The Catalyst: Sparking Creative Transformation in Healthcare

Awakening a New Paradigm of Medical Care

“I realized that with functional medicine, a lot of this truly is an educational experience for the patient. As opposed to a pill that I give you, it's an education,” explains Amy Drab, MPAS, PA-C. Amy is a Physician’s Assistant turned Functional Medicine Practitioner with her own practice, Awaken Functional Medicine. She adds value to her practice by including educational programming for her clients through Awaken Academy. 
 
Amy became interested in functional medicine after seeing how it helped her own children with their health issues. One of her daughters was struggling with asthma and was on four medications while the other had colic. When she made the switch to functional medicine, both of her daughters’ health improved and her daughter with asthma was able to get off medication entirely. Amy realized that a lot of functional medicine comes down to educating patients so that they understand why certain lifestyle changes and supplements are important and are empowered to make the right choices. She combined her experience working in family practice with her experience working as a college professor and found that they were a perfect combination for effectively educating clients about functional medicine.
 
 Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to hear more about the importance of education in functional medicine and the role it plays in creating more successful health outcomes for patients. 
 
Quotes
• “Sometimes you feel like you're on a path. And you are convinced this is where you're supposed to be. And it doesn't turn out. It's not what you thought it would be. And it ultimately ends up giving you the information, the knowledge, the wisdom, the understanding, the courage, whatever it is, to actually move forward and actually do what you were born to do.” (7:54-8:18 | Amy)
• “I was starting to get burnout anyway because I was in family practice at that moment in time. And you're just seeing patients for 10 minutes, throwing medication at them, and running out the door. And I thought to myself, that's not healing.” (10:52-11:03 | Amy)
• “I realized that with functional medicine, a lot of this truly is an educational experience for the patient. As opposed to a pill that I give you, it's an education.” (15:21-15:31 | Amy)
• “When you're with a patient, I think it's important to do three things: educate, inspire, and empower.” (20:13-20:21 | Amy)
 
Links
Connect with Amy Drab:
Website: https://awakenfm.net/
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Can You Hear What Your Heart is Saying?

“What unmet need are you trying to fill with this behavior or by doing this?”, asks Heather Fork, MD, MCC. Heather is a former dermatologist turned ICF Master Certified Coach. She provides career coaching for physicians at the crossroads of change through her company Doctor’s Crossing. Heather helps physicians strategize and figure out what path they truly want to take with their careers. 
 
Heather explains that her own catalytic moment occurred over time. When she first realized she was unhappy in her dermatology career, she didn’t change everything all at once. She decided it was better not to make decisions from a place of uncertainty or fear, but rather take the time to feel things out and make incremental changes. Eventually, she found her calling as a career coach, starting her own business to help other physicians at the crossroads of their careers. She explains that while she does guide her clients, the answers to what they are seeking already exist within them. Once they are able to see their fears and motivations and understand what their hearts really want, the path becomes clear. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to hear more about how to listen to your heart rather than your fears and how to flip the script when thinking about problems you may be facing in your career. 
 
Quotes
• “I think of it as making decisions from a place of strength, or making decisions from a place of trust in yourself and confidence rather than fear based decisions. So with a lot of my clients, we're looking at what their fears are.” (9:56-10:11 | Heather)
• “If you listen to the story, there's a momentum to it. And if you just ask a few questions that keep getting the person back to what really matters to them, they find their own answers.” (15:40-15:55 | Heather)
• “Those answers are all inside of you and I love being able to walk alongside and just help people feel their feelings and find their truth. It's like mining for gold, the gold is always there, we just have to be willing to look.” (16:30-16:46 | Heather)
• “What unmet need are you trying to fill with this behavior or by doing this?” (17:59-18:08 | Heather)
• “Often that question of why is this the best thing that happened to you when it's a bad thing? People can be offended by that, but when they really know you're coming from a place of helping them it can be a powerful question.” (28:36-28:48 | Heather)
 
Links
 
Connect with Heather:
www.doctorscrossing.com
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Re-Designing Your Life with Gratitude, Hope, and Thinking Big

“My pathway was finding gratitude, being more present, and really being grateful for the little things that we often take for granted,” shares Carina Hopen, MD, MS, DipABLM. Carina is a board certified doctor of family and lifestyle medicine and started her private functional medicine practice after being inspired by a desire to better help her community. There is a large military presence in her town and Carina helps to teach the VA about different medical conditions so that patients get more recognition and assistance. 
 
