Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Turning Stress Into Strategy With Amy Gutman, MD

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Turning Stress Into Strategy With Amy Gutman, MD · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:01
  Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings health care
• 0:04
  leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues
• 0:06
  facing the industry.
• 0:08
  And every year, those conversations shift in profound
• 0:11
  and unexpected ways.
• 0:12
  This April, more than 3,500
• 0:15
  healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's
• 0:18
  sixteenth annual meeting.
• 0:19
  Seven ninety five elite speakers will offer new
• 0:22
  lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what
• 0:25
  comes next.
• 0:26
  Join us April 13 through the sixteenth.
• 0:29
  For the agenda and event details, visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:34
  and click on the events tab in the
• 0:35
  upper right.
• 0:38
  This is Scott Becker with the Beckers HealthCare
• 0:41
  podcast.
• 0:42
  I'm I'm thrilled today to be joined by
• 0:45
  a fascinating leader and physician.
• 0:47
  But we're joined today by doctor Amy Gutman,
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  and doctor Gutman's an author. She's a speaker.
• 0:54
  She's also known as the Tough Love MD.
• 0:57
  We've loved getting follow doctor Gutman online and
• 1:00
  to hear about what she does and so
• 1:01
  forth, and so thrilled to get to visit
• 1:04
  with her today on the Beckers HealthCare podcast.
• 1:06
  Doctor Gutman, can you take a moment and
• 1:08
  introduce yourself,
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  and and tell us a little bit about
• 1:11
  your background?
• 1:12
  Sure. And thank you so much. I've been
• 1:14
  following you and Becker's for, years as well,
• 1:17
  so this is, great. Thank you. I'm an
• 1:20
  emergency physician.
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  I started out as a EMT firefighter,
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  and
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  I've worked both in executive leadership and currently
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  still work in the emergency department, primarily night
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  shifts.
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  And the founder, CEO of TuffLoveMD,
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  which
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  it's a organization that treats
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  leaders
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  like they're part of a human operating system.
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  I work on using stress physiology
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  and metabolic stability
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  to help leaders with their decision quality, sort
• 1:51
  of taking those
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  ideas of leading your life like a resuscitation,
• 1:55
  which
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  how, I came to your attention, I think.
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  A 100%. And talk a little bit about
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  the the the movement from being a firefighter
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  to being a physician.
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  That must involve going back to school and
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  deciding this is what you really wanna do.
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  How did you get to that spot where
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  you decided from what you're doing originally
• 2:14
  that this is where you wanted to go
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  with your professional career?
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  Oh, sure. Actually, it was
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  somewhat by accident because my full intent was
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  to be a fire chief. I had no
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  intention of going to medical school. I'm, profoundly
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  dyslexic
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  and was not what people would consider a
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  great student. I didn't love school
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  and I thought people who are physicians were
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  these like super brainy
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  folks who
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  all had straight a's and
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  knew people and were all rich before they
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  went to med school. And I was none
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  of those things. So
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  it was one day that I was,
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  working EMS and fire. I was literally on
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  top of
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  a burning building. I was the roof girl
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  because I'm five one and a little tiny
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  person. So I was the roof girl,
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  and I was sitting there in the middle
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  of an ice storm,
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  and my boots were
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  hot because the roof was on fire and
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  I'm thinking there's got to be something I
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  can do indoors for sustainability
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  and ended up
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  making friends with more people in the emergency
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  department, met a physician assistant,
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  thought her job was awesome,
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  was a PA for many years and loved
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  it, and then
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  moved on to medical school because I realized
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  everything I wanted to do in medicine, I
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  couldn't do as a PA. And
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  so it's been
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  quite the, road since 1987
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  is when I started. So it's been very
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  interesting
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  developing
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  all those little interests along the way.
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  And talk about that because I think one
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  of the things I love about you and
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  what you do is this evolving professional concept,
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  people that never stop growing and evolving.
