Medicine Meets Storytelling with Dr. Tyler Beauchamp

Sure, it seems like it's a waste of time, or sure, it seems like that's a lot of time to not study, but I would argue that if you're cutting out the things that like, really give you energy and really give you fire, then you're just trying to drive a car without gas. So you're just. You're doing yourself a disservice.

Hi, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie and I'm joined here by my colleague, Dr. Sarah Davis, who's also my mother. And today we have a very special guest. He's a pediatric resident and he is a number one best selling author. Please welcome to the podcast, Dr. Tyler Beauchamp.

Thanks for having me.

Did I say it right?

Yeah, you got it.

There we go. Yeah. Tyler was just telling us about how somebody corrected him on the first day of med school of how to pronounce his last name.

Yeah, I'm glad that he did because, you know, all this these years, I was saying it wrong, so I'm glad.

Yeah, now you know, thank God to that. To that one. Gunner. Well, thanks so much for being here, I guess. Kind of backing up. We kind of want to hear about your story, how you got into medicine and then how you got into writing. So what got you interested in becoming a doctor?

Yeah, actually growing up, it was the last thing that I wanted to do. I was a patient for a really long time, being turfed around, like research clinics around the south, had a lot of joint pain and like, the leading diagnosis for a while was ankylosing spondylitis. And so trying to get that all figured out, but it was like an atypical presentation. But all I have to say, I don't really come from a medical background. And that was like, okay, the last thing I want to do is medicine because, like, no one knows what to do with me. And I. My dad's a musician and he works a little bit in sound design. So, like, growing up was really interested in art and I got into stories and writing kind of through that. But I tried, like, everything under the sun. I knew I really liked making people feel something, and that's what really got me into writing and writing stories for people. And in college, I was that obnoxious person that, like, changed their major 12 times first year just to, like, get into a class to try something new. And I was actually like this close to dropping out of college to go out west to screenwrite because I was like, I just love writing so much and I had Tried every single major profession I could think of, whether it was like, interning or shadowing. I tried. Like, I took a class at every school that my university offered, and the last thing I hadn't tried was medicine, because I was being stubborn about it. So I was like, before I do this and just drop out and like, you know, freak out my folks, I. I'll, like, give medicine one more try and shadow. And it was such a God moment because I shadowed with this surgeon for a summer and maybe a week in, I was just, like, completely sold and blown away that this is something I wanted to do. And I started viewing all of my experiences growing up differently and, like, talking with patients is a new thing. Like, you know, using kind of my experience, not that I knew what they were going through in any realm, but like, the experience of being in the hospital all day or, you know, like, having unknown answers. And so I started to think, like, maybe I could actually use that for a good thing. And I really, really started falling in love with the hard sciences and the things we could do out of healthcare. But I didn't want to give up the writing because that had been, like, such a big part of me. I just didn't really think it'd be. I don't really know how to keep both going. The writing was kind of secret. It was kind of like a secret Tyler alter ego hobby. It was like my thing I would just go into. And then going into med school, well, we can talk a little bit more about it. But I, like, since I was kind of felt like I was starting on the path super late to get into med school because, like, everyone who came in freshman's like, oh, I'm going to take all the intro classes. And I was like, not on that wavelength at all. I just, like, was not a human for a year and a half to catch up and cut out, like, everything else that wasn't this. So, like, the writing, music, like, even, like, friendships, I. I was not. I didn't feel like I was a good person for a while. And I, like, promised myself if I ever got into med school at the end, like, I had this, you know, change of heart. Like, I can't do this for the rest of my life. And so I started being a little more vocal about my alter ego in med school. And then of all things, the pandemic starts and you don't really have the opportunities to work with patients that you want to. And how can you do things to, you know, help out? And that's kind of when a Lot of the music and writing took off, and since then I've just been trying to keep them both going. We can talk more about that.

No. Yeah.

It's just amazing.

