How can physicians escape burnout and find freedom? Hosts Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez interview Dr. Moe Gibbons on shifting from ER to telemedicine, building a thriving lifestyle practice, and helping 1,000+ doctors design careers they love.
How can physicians break free from burnout and build lives they love? Hosts Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez welcome Dr. Moe Gibbons, who transitioned to founding Active Medical Solutions, a lifestyle medicine practice, and a coaching business for physicians. After 13 years in a level two trauma center, a forced shift to an offsite role sparked her accidental entry into telemedicine, replacing her ER income within six months. Dr. Gibbons, shares her journey managing personal health challenges and now helps over a thousand doctors leverage their skills. Her asynchronous telemedicine model, built on community and education, offers a unique approach, while her coaching emphasizes early exit strategies and autonomy. This episode inspires physicians to rethink their identity and embrace fulfilling career shifts.
Three Actionable Takeaways:
About the Show:
Telemedicine Talks explores the evolving world of digital health, helping physicians navigate new opportunities, regulatory challenges, and career transitions in telemedicine.
About the Guest:
Dr. Moe Gibbons is a former emergency medicine physician who transitioned into a dynamic entrepreneurial role after a 13-year career at a level two trauma center, including a 20% LAD stenosis diagnosis. She founded “Active Medical Solutions,” a nationwide lifestyle medicine practice offering 90% asynchronous telemedicine with a focus on community, education, and metabolic health, supported by five providers (with plans to expand to six or seven by year-end) and weekly happy hour sessions for patients. As a certified sports nutritionist and athletic trainer with a background in wellness programs, she also runs a coaching business to help over a thousand physicians create fulfilling lives using skills they already possess. Dr. Gibbons hosts The Dr. Moe Show: Freedom to Shift, starting a medicine-focused format, advocating for autonomy and sharing personal insights, such as her struggles with binge eating and the identity shift from ER to coaching.
Website: https://drmoecoaching.com
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/doctormoe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmoegibbons?igsh=cXEyaWxiOTUwMmZs
About the Hosts:
TELEMEDICINE 23
[00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to Telemedicine Talks. We have a great guest today. Super excited to talk to her. We have Dr. Mo Gibbons. she is a prior ER doc. do do you still practice by the way? so I'm taking a bit of a hiatus. nice and constant entrepreneur.
She's founded Active Medical Solutions, a lifestyle medical practice, and also runs another podcast as well. And we're gonna have her talk all about that. Dr. Mo, thank you so much for coming in. super excited to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. I just, love to connect with people who get what I'm doing and are doing the same thing and we're all rowing the same boat.
Yeah. And we were talking before this and you were talking about, what drove you and why you started it and your goals. And in the back of my head while we were talking, I was like, Hey, this is exactly why I went into telemedicine, why we started this telemedicine talks, how we met Phoebe.
So we are aligning and this is, I think, a common theme that we're seeing too. So can you tell us, really just start from the beginning where you [00:01:00] came from. And where you're at and I'm super interested in that one instance or maybe there was more than one that, you decided to pivot and why.
So kinda, I'm gonna start from the end, right? Sure. and true Steven Covey style. Begin with the end in mind because my goal is to help over a thousand physicians create lives. They love mission, not a goal, create lives they love with skills they already have. And that's where I am now. But three years ago, there certainly were some events that caused me to go into telemedicine, but it was not an intentional pivot.
I created my entire practice by mistake, literally created the thing by accident. I just started helping people. I was on my own journey. with my health, I have battled binge eating and disordered eating patterns for over 40 years. At that time, the number keeps climbing. Thank goodness. [00:02:00] And I found not just the way to fix that.
And it's not fixing it. You don't fix that. 40 years of ingrained neural pathways don't get fixed. They get managed so. I found a way to manage that, but more importantly than that, I found a way to manage the healthcare system around that, how to navigate that. So I got online and I was starting to help people.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. This is what you ask your doctor. And one woman said to me, Jackie and her name, I'm not changing. I refuse because there's a lot of Jackie's out there and we won't find her. So she said to me, wait, you're a doctor? And I said, yep. She's like, can you be my doctor? Yeah. And I said, I don't know, maybe.
