Dr. Davis's Brutally Honest Employee Review of Her Own Daughter

So we're about at the halfway point, so I thought that this was maybe a good time to give a performance review. Oh, no. What better time to do it than on the podcast for everybody to hear? Oh, no, I didn't.

Hi, everybody, and welcome to our podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie Davis. I'm joined here by my colleague, Sarah Davis. Dr. Sarah Davis, also known as my mother.

Yay. Yay.

I have no plan today.

Okay. Okay. Well, I kind of. I just really want to unpack some of our last episode with Dr. John Geiser. If you haven't listened to that episode, we interviewed Dr. John Geiser, who is an anesthesiologist and has had a really fascinating life. But there was just a lot of things that he said that just kind of struck me and I just striking me, like, what I wanted to know was what you thought about when he was talking about just going all in on his career and then becoming a marathon runner and all those things. What did you think about that?

It sounds like he went all in on his career and all of that. And then, like, how he talked about how taking a step back, he didn't know if the juice was worth the squeeze. It's just kind of like, that makes sense if you make your priority, your career, right? Like, if you don't try to prioritize other things. I feel like it made it sound like there is no option for balance in medicine, which might be true in certain aspects, but I think that if you try to make that a priority, make your life, if you want to have a family, if you want to have other things going on, then I think it's important to just, like, set that standard before going down that path. Because if not, then I think it's really easy to just get stuck in the achievement. Achievement. Achievement.

Yeah. That's what I was thinking, too. And physician burnout is something that we talk about a lot now, which was a term that we never use, really. Prior to the pandemic, I hardly heard anybody use that term. Maybe people were saying it, but I wasn't reading those articles. And I see lots of this stuff about physician burnout. And I'm just like, this is such the classic case for physician burnout. When. When we take these people and we say, okay, you've got to do more and more and more. And if your drive isn't just maximum all the time, then you're kind of like, wimping out. We were asking him about anesthesiology and the women that are in his group, and Is there options for them to. For certain people, can they work a little bit less and do some things? Do you recall, was that in the final episode? Who knows?

But.

But there was. So anyway, there was opportunities for people to work a little bit less, do more of, like, regional blocks rather than these big cardiac cases. But even when he was kind of describing that people were doing that and having some more work life balance with doing that, there was almost this tone of like, yeah, but that's lame. I don't know. Did you. Did it strike you that way or is that just me?

No, but he was talking about how he was shadowing or it was his third year of medical school or something, and he was with this anesthesiologist who. Who then didn't do heart surgeries anymore. And how he talked about at the time, he was like, man, that's lame. That's lame that they only do regional anesthesia or whatever. And then looking back now, he's like, oh, I really respect that guy for prioritizing him prioritizing his life over doing something that might seem cooler or whatever in the moment.

Yeah, yeah. And so I just, you know, there's just sort of that sense that happens, and I know this happens in other fields as well, where you just kind of get surrounded by these really intense people. The intensity then just sort of feeds on itself and off of each other, and it keeps kind of going and going. And then when somebody does want to take a step back. Well, and Dr. Heidi Flagg talked about this, too, that when she took a step back and stopped delivering babies, that she got a lot of pushback from people who had nothing to do with being on the call schedule or not. But it was just like. Like, well, you're not a real OB God because you don't deliver babies. And so I just thought that was like, just that whole feeling of, like, unless you are so immersed in this and at the very top of your game and doing everything you can possibly do, that then you're kind of not really like a real doctor or not a real whatever. So I don't know. I just was. I was struck by that theme because we had talked earlier when you were talking about going to medical school and that you were a little bit worried about getting kind of dragged into that culture. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I think that. But I want to be intentional about setting about my values and what's important to me. And I think I work on this a lot because I feel like even in undergrad, I kind of got stuck into that culture, just being in the pre med and all of those things. But I think just setting my values and just trying to be like, okay, this is what is important to me. I want to go into medicine because I'm interested in it. But for me at least, the most important thing in my life is relationships and with people, like spending time with friends and families and partner. And like, I know that like in my life, in the grand scheme of things, that's what I want to remember, you know, and he was just talking about how he didn't even think about lifestyle when he was going through, which.