Carina redesigned her career by starting her own private practice when she realized that the current medical system was failing patients and providers alike. The system does not see the care team and patients as a unit, which causes negative health impacts all around. Carina witnessed many providers experiencing burnout under the current system and knew things needed to be done differently. She turned to gratitude, being more present in the moment, and cultivating a sense of hope within her community. She explains that through having hope for the future without worrying as much about the individual steps to get there, she was able to make the necessary changes to create better health outcomes. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to hear more about the importance of living life with gratitude, having hope, and thinking big about the future. 
 
Quotes 
• “Aging is relative. If you compare a newborn to a twenty-year-old, that twenty-year-old is old. But if you compare that twenty-year-old to an eighty-year0old, that twenty-year-old is young. So aging is is really where we are, in comparison from point A to point B.” (13:13-13:29 | Carina)
• “How do you want to age? Because you're aging now. And if you are happy with how you're aging, then that's great. But if you feel like there's room to improve, that's going to help how you age later on.” (17:21-17:36 | Carina)
• “A lot of what I do is about mindset and how you restructure your thinking and redesigning. So how you can redesign your life is just, ‘Is it something that happened to you? Or can you change your narrative to how have you dealt with it and grown from it?’.” (18:45-19:02 | Carina)
• “As we were in training, there was a lot of this no emotion. In a sense, you have to be like a superhero, superhuman, and just really, everything you do is for the patient. And I remember feeling bad because I had to take time off to go to my own appointment, like, how dare you take away time from your patients?” (20:26-20:51 | Carina)
• “If we're talking about forging relationships and having a clinician who's really compassionate and very committed to that end, we have to support that clinician.” (21:31-21:44 | Carina)
Links
www.inspiredwellnesspllc.org
www.thrivingmamamd.com
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

How One Physician’s Perseverance Opened Doors to New Worlds

“Every time you learn something, you acquire a new life,” shares Dr. Marwa Hazzah, functional medicine practitioner. Marwa started off her career in internal medicine and her passion for helping women with autoimmune conditions ultimately led her to pursue functional medicine. She was determined to learn everything she could to help improve the lives of her patients who were dealing with chronic illnesses. Now Dr. Marwa runs groups that help inspire and encourage patients as they face their similar challenges together. 
 
Dr. Marwa knew there had to be a better way for her patients to live other than a lifelong medication routine. Wanting alternative healing treatments, Marwa poured herself into finding answers about the impacts of inflammation on the body. At the beginning of the pandemic, her research showed the risks of endothelial dysfunction long before the data was released, and she was able to help her COVID positive patients have better outcomes. Dr. Marwa threw herself into learning right alongside her patients and even did the elimination diet with them to help show how beneficial it was. Her tenacity and love of learning opens doors for her patients that otherwise would have remained closed. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to hear more about the benefits of functional medicine, how perseverance can change lives, and the importance of always learning something new. 
 
Quotes
• “Healthcare is changing, and we are either going to be pulled and dragged along or we can actually be at the front of that change." (3:22-3:29 | Lara)
• “One of the very catalytic moments that really helped me improve was that Michael Lee called me on the second day of the pandemic saying, ‘I spoke yesterday to my patient, and he was doing fine. Then after a few hours, his wife called me and by the time he was in the ER, he was dead.’… I went to hang up and said this is not hypoxia…We know inflammation will cause endothelial dysfunction. So I started every patient on aspirin early on, before all the data came out.” (12:26-13:53 | Marwa)
• "It's so hard to do what's wrong when you know what is right." (16:49-16:51 | Marwa) 
• “We have to teach our medical residents and our trainees how we can go back and work on the pathology and why it happened and what's going on exactly in the model of functional medicine.” (25:10-25:21 | Marwa)
• “It's not about just what you eat, it’s about how you feel. It's your stress. It's how happy you are. We know it's going to cause inflammation in the body, but maybe certain food brings you good memories and makes you feel happy. And I think that will impact your gut microbiome at the same time.” (28:10-28:32 | Marwa)
• “Every time you learn something, you acquire a new life.” (33:52-33:54 | Marwa)
 
Links
 
Website: http://www.holisticmedicalpyramid.com
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

We Are All Doomed if We Can’t Control This One Thing

“We're all doomed if we cannot understand our own flow blockers and learn to avoid them,” explains host Dr. Lara Salyer. Flow blockers are anything that causes you to become distracted or that trigger imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome can keep you from catalyzing to your full potential by causing you to feel overwhelmed and burned out, even about things you are usually passionate about. 
 
Dr. Salyer shares that one of the biggest roadblocks to being a catalyst is dealing with imposter syndrome. Because functional and holistic medicine encompasses so much information, it is easy for practitioners to become overwhelmed and feed into their imposter syndrome. By avoiding flow blockers like an overly packed schedule, triggering social media posts, unsupportive people, and systems that are no longer serving you, you can protect your flow and avoid burnout. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn about how to control flow blockers and how to counteract imposter syndrome. 
 