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  Talk about your your evolution and how you
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  balance being an emergency physician
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  with also speaking and writing and counseling.
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  Talk about that sort of love for lifelong
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  learning,
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  that that constant evolution as a person, and
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  and what lessons are there in that?
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  Sure. And and it's actually funny. It's one
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  of the big criticisms that I've had with
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  people who have been
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  coaching me and speaking is that I have
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  so many different interests. And then I say,
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  you know, it's to be successful
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  as an executive coach or a speaker, you
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  have to have one interest. But I find
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  that
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  all of my interests kinda tie into one.
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  And I sort of fell into
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  the speaking and executive coaching when I got
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  quite ill
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  and started to look at medicine
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  very, very differently.
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  I was a traditional
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  like, I believe research. I believe the AMA.
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  I believe that, you know, government run health
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  care
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  and the help that we give to people
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  was good
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  versus physician autonomy. There was actually a time
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  in my life I thought physician autonomy was
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  bad because I'm like, well, everyone's gonna go
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  off and do things that aren't good for
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  patients and realize that actually physician autonomy is
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  not only necessary but critical.
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  And questioning
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  the establishment,
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  establishment of medicine, establishment of guidelines,
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  establishment of the way we run administrations.
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  Even though I was in that process,
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  I never really questioned it. So it took
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  getting sick and then questioning
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  everything. Actually it's funny I joke that I
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  started off changing my diet and now I
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  believe in, you know, chemtrails which I don't
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  but but it but it's one of those
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  things that you start questioning things. And
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  I really
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  enjoy the fact that I stay in emergency
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  medicine.
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  I see what's going on, and yet I
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  can connect with
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  wonderful people who are really trying to progress,
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  not just physician leadership, but their autonomy and
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  their health and their patients' health, but also,
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  importantly, the health of the health
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  care system.
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  In in my TED talk,
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  I talk about putting the health back into
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  health care, and that's something I'm truly passionate
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  about. I think, honestly, that's where everything I
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  do
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  is centered from.
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  Thank you so much. And and and talk
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  for a moment about,
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  about if you if you could,
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  what are you most focused on and excited
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  about this year? I know you do this
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  fascinating mix of things. You're still practicing as
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  an ER doctor.
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  You run all over the nation to help
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  solve problems and and
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  help systems.
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  But but talk about what you're most focused
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  on and excited about this year, 2026.
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  Well, I honestly, I
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  there's so many different things that I've been
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  given the opportunities for because
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  of
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  my speaking and meeting different folks.
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  But the interesting thing that I am getting
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  the best feedback from is treating
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  performance both as physicians and just as humans
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  as physiologic
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  and realizing that unless we focus on
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  sort of metabolic stability
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  and decision quality, we we will not be
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  the resilient people that we need. I speak
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  a lot on burnout, specifically
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  physician burnout.
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  And the response that I've gotten from my
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  book, which honestly was just a way of
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  telling a story about
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  how I do what I do,
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  has been overwhelming to me. People who are
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  responding to the idea that we did not
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  understand
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  that because we weren't feeling well ourselves, we
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  can't give our best to our families, ourselves
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  personally, our patients,
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  our community.
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  So it's taking what people have thought for
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  many years as woo woo science with the
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  new Maha movement, which I think is fantastic,
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  really, truly turning the, you know, the triangle
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  literally on its head
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  and understanding that metabolic health
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  ties such directly into
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  our mental health and our physical health and
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  using that
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  to help people become more resilient.
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  So that's what I'm focusing on. I've been
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  very lucky
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  to book a lot of large sort of
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  national conferences and then larger jobs in which
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  I can reach more people
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  and hopefully change their mind into things that
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  they
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  and myself used to think are, like, woo
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  woo medicine, sort of tree hugging,
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  but it's absolutely not. It is data proven,
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  evidence based,
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  everything I do is,
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  and really trying to drive home the fact
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  that you got to maintain your physical health.
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  If you can't maintain your physical health,
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  everything else falls apart. Whether you're a leader,
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  a team leader, an executive leader, or at
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  home with
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  four kids trying to be the leader of
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  your household. You gotta have that physical health
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  and metabolic stability.
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  So so we agree with that, and we
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  talk to our children constantly about, you know,
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  be a constructive adult and take care of
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  your physical mental health. So I'm gonna I
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  have to ask you,
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  what what is your favorite
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  way to stay physically active? What what is
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  your
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  what is your top choice for what you
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  do to stay physically active? Oh, I'm a
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  walker.
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  I absolutely love walk walking is one of
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  the things that it requires very little time
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  and very little equipment.
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  You got get some shoes and
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  whether you have ten minutes twenty minutes or
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  thirty minutes. I one of my talks is
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  change your life in thirty minutes and it's
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  incredible how
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  just thirty minutes of walking, which anyone can
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  do,
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  can
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  it drives your blood sugar down. It improves
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  your mental state. It's actually when they do
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  brainwave testing on people and look at people
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  who are walking. It actually puts you into
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  almost a meditative state with your if you
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  do an EEG reading on people who are
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  doing that. It
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  decreases your heart rate variability. It decreases your
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  blood pressure.
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  It improves inflammatory states. And this is thirty
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  minutes. This is not like going running a
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  marathon. It's literally thirty minutes. It's the best
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  way to control your cortisol,
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  improve your neurotransmitters.
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  It gives you a nice little dopamine surge.
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  So I'm a walker. I like to add
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  a little weighted resistance,
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  if I'm feeling particularly,
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  you know, excited that day. And
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  it's a great way
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  of just getting
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  I mean, I don't necessarily say 10,000 steps.
• 10:35
  I think that's a made up number. You
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  get at least your thirty minutes in and
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  enjoy it.
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  But I'm also
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  in my fifties, so I do resistance exercise
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  because it's great for your bones.
• 10:47
  I bring my exercise bands everywhere I travel
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  because I do a lot of locums.
• 10:52
  Whether they have a gym or don't have
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  a gym, I have exercise bands.
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  I pack them. I use them. And that's
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  a commitment I make not only to myself,
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  but making sure I make it to my
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  family as well. Because
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  if you model that behavior,
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  they have that behavior too.
• 11:10
  We we love what was that? When you
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  walk one of my problems is I'm a
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  multitasker.
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  I'll walk. I'll listen to something on tape.
• 11:19
  I'll be emailing. And and so I feel
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  like I don't get the meditative benefits of
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  walking that I should because I'm too often
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  walking and connected to my phone. Are you
• 11:30
  able to turn your phone off or listen
• 11:32
  to something? How do you deal with that
• 11:33
  issue of walking and trying to use it
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  for meditative purposes as well?
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  So
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  let me ask you. When you are walking,
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  are you are you on your cell phone
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  doing email, or are you listening to something
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  that's interesting?
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  You know, some mix of both. I'm I'm
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  a big book on tape person, so the
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  book's on tape. But but even then, you
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  know, I'm I'm
• 11:54
  I'm a,
• 11:55
  task driven
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  person, and so I'm, like, you know, trying
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  to get through this book or that book.
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  And then sometimes I am emailing or texting
• 12:03
  because I can't help myself
• 12:05
  versus putting the phone down. And I've gotten
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  better. I bought an Apple Watch a couple
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  years ago. It's just been really helpful to
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  leave my phone sometimes alone,
• 12:12
  but I'm not good at it. And so,
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  you know, I I I love the walk
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  in. I am accounting steps person to sound
• 12:18
  wired.
• 12:19
  Sure. You know, it is what it is.
• 12:21
  But I I
• 12:22
  I would like to do better at
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  disengaging for a little bit,
• 12:27
  taking a breath,
• 12:29
  and just trying to stay centered and calmer.
• 12:32
  So I I would say, in all honesty,
• 12:35
  that that disengaging is really important. But think
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  about it a different way. You're you're trying
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  to convince yourself that you need to be
• 12:43
  better at something, so you're already sort of
• 12:44
  failing at the, okay. I must relax because
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  this is something I must be better at.
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  Now
• 12:49
  if you
• 12:50
  like, one of the things about sports, for
• 12:52
  example, that people do is, like, oh, I
• 12:53
  wanna be, you know, this much better every
• 12:55
  day. It's great to have a goal. Perfect.
• 12:57
  Hey. I worked thought I worked,
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  walked thirty minutes one day, thirty five the
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  next. But if you
• 13:03
  are focused on, okay, I am not relaxing,
• 13:07
  and then you stress because you're not relaxing,
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  it sort of defeats some of the mental
• 13:11
  benefits.
• 13:12
  I would say this.
• 13:15
  Do not email during a thing. I know
• 13:17
  you have, like, a million businesses as well.
• 13:20
  The books that you are enjoying on tape,
• 13:22
  focus on your book and tape and not
• 13:24
  just, oh my gosh. I gotta get thirty
• 13:26
  minutes done to get to the end of
• 13:27
  it. But let me just I'm reading this
• 13:29
  book for a purpose,
• 13:31
  not whether the purpose is enjoyment or oh
• 13:34
  this is really interesting.
• 13:36
  That's the fun thing. Focus on the words.
• 13:39
  Focus on the story that's being told And
• 13:42
  you're gonna find that you're gonna be at
• 13:43
  the end of your thirty minutes or an
• 13:44
  hour or whatever it is before you know
• 13:46
  it because you're actually focusing on it rather
• 13:49
  than trying to get to
• 13:51
  the end of it. I I love podcasts,
• 13:54
  listening to them, and I specifically
• 13:57
  listen to people I don't know or topics
• 14:00
  I know nothing about. I've learned more about
• 14:03
  random things
• 14:05
  by
• 14:05
  hitting Spotify,
• 14:07
  literally,
• 14:08
  flinging on my cell phone
• 14:10
  and hitting something and someone and going, oh,
• 14:13
  that's what I'm gonna listen to.
• 14:15
  And it is a really wonderful way of,
• 14:20
  you know, disengaging from the I have this
• 14:23
  email to do or this meeting to do
• 14:24
  or I have to get to the end
• 14:26
  of this book. It's just enjoying
• 14:29
  the learning,
• 14:30
  as you said. And that's that's sort of
• 14:32
  my thing, or I put on some great
• 14:34
  music.
• 14:36
  I can listen to the four seasons
• 14:39
  every day of my life and be a
• 14:41
  happy girl. It brings me joy,
• 14:44
  and sometimes
• 14:45
  that's all I need.
• 14:48
  Fantastic. And and, doctor Govan, one more question.
• 14:51
  Advice you would give to emerging leaders, emergent
• 14:54
  physician leaders
• 14:56
  about
• 14:57
  thriving and enjoying their careers,
• 15:00
  any overall advice you give to emerging leaders
• 15:02
  or emerging physicians?
• 15:04
  Oh, absolutely. I I would say
• 15:07
  stop treating exhaustion
• 15:09
  like a badge of honor.
• 15:11
  You you cannot have any recovery without resilience.
• 15:15
  You know, the the burnout that we see,
• 15:17
  the stress that we see
• 15:19
  for physicians, for leaders
• 15:22
  is real.
• 15:23
  There's a wonderful group that I belong to
• 15:25
  called Medicine Forward
• 15:27
  that is trying to help physicians
• 15:30
  in their autonomy and recovery.
• 15:33
  By the way, if I can just say
• 15:34
  there's a great documentary coming out in March
• 15:37
  called, suck it up buttercup about just this
• 15:41
  topic, about how
• 15:43
  the health care system itself and leaders in
• 15:45
  the health care system are being changed by
• 15:48
  this burnout epidemic.
• 15:49
  So I stop treating exhaustion like a badge
• 15:52
  of honor. Your performance is absolutely physiologic.
• 15:56
  If you cannot regulate yourself physiologically, you are
• 15:59
  going to
• 16:01
  not only burn out but be sick physically
• 16:03
  and mentally.
• 16:04
  If you
• 16:06
  respect recovery as, like, system maintenance, think of
• 16:09
  it like in the AI, the digital health
• 16:11
  world, it's system maintenance of your human operating
• 16:15
  system.
• 16:16
  And
• 16:18
  if you realize and lean into that idea,
• 16:21
  it will make you a better leader and
• 16:23
  a better person. So that is my advice.
• 16:26
  Just
• 16:27
  lean into your system's maintenance.
• 16:30
  I I love that in every way. There
• 16:32
  there's another concept that people talk about
• 16:35
  that resonates to me so well,
• 16:37
  which is respecting this concept of channel capacity.
• 16:40
  I mean, there's only so many things you
• 16:42
  could do and do them well. And, similarly,
• 16:45
  if you don't take care of your recovery
• 16:46
  and resilience,
• 16:48
  whatever it takes to do that, you can't
• 16:50
  really perform how you wanna perform
• 16:52
  and thrive whenever the impact that you want
• 16:54
  to have. I I I love that thinking,
• 16:56
  doctor Gutman.
• 16:58
  It's but it's true, and it's it's simple,
• 17:00
  and it makes sense. I'm I'm ultimately a
• 17:03
  simple girl.
• 17:04
  I'm I'm I don't consider myself the world's,
• 17:07
  you know, greatest data scientist, the world's greatest
• 17:10
  really, anything. I try. I think I'm a
• 17:12
  pretty good mom, honestly, Pretty good wife. Pretty
• 17:15
  pretty decent physician on most nights of the
• 17:18
  week.
• 17:19
  But it's tough. Like, I just came off
• 17:22
  seven twelve hour night shifts. I was anticipating
• 17:24
  three nights at home, and there's a storm
• 17:27
  coming up so okay I gotta recycle my
• 17:29
  brain, take a deep breath and move on
• 17:31
  to the next thing. You you can't do
• 17:33
  those things
• 17:35
  if you are so preoccupied
• 17:38
  with the 700
• 17:39
  other things that
• 17:41
  just maybe don't need to get done today
• 17:43
  or focused upon
• 17:44
  and that is a
• 17:46
  very,
• 17:47
  very difficult thing especially for high performers.
• 17:51
  You know, we can't all be Elon Musk
• 17:53
  who sleeps what, three hours a night, four
• 17:55
  hours a night, and runs
• 17:57
  a million crazy businesses.
• 18:00
  But I would say find the things that
• 18:02
  matter to you most,
• 18:04
  focus on them. And if those things are
• 18:06
  destroying you, you need to step back no
• 18:09
  matter how good you are at them and
• 18:11
  reevaluate
• 18:12
  different ways of doing it. That's what we
• 18:15
  do in the emergency department.
• 18:17
  If somebody comes in in a resuscitation
• 18:19
  and this med's not working, okay, we go
• 18:22
  to the next one. What's working? What's not?
• 18:25
  Rerevaluate.
• 18:26
  Reroute
• 18:27
  what you're doing, and you do those things
• 18:30
  until you come to your end point.
• 18:33
  And if you attack everything exactly that way,
• 18:37
  you will either be very
• 18:39
  successful or you will have done your very
• 18:41
  best to be successful, and both of those
• 18:43
  things are victories.
• 18:46
  Doctor Gutman, what a pleasure to visit with
• 18:48
  you today. Again, doctor Amy Gutman, the tough
• 18:51
  love MD. Just fantastic to visit with you.
• 18:54
  Thank you so much for joining us today
• 18:56
  on the Becker's HealthCare podcast.
• 18:58
  Scott, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much.