We thought was kind of funny.

Yeah, like I. And this, all of this stuff is no disrespect to him. He's been so successful and has had, I feel like 10 different lives, which is so cool and such a great story. But just hearing the way that he looks back on it, I think that that's also like a man versus woman thing. Like, I don't think that there's a ton of women that are going into this field and not thinking about their lifestyle.

So. Yeah, I guess I just also want to say that you can manage your lifestyle without, you know, wimping out and without. You can still be a fantastic doctor and have, you know, and have family and have an outside life, but you just have to be very intentional about it. I think if you're not intentional about it, you can easily get dragged down that road. And then this, you see this all the time. People are, you know, at the top of their career, they're doing all this stuff, but then they're super unhappy and then they get burned out and then they just quit altogether. Or they just say, oh, you know, I can't do this. Medicine is terrible. It's like, well, no, it's not terrible. It's just that you have set up your life in a way that now you're not enjoying it. Whereas if you could, I don't know, I guess it's kind of like pacing yourself during a marathon. I've done that multiple times where I've started off on a marathon and I'm running and I'm like, I feel so good. I'm up here running with these people. I feel great. I can just keep going and going. This is fantastic. And knowing, you know, this is probably a little bit faster pace than I really should be running, but that's all right because I feel so good. And then of course, you know, along comes Miles, 16, 17, 18, and totally burn out and end up, you know, having to walk or just not, you know, could have finished it so much faster had I just paced myself better throughout it. So I guess I'm just kind of making that analogy between pacing yourself in your career so that it's sustainable, it's enjoyable, and that you can have those other outside interests that it's not. It doesn't have to take away from your career. It can kind of add to your career and make you. Make you a better doctor and a better person. But it's not going to happen unless you think about it.

I don't think that's just in medicine or I know that's not just in medicine. And I think. And I understand that. I don't understand. I'm not a doctor, but I see these doctors all the time talk about how if they went back and they could have chosen a different career path and it would have been so much better and whatever. And maybe that's true. But also if you're that type of person that is always reaching for the next thing and always trying and working so hard, then. Then maybe you do go into investment banking and you're still working all night every day and not trying to compare that. Like, it's a different, you know, it's still a different level. You have. You have people's lives in your hands versus, like, money.

People's money is pretty important.

If you want to be really successful, you have to work really hard, unless you are really talented and then you become an overnight sensation on TikTok.

That's right. But yeah, I agree. I think it's true in many different fields. And it's just that same culture. It's that same culture of, of success and working hard, but that whole philosophy of being all in, you're all in. And that is. And then that's what's valued is like, oh, that person, look, they've been here for 24 hours straight, 36 hours straight, and they're still working hard. Look at that. Rah, rah. That's great. No, that's not great.

I think that, I mean, you see that in athletes too, right? Like people. The whole thing about. Yeah. Being all in, going 100% and then all in on this one thing and then everything else in your life crumbles.

You.

I just don't. I see doctors complain all the time and like, it's not just medicine.

I agree. It's just. That's what they know.

Yeah, that's what they know. And it's easy to be surrounded by that sort of culture and stuff. I think I've had to look at what success means. I think I look at success now differently than I looked at success, like, when I started college. And that's something that I've really had to, like, think about and reframe in my brain. I think a lot of people. Again, we've talked about this before, always trying to, like, get to the next step, go all in on this one thing, go all in on getting into med school, go all in on getting to the best residency, and, like, so focus that they just let everything else in their life crumble. And I think it's important to be able to set your values and set your intentions before starting that journey.

Yeah, I think that's true. And like I said, it's just. It's a recipe to flame out, burn out when you're. You know, when you're like that. And then especially Dr. Geiser talked about this some as well, and I think this happens in. In all professions, too, is that you get there and you feel like you have worked hard and you put everything on the line, you know, at great sacrifice. And then when your patients don't appreciate you or the surgeon is, you know, being disrespectful to you or whatever it is, that is so much harder because you don't have those other things to fall back on. And you also feel like, you know, I've done everything. I've done everything I can possibly do to get to this point, and now I'm not having the satisfaction that I thought I was gonna have. And then it's so much of a bigger disappointment.