Quotes
• “It feels like you have to know everything before you can start practicing functional, holistic medicine. And that's what gets a lot of us feeling downtrodden.” (2:03-2:12 | Lara)
• “If you were given a free Saturday with no expectations, what topic in your field of interest would you freely be excited and geek out to read and learn more?” (4:13-4:26 | Lara)
• “Our core values are there, but they can shift. And sometimes we uncover new things that we want to learn about that really sit even more central to our mission and purpose.” (5:16-5:27 | Lara)
• “Living out your dream and learning how to shape your masterpiece into something you love takes vulnerability. But you can learn to work with those shadows and learn to work with those sabotages and quirks and see the better perspective that you can create.” (6:56-7:16 | Lara)
• “We're all doomed if we cannot understand our own flow blockers and learn to avoid them.” (11:39-11:45 | Lara)
 
Links
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Tips From an Art Therapist on Reclaiming Creativity to Ease Burnout

“Art is such a valuable self care tool,” explains Amelia Hutchison, Artist and Art Therapist. Amelia works with clients all over the world through Zoom and at her anti-hustle art studio in British Columbia. She helps professionals learn to express their creativity and ease burnout symptoms through artistic mediums.  
 
According to Amelia, people often don’t think they can pursue art therapy because they aren’t good at art. However, the point of art therapy is not for the final product to be a masterpiece. Instead the goal is to find a way to express your emotions and experiences through a medium that is outside of your body. Art therapy gives adults permission to play and to do something that isn’t related to the hustle of their jobs and everyday responsibilities. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn more about the power of art therapy, unique ways to express yourself, and how art can be healthcare. 
 
Quotes
• “I really think that the thing that made it possible for me to have an experience of post traumatic growth was that there was a creative holding space.” (4:06-4:21)
• “We can take really simple materials and just see, ‘what would my insides look like if I was to transform this material and make a symbol right now?’.” (10:04-10:14)
• “It's a powerful message to send to yourself that I deserve space for play. I deserve space for things that aren't productive.” (11:45-11:54)
• “Art is such a valuable self care tool.” (14:48-14:50)
• “Where does my value come from? If it's not work, then where does my value come from?” (17:19-17:30)
• “Having technical art skills is not important for expressing yourself or using art as a therapeutic tool. We're so much more concerned in art therapy with how the process feels, than what the final product looks like.” (26:52-27:09)
 
Links
Connect with Amelia Hutchison: 
Amelia Hutchison Website: www.arttherapyinreallife.com
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Catalyst Physician Assistant Creates Colorful Connection and Community

“Somebody’s told us for so long how and why we are this way, that we forget that we have agency,” shares Lynn Joselyn, PA-C. Lynn spent 20 years working in conventional medicine before experiencing her own series of catalytic moments that led her to opening her own functional and holistic medicine focused food and spirit clinic. Now, Lynn leads group visits to help people find healing through the power of connection to others. 
 
Lynn realized that while she still wanted to be working in healthcare, she was completely burned-out from conventional medicine. Today, she shares the power of human connection with her functional medicine clients by teaching them to trust their innate powers of healing and intuition. Even though Lynn is an introvert herself, she explains that being around supportive people can be energizing. Her true passion is empowering others to find strength through their community. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn more about the power of community, the three catalytic experiences that led Lynn to change her career, and how catalytic functional practitioners differ from regular functional practitioners.
 
Quotes
• “I got to the place where I literally could not adjust, and I wasn't showing up in my best self.” (4:30-4:36)
• “Take a look at what your default modes are. What are those neural pathways, those patterns that are just comfortable and easy, but maybe not serving you? Because I still can fall into those.” (10:34-10:49)
• “All I have to do is have a connection with one other human that energetically is supportive, and then I am able to move out of anything.” (10:50-11:13)
• “The brilliance of group visits is we're not in isolation. It's an opportunity to not get so attached to your disease or label.” (19:27-19:41)
• “People just want to be seen and heard.” (34:36-34:38)
 
Links
 
Connect with Lynn Joselyn
Website: lynnjoselyn.com
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Building Your Own Catalyst Culture

“The key to avoiding burnout is finding things that you can control,” explains host Dr. Lara Salyer. When you create a catalyst culture in your workplace, everyone benefits. When your culture is aligned with your core values, it will be easier to defend yourself against burnout. In order to build your own catalyst culture, it is crucial that you understand the 12 principles involved. 
 