And I think it's so important. I, I. You're talking about that year and a half when you kind of stripped everything down and just focused on medicine. I feel like so many people have a similar experience because it is so rigorous and it's so hard. And maybe you can speak a little bit more about being, being in residency and how you've been able to keep up with these outside things and how to maintain yourself. When I feel like so much of medicine does try to, like, strip that away. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Oh, absolutely. You know, that was a big thing for me for when I was interviewing for residency, was not like, not to go to a place that wasn't necessarily going to, like, carve out time for those things per se, but just a place that I least appreciated those things. I feel like it can be sometimes a coin flip where in medicine if people, like, really appreciate those things or if it's kind of seen as like, a distraction from me being like, 100% in. And I think for the, the viewpoint of those, when they say, like, oh, that's a lot of time to not be studying or a lot of time to not be, like, getting reps in, they kind of fail to think about the, the end goal of all of this. And maybe it's also me coming from the pediatric mindset, but, like, I can't tell you how many times I've had a fundamental change in patient care treatment teaming. When the patient just, like, accepts the same thing that you say, but they do it because they know who you are as a human. You know, we have such short amount of time to meet somebody and then, like, make an instant connection, and then, you know, in 15, 30 seconds have them give you, like, the most intimate details of their life. And they're not going to do that because you spit out some, you know, chem pathway that they can't familiarize themselves with. I often say, like, you know, what's like, the one thing that most patients can't relate to, and that's medical knowledge. So, you know, if we're really doing our job of making a connection and showing that we're someone that they should trust with their lives and their health, we should show them that we are a person apart from this, that medicine is more of an avenue to get to the stuff that I really like about medicine. If that makes any sense, to really change people's lives.

Yeah. Do you feel like this idea and philosophy changed throughout your medical training? I feel like I. I mean, we did a gunner skit and we kind of talked about, you know, going into medical school, I'm in my first year, kind of surrounded by people that it feels like identity and everything else is being stripped away. And the focus is, okay, you gotta study, you gotta study. Do you feel like that understanding that life is more than just studying biochem? How did you develop this philosophy throughout your training?

I think it's a great question. A big change in philosophy was when during COVID there were two other students that are two of my best friends from training. We made this music video. Not like one of those kind of like lip syncy med school, like cheesy videos. Like, we actually wanted to make like a serious production about frontline workers. And we did it all just ourselves. And it was backbreaking. We would wake up at like 3am to get shots in because we had to study and everything. And it ended up turning like way bigger than we thought. Like, it actually we got like hospitals all over the country, like the CDC got involved, like all that stuff, like, whatever. But like, we did notice one, all of our grades shot up in that time and we were studying significantly less. And by significantly less, that just meant we weren't studying 20 hours a day and then sleeping four hours. We were like, okay, we need to study more efficiently if we're going to get this project done. So let's just completely change the way we approach studying. And I just wish we would have done the music video a year earlier because good lord, the time that it's saved moving forward, especially like now in residency, when you have to learn things so quickly, it's all about like, you know, finding an efficient way that sticks. So from that aspect, I tell people, like, sure, it seems like it's a waste of time, or sure, it seems like that's a lot of time to not study. But I would argue that if you're cutting out the things that like, really give you energy and really give you fire, then you're just trying to drive a car without gas. So you're just, you're doing yourself a disservice. And then much more importantly than that, like, if you cut out all those things, like, this is how we become those doctors in 20 and 40 years that, you know, have a high school student shadow with us. And we say, oh, don't go into medicine. Like, you know, like, yeah, Like. Like the habits that we form now, the habits that you form in med school because you're. It's such a different pace. It's so hard for people outside of it to comprehend that, like, you're just trying to get by and, like, you know, it's so different than the way you've studied before in college. And, you know, it's just the start of things. So for better, for worse, the habits you're forming right now are the habits you're going to have for a really long time. And so if those habits are, I'm going to cut things out to make time for this. It's not like it's going to be easy to flip the switch. Like, oh, well, after residency or after fellowship, there's always another after you made. How many times did I tell myself in that year and a half, like, oh, I'll just do this, like, after I finish Orgo, or after. Like, that's. That's exactly how we get burnout. I mean, well, one big part of how we get burnout, but, like, it's certainly how we become jaded. It's certainly how we become the doctors that patients are like, God, he. They were just trying to get in and out of the room. So much more important than getting, like, an efficient studying aspect. I actually think it's part of our job to keep those parts alive if we're really trying to do our best job to patients.

Sure. Oh, what year resident are you right now?

I'm an intern first year.

Oh, you're an intern. Okay, so first year. Okay, so during COVID what year were you in medical school?

I was a second year. So I took a medical leave in between third and fourth year, which was also a huge change in my philosophy of things. But so I. I did go into med school pre Covid and like, at the end of my first year is when the pandemic started. But the. The medical leave shaped a ton of things because, like, part of the medical leave, it was a multi combo of, like, I had a big GI problem that developed. But I also, like, was really not doing well mentally and to the point where, like, I was. Thank God I had some friends that sat me down and, like, had an intervention because I don't think I'd even, like, be here right now if it weren't for them. And, you know, coming out the end of that, that even more invigorated, like, the things that you need to do that bring you joy and bring joy to others, like, you can't afford to cut Those out. Yeah.

How did you end up opening up about your writing and actually start showing people your writing or bringing it to publications? How did that start?

Yeah, again, I have to give all the credit to those obnoxious people that did the. My, like, my friends in med school. So while we were doing that music video project, I. I've always been writing. So, like, I. The. The book that was out in med school was like, had taken form of something before, and then I kind of shifted it because I was inspired by a lot of what I was seeing in adolescence through the pandemic. It has nothing. The book has nothing to do with the pandemic. It's more just about isolation. But, you know, I leaned back into writing because I needed my outlet more. And then I started showing them what I was writing. And I think sometimes, I mean, at that point, you know, if you're a med student and you tell somebody you're like, writing a book, I think a lot of people think, oh, it's like narrative medicine or op Ed. But I write fiction like, it's pure fiction. I love writing fiction. And when they saw that, and they hadn't really seen that side of me, they kind of pushed me to see, like, why don't you try, you know, publishing this around town? I was terrified. Terrified, because it's like, felt like, you know, people are going to read my diary. Even though that book has nothing, it's not me at all. But no, they pushed me to just kind of start local. And I am beyond blessed for how it took off. I can't. Like, I never thought in a million years I'd be here now with, like, the things that have come from it and the next books and all, but it's all thanks to them. They. They pushed me. I was never planning on releasing it at all.

Wow, that's. Oh, that's amazing. Well, Will, can you go into a little more detail about what, you know, what that book's about or what. What all the things happened with. With these books. Books.

Yeah. Yeah. So that book, it's called Freeze Frame. It's about a high school boy who, after he has had sort of an adverse experience, he's had to shift its schools. And you're kind of left to wonder what had happened before. But he is now joining this new, like, art school. He's like an aspiring film director, but for. For whatever reason, he has kind of a. A shifting sense of reality. And, you know, whether you want to classify it as like, intense hallucinations or daydreams, he tends to shift in and out of focus with film genres that are related to whatever he's experiencing in the moment. So, you know, if he's like, first day of school jitters and someone's scaring him, he might most literally get ripped through the hallway floor and. And fall into a horror movie. And then someone will snap him out of it. Or, you know, at one point they're like, trying to steal something from somebody's locker, and suddenly his world kind of shifts into this Ocean's Eleven sequence. And so the whole book is about him coming into the fray with these, like, lovely group of kids that, you know, help him kind of overcome what has happened before. And you're left a piece, really what that was. And through him kind of leaning more into those things that he was keeping quiet. I kind of got the idea from, you know, when you're talking to all these kids in adolescence and in the pandemic who, I mean, good Lord, mental health is on the rise. But, like, I mean, things that I never would have imagined to the rate that they were with isolation. And it's not like we can open up all these doors in the clinic and have the kids talk to each other about, hey, they're doing same thing over here, feel the exact same way. And I honestly feel like no one is going through this experience, and it's terrifying me. But you can't do that in medicine, but you can do that in writing. That's what I love about stories and how, you know, people can connect to shared experiences through that. So that's how that. That book came about.

Wow, that's. That sounds really cool. I want to read it also sounds like something that would make a good movie.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of some of the fun things that have come from this, so I went on a book tour for a bit, which I'll quickly say, like, what? Really, like, if I would ever have any doubts of keeping the writing going, having kids in the middle of a Barnes and Noble in front of a ton of people, like, just share their most intimate mental health experiences. You know, things that I would be really impressed that a kid would have the strength to say alone in a clinic room would. Let alone in front of, like, a line of people. I mean, I even had one kid once talk about something that was. It shocked the mom so much, they pulled me aside after and were like, I didn't even know they were thinking these things. And so that's like, really where I feel there's this opportunity with writing stories for kids and being a pediatrician. That, like, the things where medicine can only get so far. I feel like art can kind of COVID up that last little bit. But while I was on the book tour, I got approached by this production company, and we've actually been in the process of developing it into a TV series for a little over two years now. I worked with the writers room for a while. We adapted the script, like a ten episode miniseries, and then we filmed a pilot during fourth year med school. And so right now they're out, like, pitching it to streaming services. So we may. We may see it on screen someday. Fingers crossed.

That's amazing.

That is so cool. I just love talking to people on this podcast who have such a creative mind and just show me that it's all possible. Like, you can be creative and you can be in medicine. I think that people segregate themselves so much, but just hearing stories like this, to know that you still are able to express your creative side while going into this rigorous, like, STEM path is honestly so inspiring to me and all of our listeners that. No, I think that's so cool. Did you. Was this what got you into wanting to do peds, or did you kind of always want to work with kids?

No, it's super funny. I. Maybe I'm just being a stubborn person, but I came into med school the same way of college. Like, I have no idea what I want to do. Only in med school, people are like, tyler, you're such a pediatrician. So, like, I'm trying everything under the sun, and then I'm, like, starting these, like, nutrition and exercise projects for kids. And then people were like, oh, so you want to do pediatrics? I mean, no, you can't tell me what to do. And then like, I, you know, write children's young adult fiction. They're like, oh, you want to do pediatrics? No, you can't tell. But then, like, third year hits and I'm working, you know, every day, like, in my pediatric block. And I was like, wait, I. I love this so much. Everything that I'm inspired by is what my kids do. I think the world of them. And I, like, I found my calling. Maybe I should listen to what people are saying. Like, maybe I just was like, I don't know how to make this decision. I like too many things in medicine. And then it just was taking a step back. Like, wait, no. Everything that you're doing and everything that you love is revolves around, like, child and adolescent care. So I guess you could say, like, yeah, from the start, I did want to do it. I Just didn't know that I wanted to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, just also. Just you talking about those stories of meeting all those kids on the book tour and seeing that, I can see how that can also inspire you to want to do the same thing in the clinic.

Yeah. Yeah, that was. That's been big. And I don't, like, you know, I'm still learning kind of what my role or, like, the dynamic of that part of Tyler is for, you know, residency, because it's certainly not like, something that I bring up on, like, rounds or on patients, you know, but there have been a couple times where I've had a patient that, like, knows about this stuff, and I feel like it's a, you know, a fine line walking. But it. So far, it's been a positive thing. Think it also is, like, indicative of just being at a place that I feel really does support that side of me, which I'm really blessed to have. But, you know, I. I try to keep it, you know, bifurcated. But when there are opportunities, if, like, the patient or family brings it forth, and I do think, like, maybe leaning into that can be helpful. I'm still, you know, learning the. The tight rip of that. But so far, I think in the few moments that that part of me has come out, I think it's been a good thing.

Well, has it now? Being an intern is just. I mean, it is very time consuming. I mean, unlike when you're studying, you can kind of make the decisions of, like, okay, well, I'm going to only study this many hours and just be really efficient. But it doesn't really work like that. When you've got to be in a hospital. You're taking, you know, overnight call a lot. How are you. I mean, how are you time management that I'm just thinking about, like, okay, and then you're sort of talking to studio executives about, you know, the streaming service for your potential movie or series or, like, how does that all work?

Yeah, I'll say. Maybe. I. You know, they talk about, like, fourth year of med school kind of being like, a really fun and, like, you know, relaxing time. I kind of went the other direction, like, after I finished up things. So, like, my second half of fourth year, when, you know, you have a lot of that free time to do things. I. I was like, I want to write as much as I can. I want to get as much as I can of the show off. Like, things that if I were not to write a single word or touch anything creatively for the next Three years. Like, I want to make sure I don't waste that time. So I will say a part of it was that I like, really dug in and it didn't feel like work. It didn't feel like I was, you know, breaking my back. But, you know, I tried to get as much as I could started before residency, which has been helpful. So now it's like, because I like, you know, we can talk about the next series or I've got like two in the process and like, those have already kind of been started and worked out. So now it's not about like creating big ideas or, you know, if I do have a little bit of time, it's more like, oh, this day off, like, maybe I can, I can work on this chapter or I can, you know, answer these emails on it. So that's more of it as far as, like, you know, the larger scale things. Like, I. The first two or three blocks of residency, I really didn't touch anything creatively because it's like, you know, I need to learn how to be an intern. I need to learn the system. There's like so much that's new. But now that I'm like, you know, six months in, I'm starting to understand the flow of things. You know, I'll say this, the name of the game I feel like for intern year is learning how to be efficient. You know, with all of the info overload that you're getting, with the new experiences that you don't learn in med school, how do you pre round more efficiently? How do you write notes more efficiently? How do you take care of your tasks and day more efficiently? And, you know, that's really the name of the game for a lot of things in medicine. And so going back to like, you know, in med school, it's like, well, how do I. How am I going to write this stuff while I'm studying? Well, I'm going to have to learn how to tweak things, be more efficient to make time for that. And so trying to use that same model for residency of like, I don't think that this task that I'm doing every day needs to take this long. Let me think about it and see if I can tweak it. And if that gives me, you know, an extra 30 minutes to just kind of sit and think about things versus, you know, maybe I can carve out this day and not have to like, update hospital courses on my day off. You know, like, stuff like that.

Wow, that's great. Becoming more efficient is just, I think that's really important. Do you also think having this other side of you makes you more resilient? I mean, intern year is a year where, you know, there's some things just go badly sometimes. And if your entire identity is built up in being a physician and things don't go well, and all of a sudden you feel like you're not a good physician, it's a very hard thing for a lot of people to go through. Do you think when you have this other side, that that gives you something to sort of fall back on a little bit?

I think so. Or at least I do believe that when those really tough things or those really, like, you know, mindbreaking things happen, I. I do feel it helps me cope with them at least. You know, I certainly have been journaling a lot more this year than I was in. In med school. And, you know, I don't like. I don't exactly like data mine. My experiences as a resident or as a med student like to make stories, but I do think, like, exercising that part of your brain creatively and like, you know, thinking about what things people are going through, and then when you go through certain things, like life imitating art imitating life, I do think it. It does make those experiences a little bit easier to get through. And, yeah, I. I think the piece that it brings me to just, like, dive into writing for a little bit on one day off, like, does bring me a lot of peace for the week to come. It's just something I've learned about myself.

How do you maintain your hobbies and writing, your creative side, how do you keep that as something that fuels you and gives you peace, rather than. Do you ever feel like you get stuck and feel like you have to do this thing in order to kind of, like, maintain that part of yourself when you are so busy?

Yeah, that's a great question. Sometimes I do. I think the things that I feel I'll take a step back for. A big part of what I'm trying to do right now with these future books is getting them going through Scholastics. I really want them to be a part of book fairs and, like, you know, those really fun things at schools.

And.

And to do that, you know, you need, like, better representation, a literary agent working with the big five publishers. And so the business side of all of this, like, the. The social media side of things, the querying, you know, the meetings with agents and trying to, like, that stuff, has definitely become a little bit harder and more of the. This is something I just have to do right now, even if I don't want to. The writing never has, though. The writing. I. I don't know, I've. It's always been my escape, like, even, like, as a little kid. And I feel like whenever I do write, like, I just don't really feel like I'm in the room. And so, you know, I've always told myself, like, if I never published another book or if I write things that people never want, or if. If it doesn't get big or whatever, like, I don't. I don't really care because the process of it is what I really love. Two things, I guess I'll say on that. You know, I've been wanting to talk about my next two books for so long. And, like, oh, my God, I love talking about Freeze Frame. But even when Freeze Frame came out, I had finished writing it for like a year and a half prior and was working with the editor for a year and a half. And so by the time, like, a book comes out, like, I. I'd love to talk about it because it's new for everyone else, but I want to talk about the ones that I'm, like, really, like, working on right now because I've, like, you know, I'm thinking about them all the time. So I think, like, keeping that kind of mindset also keeps it fresh because I'm never going to be not excited by the thing that I'm. I'm working on next. And I. I just love the process of it too much and less so the. The end result.

That's awesome. Well, then, what's to come?

Yeah, we need to know about these other two books.

Yeah. Okay, so one that's finished that I'm in the process of querying, and it's like, this is the one that I'm trying to get off the ground. Are you all familiar with Magic Treehouse?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So I loved that. That model of writing growing up, like, teaching kids about history, but through narratives. You know, it's not like, you know, info overload or jargoning. Like, it's. It's like, really, like, each book does have a thematic arc. It does take kids through history. They do learn things, but it's about these two, you know, siblings. I really wanted to do that model for medicine because I think that medicine is, like, so magical and mystifying. And we don't really. We, like, teach kids about science and through writing. But, like, children's science books I've always seen have been like, you know, a walking germ that says, like, hi, I'm so and so germ and I have like this many biomechanics and then like a kid just looks at the picture but that's not like really getting to them on their level. That's like us trying to think how, how kids think. I really wanted to take that magic treehouse model of teaching kids about something through narratives before medicine. So I've written this series that is essentially this like very quirky town on the coast that they use like two twin siblings and their kind of fun Doc Brown esque kind of uncle are always getting into hijinks, like the experiments, doing things around town causing havoc. They have a big breakthrough where he thinks he can actually like cure every disease. Like he finds like this, you know, this hidden element that actually ties diseases together. And then of course things go wrong and they inadvertently bring all diseases to life as these like walking, breathing fantasy creatures. And so they are now tasked with like, you know, capturing them, saving the town from the things that they've created. And so like the first book is like they're suddenly their gym class gets interrupted because a rhino that's made of solid ice crashes through the gym and starts like freezing kids left and right and they learn that it's the rhinovirus causing the common cold. And so each book and the kids themselves kind of get enhanced with semi immune related like powers. And while it's not like it doesn't use any big jargon, it doesn't like really go into depth of that things, but it does. I do want kids to kind of have loose associations of the monsters that are causing havoc, are doing things somewhat related to symptomology. How they take them down, how to think through their like strategy to take down these creatures is somewhat related to treatment. And as each book goes on, I'm kind of hoping to have more loose associations even for parents. Like, why are these kids able to take down this rhinovirus and they can't do it the same way with this bacterial esque creature? Like, you know, and through all that like kind of leaning into the mix of Pokemon meets Goosebumps, kind of like classifying things too. Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to read it to help me study for step.

Right?

Oh, I think that's just brilliant. I mean that sounds so fun and interesting and I just, I love that whole approach of like, let's make it so what kids enjoy reading rather than, okay, we're going to tell you what we want to tell you and we're going to just try to put it in a package that you know, maybe is a little bit more digestible, but like that's, it's a completely different approach. So I think that's just brilliant.

Thank you.

How do you know how kids think? Do you have kids ever read what you're trying to write? Or how do, how do you figure that out?

Focus groups with your patients?

I, I mean, no, not so much with my patients. I guess they'll say I never grew up, so that might be pretty helpful. And that I, like, I'm definitely a big kid, but my mom, she's a high school teacher and then. So like growing up too, whenever, like writing, like education was always the biggest thing in our family and like talking through things and so another thing that was kind of big for like, you know, I was very curious to go into psych at one point. Child and adolescent psychological and that like, you know, still something kind of on the end of my scope at the end of the day. But I've always just really been fascinated by how people think. And from a story aspect, like whenever I find myself reading or watching, like, I'm just always asking questions about like why the character would think this way. And I, I mean, we kind of do it the same thing in, in medicine and I found that like, especially in pediatrics, it's like, well, I can tell them to do whatever I think is right, but like, if, if, if they don't understand what I'm saying or if the parents don't understand what I'm saying, like, that's never going to happen. Never going to happen. So like, if you, if you don't learn how to understand how they think or at least make a, like a conscious effort to see like why they think that way and you know, like, you're not going to be able to treat people the same way.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Do you know. Did you study with Sketchy ever?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that's what I was kind of thinking of it. I'm. When you're describing these things, I'm just, I'm thinking of a sketchy picture that like helps you remember everything.

You know, it's funny because like, so when you query to agents, you know, you give them similar esque titles that they may be able to like compare. Like so and so meets so and so. So, you know, when I'm talking to people in the literary field, I have to be like very careful about how I bring the medicine into it because you don't want to over jargonize things. But similarly, like when I bring things into the Medical field. Like, I can't exactly talk about like the, the literary side of things in the same way. So whenever I talk about, like pitching it to those within the literary community, I talk about Magic Treehouse, I talk about Goosebumps, I talk about those kind of similar models. Whenever I talk about it to people in medicine, I'm like, imagine if Sketchy had a narrative.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For our listeners who don't know, sketchy is essentially they draw out an image and then through that you. It helps you kind of remember different diseases and treatments for those diseases while you're taking an exam.

We didn't have that in my day. That was not yet invented.

This, this isn't actually what the COVID would be, but one of the illustrators, just to give like a mock up to give to agents so they could get a sense of things would be. This would be like a possible cover. So like, there's your rhinovirus.

Yeah.

Monster. And there's like the kids running away from them. So, yeah, trying to get like that. I think the way I want it illustrated would be more kind of comic book style versus like the cartoon of Sketchy. But I do love Sketchy.

Yeah. Wait, are you a artist too? Do you do your own illustration?

Oh, no, no. Good, good reason. I. Oh, man, I wish I had it on me like this. I mean, this is like incredible. And I had like doodled out this like very crude, like, rhino creature. It's like, hey, what do you think of this? And then he brought this to me the next week and I was like, I'm never going to draw anything now.

You said two books. Is the, the second book. Is this, is that part of this series that you're talking about?

Oh, so this I've like, I've. The first book for this is completely done and then the next, like three or four are outlined in that series. You know, you could go on for as long as kids would want them. Of how many diagnoses you want to. Want to take down? No, the other book that I'm working through, the draft, is a completely different project. It is a young adult sci fi trilogy. Has nothing to do with medicine. The premise of that one is I like the idea of if you could like pick what dreams you have at night. Almost like Netflix. So you go to sleep and then, you know, I want to dream about this tonight. But then what if you could do that with other people? And so like, it's not too far in the distant future where like society, like when we go to sleep at night, we can dream whatever we want about and we can connect to people's dreams. And so then we, like you, kind of dive into, well, how much do you really care about what happens during the day if you can be limitless at night? And there's kind of a nefarious plot with things revolved around that, but it is revolved around these like, end of high school teens that are sort of uncovering something about essentially if, like we learned a really dangerous secret about Apple.

I'm so intrigued.

I know, me too. And I'm so impressed. I just, I need to work on being more creative. I decided because I just talk to people and recently we had this service thing and a bunch of my fellow classmates were up there playing instruments and doing all this stuff. And I was like, wow, I don't have any of those skills whatsoever. It's never too late, but we won't take up too much more of your time. I've loved this conversation. I always ask all my guests this as a first year medical student and a lot of the listeners are early in their medical education. Do you have any advice for me and all of us as we move forward through this long journey?

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that I say to first and second years are that if I could go back and do it again, there's a lot that I wish I would have started earlier. As far as the way I am approaching the mindset of everything. Like, I'm not going to give any specific studying advice. I'm not going to give any specific, like this is how you should approach your clerkships. Like I certainly can. But I also think a lot of that, like when you give those general advice or things, it kind of can do a disservice because everyone should find the things that work best for them. I think general advice that isn't said enough is about whatever outside of medicine that you love. And I do hope that there is something outside of medicine, whether it is, you know, relationships like family, you know, a side business, a side hobby, a combination of all of those or whatever it may be, it is so easy for us to convince ourselves to put it on hold or to not invest time in that, because either we're told or we feel like it's not vital, it's not important. And like I said, the habits that you form now, for better or for worse, are the habits you're going to have for the next four years, the residency, through life. And so now's the time to really. It may be hard to believe, but now's the time to really decide what kind of doctor you want to be. The learning, the. The understanding of medicine, the, you know, mechanics of health care, like that's going to all come, but what is actually decided now is the kind of physician you're going to be when you're placed in those environments. So, yeah, I would just say think. Think about what matters most to you. Think about the things that really give you energy outside of medicine and whether you want to try bringing them into medicine or keeping them separate. I think both are totally vital. I just think that, you know, try to think of ways of keeping them alive.

I think that's so important. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. This was fun.

Yeah, this was awesome. Where can people find you? Instagram. And where can people buy your book?

Yeah, so Instagram is my name Tyler Beauchamp or pronounced Tyler Beauchamp MD on. On socials. And then my website is like tyler-beauchamp.com. you can find out about, like my books now, future books, upcoming projects, and then Freeze frame. Yeah, you can find on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever. Yeah.

And you guys know where to find us @Generations MD on Instagram and TikTok. And if you have any questions, you can email us at askgenerations mdma and we will talk to you next week. Bye, guys.