You're never gonna get that satisfaction from external things like, you gotta find your worthiness and everything internal.

Gotta come in here. We gotta come in here.

Because if you keep searching to find that fulfillment, it's never gonna happen, man. You gotta find it from within.

That'll be our thing. Well, so speaking of, you know, excelling and satisfaction and all of that, you know, you have been working at this job for me for about six months. We're kind of at our halfway point. Just for those listeners out there. Stephanie has been working as my medical assistant in my office for the last six months, and she's gonna do it until this spring or summer before she starts medical school. So we're about at the halfway point. So I thought that this was maybe a good time to give a performance review. Oh, no better time to do it than on the podcast for everybody to see. Oh, no, I did not. You had a piece of paper. I got a piece of paper now. Oh, my God. I've rated you on a scale from 1 to 10 on a variety of things. And I'm gonna ask you like, what score you think you deserve on these things too. So now you know. This is. I've talked to HR department and there's.

Two people in this company.

There's no real me and her. We don't have like a real formal review process. But I just made one up and I scribbled some things on a piece of paper and that's, that's gonna be our performance review. So. Okay, item number one are skills such as blood drawing, giving shots, EKG, kind of medical assistance skills. On a scale from 1 to 10, where do you think you are on those?

9.5.

I'd give you a 10.

Oh, okay. See, I think I'm good at the techie stuff. I can't be perfect. No one's perfect. But I think I'm pretty good at it.

I think you're very competent in all those things. I feel very comfortable when a patient comes in and they need to get, you know, a shot. You know, I know that you can drop the vaccine, mix it up, give it, use the right needle, give the shot. Like I don't have to worry at all about that. Same thing with giving blood. I mean, drawing blood, doing EKGs, any of that stuff. It's nice. I feel like you're very confident.

I'm not worried about it either, ever.

10 out of 10. Item number two is chit chatting with patients, which is a very important thing in this office because. Well, the person that I had, that worked here before worked here for almost 20 years and was very, very good at chit chatting with patients.

And so are we doing this on a comparison scale?

Sometimes, yes. If that's the way that it works out, you might be compared to your predecessor. Sorry. I'm sorry. But that's just the way. That's the policy. That's the policy. There's nothing I can do. But. So chit chatting with patients, where do you think you are on a scale from 1 to 10?

I think I'm pretty good, but it depends on the day. If we're comparing me to Melanie, he then, I mean, I'm in the negatives. But if we're on average, I don't know, I give myself an eight out of ten.

I give you a ten out of ten. Okay. Don't worry. Things will get worse at some point here. But I think you're very good at chit chatting with patients. I think you, you're good at Reading the room and knowing, like, okay, when does this person need a little bit? Some people are not real comfortable when they walk into the doctor's office, and so they just need some reassurance. And you talk to them and ask them where they're traveling to or just, you know, doing that type of stuff. I think you do that very well. But then. But then they start talking about why they're there. And then I kind of walk into the room, and I don't want the patient to have to repeat the whole story, so I walk in. And then you kind of graciously, you know, you finish getting the vitals and you. And you leave. And so. No, I think you do that very well. 10 out of 10. Okay. Sweet. Dealing with technology.

10 out of 10. I redid all the phones, and I am really good at figuring things out. I found efficient ways to do things. I would say efficiency is one of my strong suits.

I would agree with that. Gave you 10 out of 10. Yeah. I don't. When I have any trouble, I know that you can solve it. And I know if you don't know how to do something, you can figure it out.

I like this praise. Let's keep it going.

Okay. Your attitude when talking to patients. Now, some of these patients can be. Some of them just require more patience when dealing with the patients. How do you feel your attitude is with dealing with the patients?

10 out of 10, I think. I think I'm great.

I gave you 10 out of 10.

There we go.

Yeah. No, I think you're very good with dealing with them. Giving them what they need, all that. Now, how about the attitude with your boss? What do you think you deserve on this one?

Can you be more specific?

Well, all it says here on the paper is attitude with boss. Like, for example, would you ever sort of, like, you know, be snappy with your boss or, like, kind of try to, like, order your boss?

When the boss is my mother, then I. All right. Attitude is negative. One out of ten.

Oh, I wasn't that bad. I'd give you six out of ten. Okay. Okay. You're happy with that? That's passing. You're. Is it? Barely.

What's passing on this grade?

Well, I don't know. I'm not really sure. We'll kind of have to add it up when we get to the end. Yes, I wrote on here. These are the comments. I mean, again, this is just. This is what the form said, so, you know, nothing I could really do about it. But I said, usually very good, but sometimes can be Snipp, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do?

This one I kinda have to explain a little bit. It says cleaning up messes. This, I don't mean, like, you know, metaphorical or whatever. I mean, like literal messes. One of the jobs of a medical assistant, unfortunately, is that a doctor walks into a room and we make a big old mess. We just like, we leave stuff lying around and, you know, I use something, I just kind of set it down and then I leave the room. And when I walk back in, I want it look perfect again. Like I was never even in there. How do you feel you are with doing that?

8 out of 10? Sometimes I forget, but most of the time I think I do.

Well. Yeah, I gave you 7.5. I would say that that is something that has improved. I think it's something that, you know, it's kind of interesting because usually, you know, as a mom, you end up cleaning up your kids messes all the time, and they get kind of used to you doing that. So at home, Stephanie's not messy at home, but I'm more likely to clean up the mess at home than you are. But in the office, you're the one who's supposed to clean up the mess.

It's not that I'm doing that. I just forget sometimes.

It's just forgetful.

Sometimes I'll walk in, I'm like, oh, I forgot to clean that up.

Yeah, but I'll clean it up. That's fair. I mean that whenever I'm there by myself. Well, of course. And that's because I'm used to other people cleaning up my messes. But like, sometimes if Stephanie's not here and I see a patient, then I go to do something else, and then another patient's coming in, and I'm like, oh, good God, who left this room like that? Yeah, here's one. Being proactive, anticipating what I'm going to need. And I think this is like sort of the mark between. This is something that every doctor is looking for in a medical assistant or with any of their employees. And that is one of the hardest things to find because basically the person has to really be able to sort of think like me. Okay, you know, this patient is coming in. What are the stuff that. What's she gonna ask for? What's she gonna wanna do to have all that stuff at the ready? Where do you think you are on that?

Oh, I probably could put in more effort.

You could be better at that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't realize that was being evaluated I don't know. Seven out of ten?

I'd give you nine.

Okay.

I said, and probably only you might have even done better, except for your predecessor was really, really good at that. So, you know, again, I mean, it's just. That's the policy, is that we compare you to the predecessor. So I'm sorry, but that's it. So now I can.

I've been here for six months. My predecessor was here for 20 years.

Sorry, that's just, you know, that's just the way it is. But I think that. I would say I think you are very good at it. I do think you have the skills to be even better.

I. I would agree with that. I forget sometimes.

Punctuality and work ethic ebbs and flows. I mean, I. I gave you 10 out of 10. Okay. I think your work ethic is. Is good. And you, as far as I know, you're always here on top. We. I haven't had any issues with tardiness.

Yeah, let's go with that.

That I know of. Hey, if. I don't know, it doesn't really count.

I mean, if I'm rolling in five minutes late, I'll be sure to put the phone on my phone.

Yeah, I'm gonna start checking your location also.

Sometimes I'm scared that you're gonna do that.

Hey, man, I got things to do. I'm not just sitting there checking their location all the time.

That's the tough thing about having your boss as your mom or your mom as your boss is that she can look at your location.

You wouldn't normally have that for your employees unless you were a psychopath, but.

At least it's the other way around, too. So I can see where she is.

That's right. She's like, oh, she's far away. There's no way she's coming in. I can't go down for a nap. Do whatever. Willingness to learn.

10 out of 10.

10 out of 10. I gave you 10 out of 10.

Thank you.

And so overall, this is not like I didn't. There was no formula for this. This was just kind of my overall score. I gave you 9.5 out of 10. Sweet. Yeah.

And the 0.5 is just from the snappiness.

The snappiness, that's. You just pretty much lost the 0.5 from the snappiness.

I'll take it.

Unfortunately, that does make you ineligible for a raise again. I'm sorry. It's the policy. There's nothing I can do. You had to. No, there was not a Raise was never on the table. Well, maybe I'd stop being so snappy.

If there was a raise on the table.

Well, I'm gonna just take my chances.

I'll keep being snappy.

Yeah. So how do you feel about your performance review?

I want to rate your.

Feel free.

Okay, fine.

Just realize that it could result in a firing at the end if I don't do well.

You have the advantage in this case. Yeah, no, I think I've done pretty well. I think there's times I could put in more effort in what I'm doing, but, I mean, I get the job done.

Besides, you're only gonna be here for a few more months, and then you're onto bigger and better things.

I'm not trying to get a letter of rack anymore, so. Right.

I mean, pretty soon you're just gonna be like, sorry, I can't make it to work.

I like making money. I like. I don't mind coming in. Okay. Yeah.

Well, that's good.

This job's great.

If you need a job, send us a message. Yeah.

Because I'll be gone in six months.

Yeah. I need somebody new, somebody who has all of these things and with a decreased snippiness to their boss. Okay. That is. I think those are all of the things that I have for the podcast. Do you have some other. We talked about having some sort of case, but Para.

Insomnias.

Is that your case presentation? Yeah.

So I keep yelling in my sleep again.

And I used to.

Remember I used to do that as a kid all the time.

Yeah, you did. I know. I really feel like you should be growing out of this stuff by now.

Yeah. I don't know.

Yeah. You know, Ryan had some night terrors. Sometimes I can't remember what age that was. I feel like it's more age, like three or four or something like that. Do you know what a night terror is? I used to.

I used to have those, did I not? I would scream all the time when I was a kid.

Yeah. I guess we didn't really notice it as much with you. What you would just, like, put in. That's why.

Because I would scream. I would say, no, stop.

No. Yeah, but that's. I don't know with your stuff, the yelling out. But the night terror thing is, like. Is, like, specific. When somebody. Yeah. I mean, they do yell out, but they also sometimes, like, they look like they're awake. And sometimes it goes on and on. Like, it can go on for like, 30 minutes or an hour or something like that. And what happens is they basically, they were in the deepest sleep and then all of a sudden they shoot up to like, you know, love phase one of sleep or whatever it is. And, and. But the creepiest thing is they look like you kind of think that they're awake, but they're not awake. Like they can't hear you, they can't react to you, but they are kind of like they're just mumbling and moving and sometimes their eyes are open and they look like they're possessed. I could see how, like, a long time ago you would have thought your child had demon possession if they.

Well, how'd you get to stop?

You know, there's not much you can do, unfortunately. You kind of just have to, like, let the episode pass and you just, you know, reassure yourself that, okay, they're fine, they're safe. Like, there's nothing I can really do. I'll just kind of make sure that they're not, like, getting out of bed and doing something that's going to hurt them. But you just kind of wait for it to pass. One of the things that can cause it is actually being sleep deprived. Yeah, yeah. So then you just really try to make an effort so that they are getting enough sleep. Sleep to try to avoid it. I don't know about your screaming.

And I'm in the sleepwalking comment below if you want to hear the story of me sleepwalking in Nashville. If we get enough comments, then I'll tell her on the podcast. Also comment in general. Give us more comments. We need some questions, questions, comments.

Tell us, tell us what you think. Is that the best forum for people to get a hold of us?

Yes. Or TikTok. Or message us on parkcities. Personalphysicians on Instagram. We're going to take a break next week because of Christmas. Are you excited for our Christmas plans?

I'm very excited. Get to spend some time doing some snowboarding and having some family time.

What's better than that? Because I don't get enough of it already.

That's right. More. There won't be a performance review at the end of the vacation, maybe.

Thanks, guys, for listening. You know where to find us. Generations MD on TikTok. Follow Park City's personal physicians on Instagram and we will see you in two weeks. Bye, guys.