Dr. Salyer shares that in order to embrace the catalyst lifestyle, you must consider the 12 principles of a catalyst culture. Burnout typically comes when people feel out of control in at least one area of their lives. The key to avoiding burnout is to figure out which areas you can control and make any necessary adjustments to your lifestyle to accommodate your needs in those areas. It is important to allow yourself time for recovery so that you can utilize your time more effectively. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn each of the 12 principles of a catalyst culture. Discover how embracing a catalyst culture can help you to avoid burnout. 
 
Quotes
• “Culture is important. It is how we do what we do, and why we do what we do. And it can be a great vaccination against burnout.” (1:00-1:10)
• “The reason people burn out is they forget about that fourth crucial stage of flow cycle, which is recovery.” (7:46-7:54)
• “When you feel out of control in one area, it affects all areas. When you regain control in one area, you feel more in control in other areas.” (11:03-11:16)
• “The key to avoiding burnout is finding things that you can control.” (13:05-13:09) 
• “Pleasure feels good, but it's also temporary. Pain is also temporary. And the mark of a mature self-actualized person is realizing that everything is temporary, and when they can sit in that discomfort, that's where the power lies. That's the emotional autonomy. And when you invite this uncomfortableness in, and you realize that's just part of normal life, then you become the extreme catalyst.” (19:49-20:18)
• “I think a catalyst culture helps everybody see that we're all in this together. There is not one ego that is more important than the other.” (39:16-39:25)
 
Links
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Health Coaches Are Like Duct Tape: They Can Fix Everything!

“We’re really working on health by using coaching as a means of helping people move forward and improving their health and wellbeing,” explains Catherine Willows, healthcare practitioner turned health coach. When COVID-19 hit, Catherine decided to start her own business and created Willows Coaching and Consulting where she works with both individual clients and practitioners to revolutionize healthcare. 
 
According to Catherine, patients tend to only see the doctor when they are sick and the visits are usually very short. Rather than waiting until an issue arises, the goal of a healthcare coach is to apply aspects of preventative medicine to their coaching and help patients before they ever get sick. Additionally, patients are normally too busy in their daily lives to incorporate their physician’s advice into their routines. They need more support on a day-to-day basis outside of the doctor’s office. Catherine explains that a healthcare coach can help people achieve their goals by giving them that continual support. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn more about the role of a health coach, how health coaches can work in conjunction with practitioners, and how working with a health coach could improve the outcome of your health. 
 
Quotes
• “Currently we're working on health by using coaching as a means of helping people move forward, get to their goals, and improve their health and well-being.” (4:48-5:04)
• “Patients have this very short period of time with their practitioners. And then they're on their own at home even though their lives are much bigger than that.” (6:45-6:54)
• “The beauty of coaching in conjunction with working with a provider is that if you know what direction the provider is taking, it's really easy to hone in and communicate back and forth.” (18:50-19:06)
• “My catalyst moment was when COVID really hit. Things were shifting at the UltraWellness Center, and I just decided people need this work. It's time. I've wanted to have my own business probably my entire life, and I decided it's time.” (36:36-37:09) 
 
Links
 
Connect with Catherine Willows: 
Website: https://www.willowscc.com
 
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

We Don’t Need to Die Together: A Surprising Path for More Harmony in Healthcare

“Our mission has always been to add just 1% improvement to healthcare and make life better for clinicians,” shares Professor Shahram Yousefi, PhD. As an experienced professor and healthcare entrepreneur, Professor Yousefi designed a program called Mesh AI to improve the healthcare field by automating scheduling. 
 
When healthcare workers are burnt out, mistakes get made that impact health outcomes for patients. After experiencing this first hand, Dr. Yousefi decided to put his years of academic research into finding a solution to help reduce burnout in the healthcare field. And this is how Mesh AI was created. This system is designed to determine the most equitable schedule for each healthcare worker while cutting down the amount of time it takes to create the schedule. In fact, Mesh AI reduces the time it takes to make the schedule from 10 hours down to just 2 minutes. While it is largely automation, Mesh AI ultimately requires a clinician to run the program, allowing healthcare workers to stay in control of the process.  
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guest Professor Shahram Yousefi to learn more about the importance of scheduling, preventing burnout, and how Mesh AI is designed to make life easier for healthcare professionals across the country. 
 
Quotes
• “The way the system is designed is to understand that in order to come up with a good call schedule or shift scheduling structure, you need to ask questions. If you don't ask the right questions, you're not going to get the answer.” (16:51-17:03)
• “Life does not happen on schedule. Things change. You deal with this thing called the global pandemic, and that completely throws a wrench into your system. So we need to have a system that is adaptive and responsive.” (20:58-21:11)
• “Our mission has always been to add 1% improvement to healthcare while also make life better for clinicians.” (23:40-23:47)
 
Links
https://welcome.meshai.io/
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm