Carl J. Cox 3:50

How long How many years has it taken to help get this all put together?

Dr. Seger Morris 3:55

Well, the organization itself has been, you know, trying to get the pieces to come together for for five years or more. I came into the picture and and started here a Baptist in March of 2020. So we kind of want once I got here and and started looking at things we we condensed the two year plan into a one year plan and we are rolling with it.

Carl J. Cox 4:23

Wow. Wow. So tell me about a little bit. How did you take something that you know, it obviously was moving along the growing process? How did you take out the steps to actually get something done? That would have been two more years and to condense it into one year to actually get it live and going live with the organization?

Dr. Seger Morris 4:42

Well, I think it’s one of the biggest parts Carl as as you know, bolwell is you got to have a strategy, you got to have a plan. And, you know, if you just kind of step by, step right into you know, somebody else’s vision of the world where you can go and how fast and what the steps to get there are. You know, sometimes people don’t see things the way that you are you do so from from my perspective, I just looked at what the end goal was where we needed to be marched out that timeline and laid kind of in a, b and c timeline together, built a team around it, and everybody was on board and and once that happened, we just kind of marched right through the steps, what’s the next next milestone we need to achieve? And, and that got us where we are right now. We’re obviously not done. This is just getting the program started. But But getting here in one year, is definitely something that that we celebrate.

Carl J. Cox 5:45

So what a fun opportunity to start something from scratch, right? You know, where we’re you have a new organization, you are building a new residency program and osteopathic medicine. So I’m curious from the culture core values perspective, right? You know, because you you’ve been in seen a lot of different organizations and the way how they operate and work, what type of things have you thought about from a cultural side, that you want to do things perhaps a little bit differently, to help make sure that the residents who are going through this program perhaps might have more success than other programs that you’ve seen?

Dr. Seger Morris 6:24

Yeah, well, I, I think one of the one of the downfalls of modern medical education is is despite a lot of talk about well being and balance and a well rounded education and everything, when, when the rubber meets the road on, you know, what you’re getting tested on for board certifications, etc. It’s a lot of surely academic and clinical medicine. And I and I think the parameters that were put in place 20 3040 years ago, by some, you know, former credentialing, structural and you know, acgme requirements or, or accreditation requirements for the hospital itself. And so we’ve starting something brand new, with the parameters that are here today, for us with the understanding that physicians live in a new world, we are emphasizing well being we are emphasizing well rounded education and everything that goes into healing patients and, and their general health, cognizant of the mind, body and spirit in the osteopathic philosophy is really interesting to be able to just lay a framework out from scratch, without kind of, you know, all those old parameters. And so that’s what we did, we just looked at what can we say, and do and create, to train the best physicians to practice today and tomorrow in the communities that we want them to practice in. And that’s been our driving mission of our program is knowing where we want people to practice how we want them to practice, and then recruiting people that will fit that rather than the other way around trying to change somebody into something we don’t want them to be. Hmm.

Carl J. Cox 8:30

So now, it’s pretty exciting. Now you have a new residents getting ready to come in right to the program. And you just mentioned that, that you have that challenge, right? You have these real, you know, four Disciplines of Execution, talk about it, you have these real whirlwind activities, right, where you have to get things done. So what are you going to do along the way to help people keep their heads up and realize that a little bit of the bigger picture?

Dr. Seger Morris 9:00

Well, I mean, if, if we’re talking about the resident physicians themselves, because there’s multiple dimensions, you know, we got to have happy employees, we’ve got to have happy faculty, we’ve got to have happy resident physicians, and we’ve got to have happy students that are going to want to want to turn into happy resident physician. So everybody has a little bit of a different approach. But I think as long as everybody’s here for the right reason, then then that’s going to that’s going to drive our success in terms of the more tactical aspects of it. I kind of quit often did. I think it’s the osteopath in me. But I truly do believe the structure dictates function. And their structure and function are interrelated. And I think that’s not just when we’re talking about the human body. I think that’s when we’re talking about business. When we’re talking about life, relationships, you name it. So structuring the program’s curriculum in a way that will attract people that want to be a part of a balanced approach to life and health and training, I will produce people that actually practice and live that way. And and so that’s what what I and our faculty believe it really bought into is that we’ve got to structure things the right way to actually get those results. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.

Carl J. Cox 10:23

What do you see, as going forward? What do you see is the biggest obstacles you’re going to have? As let’s say, you know, you kind of had an initial excitement of year one, how do you keep that continuity going, right, year two, year three, or four, where, you know, you go back to what everyone else is doing? Right? Because that’s the norm. Yeah,

Dr. Seger Morris 10:47

well, I think the you know, we we’ve we’ve talked all along, our team has that it’s really a unique type of person that wants to be a trailblazer at a brand new residency program. And so your first class, I think, is always going to be a little bit of a different personality, than say that second one and third one, you know, because it’s like anything, you have early adopters, you have mid adopters, and yet late adopters, right, and those are different personalities along the way. So I think the biggest obstacle is, is balancing all of those personality, you know, the, that that first class, when they’re getting ready to graduate, they’re going to know that they paved the way for the people that came after them, and they walked uphill in the snow, both ways, and all that, you know, so I think that’s, that’s always going to be a major obstacle, we’ve got a 12 resident per year program at a community hospital. And so, you know, it’s a pretty good sized program for a community hospital and, and that’s a lot of personalities to balance and, and get settled into a new community. That may be very different for them. And so yeah, it’s, it’s it comes down to people and personality that I think is the biggest obstacle to get everybody on the same page initially. And then once they are, then it’s the more tactical stuff.

Carl J. Cox 12:20

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s good. So Seger, one of the things that I’ve been very impressed with is you have a deeper meaning behind. And I want to say this in the utmost way, I mean, being a doctor, anytime at a profession to help others, cure their illnesses, cure their challenges, right, and the health profession is a big deal, but you want to take it, you want to have greater significance and go beyond that, you know, just beyond if you may your core being a doctor, if you could share with the audience what that is, tell us about what you’re doing and how you’re trying to make a greater difference right now in the world? Yeah,

Dr. Seger Morris 13:02

well, I think that, you know, being a physician is, is, you know, fantastic. I think for for anybody, it’s a lot of work that goes into get there, there’s a there’s a lot of sacrifice for physicians, and it’s not unique to physicians, or healthcare professionals in general, there’s a lot of personal and family sacrifice that goes into, you know, giving to those in need. But I think, you know, for physicians in terms of duration of that, I, you know, it’s a long road, and then it’s a it’s a long career with a lot of hours. But at the end of the day, I feel like that being a physician and having the mindset of the next patient in front of me or the patient in front of me right now. And how many patients can I see in a day, I it’s really limiting in a sense of the bigger picture impact that we can have on the world. And so, I’ve come to look at things of how can I continually expand my impact, expand my sphere of influence, and, and, and, you know, add at the, quote, day job of being a physician and treating one, one patient at a time, you know, I may be able to see 20 patients a day, I may be able to see 3040, you know, everybody has their limit for how many they can see in a day and in one set one setting. But if I can participate in training the next generation, and even more than doing that on a personal training level, but if I can influence the system, in how we train people in scale, then I’m continually scaling that and that’s why I’ve made it a big part of my life and career to be involved in projects. National advocacy have a multi dimensional approach of being involved in the academics as well as administrative aspects of medicine, in addition to caring for patients in that one to one capacity. So, though, for me, it’s all about, you know, how can we continue to have a bigger scale of impact on the world for the positive?

Carl J. Cox 15:24

So what’s the biggest? What’s the one big thing if you if you like, could really, there’s so much opportunity, right, in the medical profession and in in the industry as a whole, right in terms of how, what is the best way of doing things? What’s the one thing today if you if you could spend fixed something that you think would have the greatest impact? What would that be?

Dr. Seger Morris 15:49

That’s a good question. And, you know, it, I’m not always the popular guy when I say this, but, um, but healthcare is way to regulate regulations stifles innovation. And if you mandate, how people do things, the process to change how people do things take so much time, money and energy that you’re constantly behind. And there in healthcare is by far the most regulated industry and profession that there is. And so if we want to do it better, we’ve got to have a lot of regulation, get out of the way, to let the front line lead the way from the ground up.

Carl J. Cox 16:42

And, and that’s really interesting. And so, so how do you create that that’s a really fascinating thing of right, you have this right, the biggest risk in medicine, as opposed to other industries that are out there is the risk is somebody might die, right? Or they might, you know, might have a greater ailment as a result of it, quote, unquote, for lack of better term malpractice, right, something to the headaches, so I can understand the regulation and their score so many suits, lawsuits, right, that that happened in here and in this industry, as well. So how do you how do we create that freedom, right, where people can feel less risk, when that’s the right term to say, how we can create that feeling, right. So innovation can take place, right? So so we can remove these things that are taking that is waste, right? It is waste to do a bunch of paperwork, it is waste to wait in lines, right? It is waste to wait three months to get a picture, right of something that if we remember three months ahead of time, you know, it could have potentially been preventative medicine rather than solving a problem that could have you know, wasn’t acute, you know, by the time we get there. What’s your thoughts on some of that? You know, how do you how do you change that mindset?

Dr. Seger Morris 18:00

Yeah, I think it comes down to doing everything that we can to preserve the physician patient relationship as being the most important aspect of health care. If we preserve that relationship, and the trust that is required in and involved in that relationship, at all costs, and getting everything else out of the way, if that’s our driving force, then then I think we’ll all have the reregulation. I don’t think it’s over. I don’t think it’s deregulate everything. That’s not the answer is reregulation needs to be reassigned with the idea of protecting the patient physician relationship, not the payer physician relationship, or the payer patient relationship and stuff. It’s really we have to get back to protecting the physician patient relationship and knowing that that’s the North Star of everything that we need to do.

Carl J. Cox 19:04

While you’re talking, it made me think of somebody says something really profound in refractors if David Solomon person I work he’s current CEO of Lightspeed Technologies, and it’s something that blew me away, he said, Carl you realize that, that potential clients or customers lie to you right? It really, I’m a pretty trust. trustworthy person, meaning I believe, generally people are saying is to be true. And so when he told me this insight, I was like, Whoa, and I had it flip myself around going, how many times have I not fully disclosed or you know, the vendor? Perhaps ask, they want to buy something like, Oh, well, I’ll talk to you in three months. Right? You know, or I’m too busy right now. Or you know, we don’t give them the full reason I’m now I have no plans to ever buy your product or service ever, right? We don’t give the full reason sort of like we say, Oh, hi, how you doing today. I feel great. And so I think about myself, even myself when I’ve gone into doctor appointments, and whether we’re nervous, I’m talking about from a patient perspective. Unless we don’t have full trust, we don’t necessarily say everything that’s wrong with us. And we wonder why on the other side, we can’t get better outcomes, right? Because there’s this, I think, belief that while the physician, you know, they, they’re practicing medicine, they’re trying to learn figure out, but how do we think physicians could do the job that they need to do when we ourselves aren’t providing full transparency of what’s really happening and taking place? And and so I was I’m just resonating with you this trust factor, right, you know, the Speed of Trust that Covey wrote, I, I love just that core concept of wasn’t there’s greater trust, it speeds up solutions to happen. And that’s what you’re talking about here. It sounds like, if you can get the, the physician and the patient to truly trust each other, they might disclose they’ve had other elements for a longer period of time that they wouldn’t normally do, because there would be concern, it’d be saying about something else. Right, you know, some other part that takes place, it’s one of the things that I found in the COVID world that we’ve had, I, you know, you and I have used Zoom money multiple times together, and and you get this part with zoom, where you get to, but getting that deeper layer of trust, I still find the personal, in person experiences, you’re more likely to get the unscripted discussion, right, which is sometimes the real why behind the why something’s going wrong. You know, and and so, anyways, I just appreciate that insight that you brought up. Because to me, it’s, I think, is a really fascinating thing and creating that. And there’s probably also a teaching thing that has to take place, because not ever it’s not everybody strength to create that trust, right? There might be more researcher type, not a personal type. And how do you create that right when they don’t necessarily have that skill set?

Dr. Seger Morris 22:04

Well, it and not only that, but but from a teaching standpoint, I mean, we I mean, I have an obligation to teach people to be able to function into a system. Well, if that system is one that’s not truly centered around the physician patient relationship, then I’m teaching things that are taking away from that. And in teaching them spending time teaching them how to navigate payer issues, and value based care, and all of these types of things, that those values may not be the values that are important to the patient in front of you. They’re the values that are important, from a financial standpoint, to the payers, that’s what value based care means is not value per se to the patient. Because every patient is an individual that is value based from a financial standpoint to the system as a whole. It’s not that it ignores quality and outcomes, but it ignores the fact that the desired outcomes are dramatically different between individual patients. And so. So again, it’s i think that that trust factor of the relationship has been lost in all of the regulated regulatory hogwash, that just continues to compound things. And, and so, you know, I just think we need a reset on the on the guiding light.

Carl J. Cox 23:34

Yeah. All right. So let’s, let’s turn turn, pivot a little bit now. So you, you are one of the I would say my experience with talking with physicians, you’re very busy as it is, right? You’re just a core job is busy. And then you add to it, you are on multiple boards, you have started something new, which is a whole different energy set, right, then just continuing and maintaining, and then you have a family and you have young kids? And how what are you doing on a personal side, to give yourself that energy to keep moving forward, right, because this is not easy. These are not easy things to keep up that momentum and the energy and so so tell me to tell the audience some of the things that you’re doing on a consistent basis to make sure you can maximize yourself your productivity, so you can make a greater difference.

Dr. Seger Morris 24:27

Yeah, well, I can I can speak from experience that it not only me, but in it. You know, a lot of people around me, positions are by nature, sometimes they do, as I say not as I do type I in terms of you know, from a health standpoint, and I really just, I don’t know, a couple years ago, I just started to I don’t want to say I kind of hit one of those burnout moments where I would just I was saying yes to all these things. Because I had this burning desire to impact the system in so many different ways and, and continue to expand and scale his influence, and I just said I was the yes guy, I was saying yes to every single thing and, and, man I got, I got stretched crazy thin. And then I started to get some dissatisfaction of the day job and I wasn’t paying attention to my to my own health. And then I was seeing that, you know, that was impacting my family at home and everything. And so I just went back to the drawing board a little bit when, when I made a change to move into this new role that I’m in, at in terms of, you know, being the director of the residency program, and I thought, you know, what, the best leaders I’ve ever known are the ones that walk the walk. And they may not do it exactly how they’re advising, or the people that follow them don’t follow every single aspect of what they do, we all have our own biases, you know, but, um, but I’ve got to get myself in a position where I can bring it every day, to whatever these roles are, that I have in every one of them. And so that requires, you know, some focus on my physical health, you know, what I eat, what how I exercise, you know, my sleeping pattern, all of that kind of stuff, and then going back to the drawing board of prioritizing family, and then kind of expanding, expanding out from there. And, um, and honestly, you know, it’s not easy to unwind once you’ve said yes, and yes, and yes, I mean, I want to honor my commitments. And so it can, it can take years to reset some of that. And, and I’m still in the middle of that of that process right now. But, but the driving force behind that is, I really believe that first you have to take care of yourself. And then you can move out and take care of your family. And then you can expand to your neighbor, and then your community, and then your state and your nation, and so on and so forth. And I believe if we all did that more, we’d all be a lot more successful collaboratively, rather than, you know, you don’t put the oxygen mask on the other person first, we’ve got to make sure that we are taken care of. And that’s not selfish.

Carl J. Cox 27:30

Yeah, isn’t that interesting, it’s a sort of, like, you know, when you’re flying a plane, and they the oxygen mask comes down, and they remind you put it on yourself first, right before you put it on the child next year, right, because you can’t breathe, you can’t help the child who’s next year. And and that’s the same power that we’re talking about, you’re talking about, I think is, is so important to make and create that time. You know, I’ve seen your as we know, your personal strategic plan is ambitious, awesome plan, where you have actually structured, how you’re connecting with your family, your structured your exercise program, your structured eating, you know, for those who are listening out there, they’re in their specific eight key performance indicators, where you’ve measured what success is, and it’s, it’s not easy, right? But you’re, you’re you care to get towards there. And, and, and I think you could say, you know, when you when you’re meeting those more commonly, you’re probably more likely to have you feel better about yourself a, then B, you probably have more energy to support those around you is that fair to say?

Dr. Seger Morris 28:38

100% when I get through, and honestly, I’m kind of on the tail end of one of those just whirlwind periods of time, where, you know, the personal health, the exercise, those kinds of things. It just started getting sacrifice for a couple of weeks, you know, and and the, you start to feel it, you know, take its toll a little bit, it starts to get that that physical drain, and you’re like, Alright, I I’m recognizing it more and more now, because I know what the plan is. And I’ve seen what the success on the other side of being successful personally and with the family first can drive. And so you know, so it’s easy to it’s easier to catch yourself, after you take a step or two back on on some of those plans once you’ve kind of kind of gotten it in in the groove, so to speak with your with your personal apps. Yep,

Carl J. Cox 29:38

yep, absolutely. Okay, so you’re one of my questions I like to ask all our guests is what is one of the I know you’re pretty good book reader, audio book person, you do quite a bit and you’re like, Oh, I get 50 books. I can. You didn’t say that specifically, but you’re like, you know, for the most part, you have a lot of things that influenced you. What is what is a book specifically that you’d like to share? With the audience, you think that may have a significant impact?

Dr. Seger Morris 30:03

Yeah, well, as we’ve talked, you know, sometimes the the book depends on the on the setting or the place in life in and the driving force, the last couple of years, one of my, one of my good friends, Peyton Priest actually turned it on to me and and it’s called Peak Performance, I actually keep a copy of it in my office, but Peak Performance in and we’ve used it, we’ve talked a lot about it, actually, when we’ve been building out our residency program and talking to potential candidates about it, because it’s influenced the structure of our program. And I love the interplay that the authors make between cognitive development and cognitive training with physical and athletic training. And how stretching too thin in both ways without having an opportunity to reset and recharge is counterproductive. And so I don’t know if they ever use the phrase in the book itself, but we’ve kind of dubbed it interval training for the mind. And, and and so I’ve personally found more success, taking that approach, or at least it’s, it’s enabled me to better understand that maybe there is good at pushing myself to a mental limit, with, you know, stressing that, that that personal development and personal success from a career perspective, and then also to value the reset moments as being critical to take that vacation, take that time off completely unwind, because it truly is productive, and there’s science behind. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s

Carl J. Cox 31:51

an excellent book. And I do agree with his Seger, I think it’s a great thing for the audience to read or listen to. It’s an excellent way to in practicing the habits of course, like a lot of these things, you know, is really where the value so alright, Seger, thank you so much for being on the Measure Success Podcast today. Thank you for being with us. So thank you. Yep. Glad to be here. And to the audience, we’re wishing all of you the very best at measuring success.

Outro 32:24

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