med mal firm? Were you actually getting to sit on all of those as well?

I was able to sit on one mediation with them, but it was not in their medical malpractice portion of it. I think it was something to do with the school. But I was able to actually perform a couple of mediations in eviction court when I was a 2L through the mediation clinic. And that was an interesting experience.

Yeah.

What was that like?

So in a weird way, mediations was the most similar to EMS work than anything else that I've done. Um, since transitioning, because especially doing a lot of nursing home work that I did with Tri-County Ambulance, because they had a lot of private contracts with them.

Okay.

It was oftentimes my job itself was a mediation between the residents and the workers. And there was an element of powerlessness on my half because as a private ambulance company, we need their business. And so if they're not giving good care, I can't confront them as much as I'd like to. And then I also can't upset the residents even though they need to get going. And so oftentimes I'd come into this situation as a third party who doesn't know what's going on, whether it was an actual medical emergency or even just a behavioral altercation between the residents and the staff members. And so I learned very quickly that in those situations, especially when it came to behavioral medicine, you needed to identify what it was that each party, you know, was really asking for, because oftentimes it wasn't take this person to get checked out medically or leave me alone so I can take a nap. So in a lot of ways, I was able to use those skills and leverage those skills coming into these eviction mediations because for some reason, the summer and the semester that I did them, it was a lot of family evictions and it wasn't as many corporate evictions. And so when you have family members who are evicting each other, it's the same kind of thing. They're not actually trying to evict each other. They're trying to litigate their family problems. And so you have to figure out what the underlying interests are in both of those situations so that way you can understand what it is that the nursing home resident is really looking for. And oftentimes that was just basic respect. And then also what it is that the staff isn't telling you about the reason that they've called you here to take this person to the hospital. And uncovering those layers was just as crucial in getting a successful mediation in eviction court because it wasn't just The money that hadn't been paid. It was also the personal feelings that had developed, the animosity that had developed over time.

I want to take what you just said. I want to take that clip. I want to save it, record it, and play it back to every single physician, every single patient, anybody who's been in a malpractice interaction. I want to take that and play it back because what you just talked about in terms of recognizing the underlying issues going on in the conflict. I think is something that so many people don't understand. And they look at the conflict on the face level. They look at the positions. They look at what people are asking for. They look at this sort of zero-sum winner-loser thing. And what you just talked about in terms of looking for the underlying causes, and especially when you said, and this is the part that I think is so great, and I really want to drill down on this, is very often What the more disadvantaged party was looking for was personal respect. They felt like their basic personhood was being ignored in the conflict, and I think that happens to patients who walk into med mal all the time. I think the bad outcome was the trigger, but the underlying causation was feeling devalued or unrespected or unrecognized, and as an expression of power. They will look to litigation to actually reclaim that sense of feeling valued. And so often I think doctors just don't realize that. And I think this is the value of holding a patient's hand when something happens and saying, I'm sorry, I messed up. And it's something we're not taught to do. We are not really taught to do that. And I think that's such a huge disadvantage in the medical profession that when we inevitably have bad outcomes, that we don't take that time to sit down. We're actually not taught to say, I'm sorry. And I think that's a huge problem because just the act of sitting down with somebody and saying that gives them that sense of respect and power. This person actually does understand that I'm a person. And I think it's a start. It's probably not the whole be-all end-all, but I think it's a start for walking that process, which I think is the reason why I hope that mediation becomes more important. Because also as a mediator, I am sure you were pivotal. And helping both parties get to those base issues. I am sure they did not walk in there understanding all of that, but because you had that perspective and you were able to see that there were deeper issues there, I think you were really beneficial in a lot of those situations. In fact, I know that you were, and that's really cool. Your work in moot court and especially doing oral advocacy. And the reason why I want to talk about that Is just from what background? So all of our listeners, Trevor and my daughter Rachel were partners and you were partners in the appellate. You say it because I'm not going to say it right.

So it was the Wiley Rutledge Moot Court competition, which was the Washington University intraschool moot court competition. But it, it simulates an appellate argument where you write a brief and submit it for judging. And then you have an oral argument with judges that is an oral competition.

So you guys had to write the brief, you had to submit it, and I think you won an award for your—

Oh, we were the 5th best brief, I believe.

Which is amazing. And then I think you got to the 4th or 5th round?

So we made it to the quarterfinals, I think it would have been. Okay. No, it would have been the octofinal. The octofinal is where we, we got knocked out.

So wrong. So wrong. Y'all should have won. And I say that as your cheerleader, not just a parent. But one of the things that I think really struck me as I was learning from Rachel what this process was like is that you really have to, with appellate, you are looking for not really mistakes, but you are really having to delve deep. I mean, it's very detail-oriented, right?

Oh, absolutely. You have to know the record inside and out, and you have to Understand the case law, and then understand just how far you can push the case law when you're making your arguments before the court.

So one of the things I love about this, and one of the things I want to tie this back to conflict, because I think this process that you guys go through in doing these oral arguments and oral advocacy is you really do have to be so knowledgeable about your topic. You have to be so aware of what that topic is. That you are able to effectively argue and counter-argue. I mean, you're having to listen to the person across from you, right? And then you're having to respond in real time. And I think one of the things I love about that, especially getting into conflict situations, is that there is a knowledge and an awareness that you have to build, not necessarily just of the person in front of you, but of yourself. You have to know your argument. You have to know your knowledge base. And I remember getting, I think it was a Snapchat from you after the first or second time that you and Rachel had competed, that the first, as she started talking, she was a little bit slow. And then as she kind of opened up, you said that she was just amazing. Like she opened up and it's like, oh my gosh, you would have been so proud of her. She was incredible.

That's all true, by the way.

That's all true. Because I remember being so happy when I got that.

Just for the listeners, she was fantastic.

And she's going to listen to this though. And so that's cool. But I want to come back to this because In a sense, you're practicing for a conflict situation when you're walking into this.

I mean, essentially what you're practicing for is a negotiation with the judges because when you're actually in the courtroom, which is what this is simulating, you're essentially in a position where depending on which side of the argument you're on, you've already lost your case in the court below. You've already gone through the whole process. You've put all your evidence before. Maybe you had a jury already decide against you. And now you are negotiating with the judicial system to say, no, actually I should have won my case and I'm convincing you as to the reasons why. And so I think one of the things that's most interesting about these types of competitions and one of the things that you don't get to practice as much as would be helpful is that it really teaches you that you're not arguing to the knowledge that you have. I mean, you're certainly using that knowledge to argue. One of the expressions that I learned when I was in trial practice was, you don't want to try the case that you've written. You want to try the case that's in the courtroom. And when you're doing an appellate case and in this appellate argument, you don't want to argue what you think your best argument is. You want to argue what you think the judges think your best argument is. And you're figuring that out over the course of the argument by listening to the questions that they're asking, by watching to see how they respond to you. You want to watch their body language. You want to watch how engaged they seem with the argument. If you think that you're on your best line of argument, And everybody looks bored and isn't asking any questions, it's time to shift it up and switch to something else because they're not engaging with you. And I think that's one of the things that working as an appellate clerk for the past 3 months that I've noticed is oftentimes these appellate lawyers are not watching the judges. They're not trying to capture the judge's interest and speak to the things that are concerning the judges. They're always trying to get back to what they want to say. And I think that's one of the through lines that you can connect oral advocacy and appellate advocacy back to just regular mediations is those underlying interests. You're not arguing to the law. You're arguing to the judges who will then tell you if you're right about the law. And you always have to be conscious of who that audience is and argue to that audience. And it's one of the things that I think is, because I used to do speech and debate back in high school, but it was never anything like this where it was a back and forth with the judges who are challenging you and asking you questions in real time. But aren't like your debate opponents. And so, it's an entirely different skill, but I think one of the most valuable skills you can have walking into a negotiation because it's teaching you not to rely on just the knowledge that you have or the preparation that you have, but to be fluid, to be flexible, and be ready to change your battle plan as soon as the first instance comes that it's not going to work.

Wow. Oh my gosh. Okay. There's so much I wanna talk about this. First of all, I love how you explain this because, I mean, obviously I have learned much from Rachel about the practice of law in law school, but certainly it's just very, very tiny tip of the iceberg. So this was really cool, actually learning how you talk about appellate law and how you talk about these appellate competitions. This is fascinating to me. I love how you phrase this as you are arguing to the minds of the judges. This is what you're trying to talk to. You're not trying to talk about what you think is right. You want to actually try to understand what their thought process is. And I love how you describe this idea of you're actually watching their faces. You're seeing if they're interested. You're seeing if they're engaging. Because I think that's a very similar thing that we do with patients. That if you are talking to a patient about a particular topic or you're talking about making a plan of management and you can visibly see that the patient is not interacting with you, you know, I need to think about what that patient's thinking. What is this patient worried about? What is their worldview with regards to what this problem is? And I need to understand that because if I don't understand that, I'm not going to make my case, right? If I really feel like this is a course of action we could consider, but I'm not considering what that patient thinks about it, I'm not doing a good job of connecting. I'm really not. So as you're talking about this process of appellate, I think that's so cool. But I want to kind of also circle back because you already mentioned it. I was thinking about it before you said it, this idea of what we've learned in debate and that you had done debate previously. I don't know if you've ever listened to any of Malcolm Gladwell's podcasts. He does one called Recall Revisionist History, which is one of my all-time favorite podcasts. I love it. But there's one that's called Malcolm Gladwell Goes to Debate School, and it's actually where he talks about that he was doing the Munk Debates in, I think it was Montreal, but he got destroyed. And after this absolute whacking, he went to the Brooklyn Debate School. And actually got lessons on debate. But one of the things they talk about, Tim, in the podcast is exactly what you just said, which is it really is this idea of we need to learn how to listen. It's one thing to get up there and talk and just say what you know. And, you know, this is what I know. This is what I want to talk about. This is what I believe is right. That's cool. But debate, mediation, conflict resolution, It's about listening. It's about listening and being aware of those cues. And I feel like that's one of the things, as you describe your very successful experience with doing appellate moot court and then also now working as a clerk, you're really getting to see that in real time.

Yeah. And it kind of ties back to what I said earlier about the experience with being a paramedic, being the mediations and negotiations, because it kind of goes back to understanding, you know, who Who is this person in this nursing home who I have to convince to get on my cot and get to the hospital? And then deciding, you know, what it is that I have to tell this person who works for this nursing home that will reassure them that I'm taking them seriously so they'll bring my company back and I'll continue to have a paycheck next week. It was a constant series of these kind of micro-mediations. And in each one of them, the most important thing was for me to understand who it is I'm talking to. What it is that they're really interested in and how I can make what I want them to do what they want to do.

Yeah, I love how you phrase that as a micro-mediation. This is a mediation on a smaller scale, a smaller timescale, but a mediation nonetheless. And as part and process of that mediation, that you really are having to drill down on people's interests, on their identity, and you're having to do all that on the fly. I mean, you're having to do that in a very small period of time. You're having to really absorb that information.

And yeah, you've got a 1 o'clock discharge, and if you don't make that in time, you're not getting lunch.

See, and that's key. We have to have that. That's really good. We never want to miss a meal. So that's awesome. But I love that you were able to really capture that in this very small space. But also too, you see the parallels in doing that with your current practice of law. And being able to drill down to that. And I would say that your early ability to recognize that that is the nature of mediation, actually being able to see the deeper interests of the parties involved, definitely played into part of the reason why you're so successful now in the practice of law is that you got this very early start in being able to understand that. And it made you not only more aware of what that process was, but I think it also probably made people really want to buy into your process. I think people can feel when you are actively involved in that. I never got the pleasure of watching you and Rachel or watching you in terms of doing moot court, but I'm going to bet that your passion for understanding where people are coming from and actively seeking what they were thinking and what they were tuned into. Definitely made them buy into what you were already saying.

Well, and I think that kind of ties back into something that you were touching on earlier about knowing yourself and knowing what your knowledge base is and how you come across when you go into these presentations, because I don't think that everybody can come to have the same approach that I have when it comes to moot court. Certainly everybody wants to be in the same realm of similarity, but everybody has a very nuanced, very personal approach, and you can't exactly mix those and be successful unless you're very intentional about it. And even then, I think a lot of people who try and adapt their styles to be more like someone else in the ways that they've been successful runs the risk of being less genuine. And I think being genuine is something, like you said, that people really recognize. And that's one of the things that you need to really focus on is what is it that I can do? Because there's ways to get across that you care about someone, even if you're not the most congenial person naturally. I've met several medical providers who might come off a little abrasive to me, but every single one of their patients knew that it was because they were fighting for them. And so at the end of the day, I think it's very important to make sure that you know who you come across as and what your strengths are when you're coming to these negotiations, because I wouldn't be able to come across as kind of the more assertive way that I've seen a lot of people be very successful. And knowing that, gives me more of an advantage when I come into these situations because I understand what not to do because it's not what will be successful for me.

I love that. I love how you talk about that. I love how you talk about this idea of being authentic in the process and how that presents itself in mediation, negotiation, your work in moot court. Because I think there is that tendency, right? That you look at somebody who's successful, that you look at somebody who's done well in the space, and it's like, I want to emulate that. That person's had enormous success. I want to be like that too. So I'm going to act the way they act. And I think where I see it in medicine, I see it for students and I see it for residents who maybe have a role model who maybe that role model is a really good doctor, but maybe they're kind of a jerk when it comes to the staff. So that student or that learner thinks maybe that's okay. I've seen it with surgeons who saw people, you know, their attendings throw things and yell in the operating room and think that that must be okay to do. And that's never okay to do. And as a result, they try to become something they're not. And maybe some of it is admiration, some of it's permissiveness. They think it's okay to act that way because they've seen somebody else do that. And as a result, not only does it make them less effective, it makes them probably less happy because they're trying to purport themselves to be something that they're not, as opposed to actually spending time and drilling down on who they are. And what does your work style look like? What does your negotiation style look like? Who are you going to be when you get in a conflict situation? Because you're going to get in them. Who are you going to be at that point? And recognizing your natural bends. I was on a podcast I was recording last week with a wonderful physician who coaches women physicians. And one of the things that she calls herself is an accidental leader because she is a more soft-spoken, introverted person. And she was never going to be the person who was going to stand up in front of a group and slam her fist on the podium and yell and scream. That was just not her style. She saw people do that, but she said, that's not me. And I think a lot of people who are conflict avoidant, and I think that is a lot of physicians, we don't know how to deal with conflict. We are not comfortable in situations where we're having to argue for things. We're just not good at it. We should all spend at least a little bit of time doing mediation training, right? So we actually learn how to be comfortable a little bit more in that space. But there is something to be said for knowing who we are walking into it. And knowing what our motivations are and knowing what we're trying to accomplish on behalf of the patient as we walk into that process. And I think that's something that people can work on.

Yeah. I mean, especially if you're somebody who is more conflict averse, I think understanding that when you walk into one of these situations, just so that way you can keep that in your back of your mind and use that as a backstop. So you're not being over-accommodating or not, you know, compromising on any of your values is important. But then, you know, the flip side of that is you don't necessarily have to be assertive to be effective. There are many different strategies that can be taken. There's a lot of avenues to convincing someone, to talking with someone, and there's, you know, 100 different flavors of success, and each person has to find the one that tastes right for them.

Oh my gosh, I love that. We're going to blow that quote up too, because that's incredible. So let's say, Trevor, let's say somebody pulls you aside, like they pull you into sidebar and they say, hey Trevor, you know, I'm a doctor and I've got to go into this mediation and I'm really nervous about it. I don't know what this is going to be like. What one piece of advice might you give that physician walking into that process?

Well, I'm going to steal the piece of advice that I saw them give at Thompson Miller and Simpson, and that was Just feel comfortable telling the truth. It's not your job to color the truth. It's not your job as a physician to say what you think that your lawyer wants to hear or what you think that the jury might want to hear. Your job is to go in there, give the truth as plain as you can. Don't color anything. And then it's the lawyer's job to straighten out whatever mess that the other side's going to do, because the other side's going to be very good at twisting you into knots. They're going to be very good at trying to make it seem like you don't care, or they're going to get a quote out of you that they can write down out of context, and it's going to make you look really bad. A thousand hours of practice isn't going to avoid that. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. So your job as the doctor is to go in there, be calm, be as congenial as possible, and just tell the truth and trust that your lawyer is going to come in after. And clean up anything that they need to clean up.

Amen. I love that. Trevor, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been incredible. If people wanna follow you, follow your career, see all the cool things that you're doing, how best would they do that?

You can find me online most anywhere at Fifth of Daybreak, one word. And then, um, on LinkedIn, just Trevor Allen.

Awesome. Trevor, I really appreciate you being here. This has been an amazing conversation. I love how you've brought all of your talents together. Thank you also too, just from a personal standpoint, thank you for being one of Rachel's best friends. It has really been just a blessing to me to watch how you have encouraged her, and I just love the fact that you guys have been so close and continue to support each other. It means a lot to me as a mom, so thank you.

Believe me, the pleasure is all mine. Rachel is an amazing human being, and I'm very thankful to have her in my life. And thank you so much for having me on the podcast. This is Been a lot of fun to talk about law and medicine that doesn't start with what made you decide to make that switch. So thank you for not asking that question. I really appreciate that.

Oh my gosh. You know what? You're just an amazing person, Trevor. I love what you're doing. I love what you're accomplishing. It's been a joy to watch you just accelerate through your career. Okay. So full disclosure for the listening audience, Trevor and I Snapchat each other every day. With our dogs, every day I get snaps of Gwen, and every day he gets snaps of Riker. Oh my gosh! Are we going to get Gwen on the pod? Here she comes. Where she comes.

Hey, Mrs. Gwen.

Oh my gosh, Gwen, you are so pretty. I look at you every single day. You are so pretty.

Oh, she wants to be right now.

Oh my gosh! So I actually have a friend of the podcast, Kimberly Best, who is a nurse and a mediator who now lives in St. Louis. Because her daughter is a nurse in St. Louis, so she and I have become very close. She has also recorded an episode with me, and I told her I really want to come to St. Louis. And I was telling Rachel this, and she's like, "And you're also going to harass Trevor and Kelly, right? I mean, you're not just going to go to St. Louis and just see your friend Kim, right? You're going to go." It's like, "Yes, Rachel. I would never go to St. Louis without seeing Trevor and Kelly." So I will let you know when I'm in town. And Gwen, let me not forget my sweet dog Gwen. But yeah, I'll let you know when we're in town.

Sounds great. Thanks again.

All right. Thank you, Trevor. For all of our peaceful warriors, thank you for joining us on the Scalpel and Sword podcast. And until next time, be at peace.

Every episode is an invitation to speak, to negotiate, to choose. I'm Dr. Lee Sharma. Join the dialogue by subscribing. subscribing to Scalpel and Sword. Until next time, peaceful warriors, may your choices be sharp and your voice be even sharper. This podcast is a reflection of lived experience and research in conflict resolution. The Scalpel and Sword is not intended as medical or legal guidance. For personal matters, please consult a qualified professional.