And that was, it literally replaced my emergency medicine income within six months. Fully. Wow. and it was just from being of service. So literally I create this vehicle by accident, and there I was, and I, I stopped, I got to a point where I hit about two thirds and I talked to my boss and I said, Hey, listen, you know, my, my [00:03:00] big boss had told me the only way to stay in emergency medicine long term is to go part-time.
I said, I can't agree more. I know I would have more bandwidth to be better on the ground if I could decompress that full-time load. And so I told my boss, listen, I'd like to drop a couple shifts. You know, I wanted to talk about it. And that went over like a lead balloon. so I was, uh. I can't think of a politically correct word.
I was shifted. I was moved from the emergency department that I was overnights level two trauma center for 13 years. I was moved to an offsite. And he didn't want me in the main anymore. Now, in his defense and in the universe's defense, this is what I needed. It was the push I needed.
And so I was out I still had a full-time job. It was just a different environment, one that to me is not truly emergency medicine, not where I wanted to be, but I was doing this other thing and I saw how I was creating change in my [00:04:00] people because my entire practice, it's a hundred percent remote and it is built upon community and education because I think every medical interaction.
Should be built on community and education. So that's how I built that. I'm an athletic trainer by trade. I was a lifeguard athletic trainer. I'm a certified sports nutritionist. I did wellness programs. I do personal professional wellness. It's been my wheelhouse forever. So this was like, oh, this is amazing.
I can actually do this with people. And that's kinda what we did. active Medical Solutions was born. And as I did this, I kept having doctors say, wait, what are you doing? Mm-hmm. And then the next thing came, which is helping doctors create not just telemedicine practices, but coaching practices.
Some do coaching,
it's really just using your voice, using knowledge and skills you already have. And the skill of prescribing is something that comes second nature to us. And. In traditional training. So that part was easy for a lot of people. The coaching aspect is actually a [00:05:00] little bit harder.
So that's where I am and that's how I got here. No, that's awesome. That's awesome. And that's a huge switch, right? A lot of us here on telemedicine, you know, uh, Phoebe and I have had the opportunity to coach a lot of people, into the ship, to telemedicine and the stories are the same, right?
the bandwidth is getting low. We're getting burnt out. a lot of them communities, er doctors, and we're trying to find a way to survive. Right. Most of us are just like, Hey, I'm gonna keep my head down, do the 20 years in the er, run and gun and, just chip away.
Mm-hmm. At our health, at our soul, you know? Um. And so what was the hardest part that you found, switching over? Right? and you know, you mentioned that you were forced outta the main, and to an offsite and that kind of gave you the opportunity to focus on something else.
And it turns out that you really loved. But what was the hardest part in that mindset going from, hey, ER doctor, level two, trauma center to. Not er doctor, not level two [00:06:00] trauma center and not quote, saving lives. Right. So Right. That this has been a long time coming. It took me about a year and a half to get through literally the initial stages of that identity shift.
Yeah. That is no joke. I got shingles. I lost half my hair. Oh, wow. I mean, it was, Every time I would go to work, I would come home on the way home. I went from having an eight minute commute to a 25 minute commute. That ticked me off too. Gosh, I'm not gonna lie.
So on the way home though, in the morning, 'cause I only work nights in the ed, I'm a no internist. That is, if I work in the er, I'm at night. That's who I am. And. I would drive home and I would Marco Polo, which is a video messaging platform. My good friends that had to hear it every time, this doesn't feel like emergency medicine.
Am I even doing emergency medicine? They would, for a year and a half they kept be like, I have to hear this again every time she goes to work. but part of it, one of my nurse practitioners who's. He was great. He [00:07:00] sat me down when I was leaving the main and he said, one thing that you need to know is you are emergency medicine, but you are not only emergency medicine.
And that hit me. That helped me, that has obviously brought me through this even from the standpoint of, I had a surgeon recently tell me that I loved it. I still love emergency medicine. We all do. And he, said, you love it, but you love this more. And that was different. And the one thing that I realized is, when you're in a trauma and you save a mom and that mom gets to go home and hug their child one more time, that's a big deal.
Mm-hmm. But if I can keep a thousand emergency medicine docs on the ground, even part-time for five years, 10 years longer, and happy and thriving. How many moms does that save? So it's not me directly getting the ego hit, but it's [00:08:00] still making a difference. Instead of treating the patients and saving the lives of the patients, I get to save the lives of those who save the lives of those patients.
Yeah, that's awesome. that's strong right there. So, yeah, I think one thing that was kind of interesting and a little bit even a shift for me to think about as the non-physician was, what it's like to actually be an emergency medicine doctor and have to go into that every single day in, day out.
Like, you know, I joke with Leo, like I've been to the emergency room maybe like four times in my whole life, and it was always with like my kids and even just being in the ER for eight hours, I'm like. I need to decompress. Like this is so stressful and I don't think that too many physicians, and Leo and I have talked about this, where you're forced to make that commitment to medicine at a very young age.
You are forced to go through this very rigorous process and at the very end of years and years and years of training you and doing, [00:09:00] there gets to be a certain point where you're like, I'm kind of over this. And then, as you said. How do you shift that? How do you shift your mind? How do you shift your identity when since you were like five, this is all you've ever wanted to do.
It's a hell of a question. I didn't go back to medical school until I was 28 because my grades weren't good enough. and of course my brain hears those of us who are high achievers, my brain hears I'm not good enough. Okay, great. So I get to question that for the next 40 years of my life. So that sounds like a plan.
but again, you have to make that commitment to medicine, and I think you have to, otherwise you don't survive. I worked full time for 15 years. You don't survive full-time for 15 years. You don't survive full-time for five in that environment. That environment, I mean, you know, like you said, you're in there for eight hours.
You're like, I need a nap. I gotta go home. this is too much. but we get used to that level of anxiety being dependent on, and it is an ego hit. it's for those of us who [00:10:00] want to control the universe, it's really pretty nice because we get to actually control our little corner of it.
Sort of, but again, that gives us a false sense of security as well, that we are in fact controlling things. There is no controlled chaos. it's your managing and how do you make that identity shift? The first thing I tell people is if you do not plan on. Actually investing time and resources to make the shift.
And if you can't do it, you can't do it. Like I don't try to force people to change. I spent too many years trying to do that because once you see, you can't unsee and once you crack that door open, you cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube. I didn't think I was burned out. I was, I just didn't see it.
All the burnout surveys, I'm like, no, I work out. I, you know, I'm sleeping. I'm, I, I, we had protected sleep, you know, even my studio now it's built in my old sleep room if that's not [00:11:00] amazing. My, my husband gave it to me for Christmas when my, I stopped full-time and he said, we don't need this room full-time for a sleep room any longer.
Well, even that What do, what do you mean? Like, so. This is who I was for so long. Who am I? When I sleep at night, every day when the helicopter flies over my house and it does multiple times a day, I'm not putting someone on that helicopter or taking somebody off of that helicopter. I'm just watching it go by wishing them well.
Who am I when I see my medics drive by me on the road and they know me, my license plate is Dr. Mo, and you know, they see me. This is my community. Who am I? If I am not in the er? Well, I'm Dr. Mo and that's me. Whether I'm in the er, whether you, God forbid, collapse at the man that's here at my, you know, goes right by my house.
I've had to realize that no matter what situation I'm [00:12:00] in, I'm still a doctor, you know, and to quote the movie, A Few Good Men, I believe I've earned it. You know, you bring up several good points, right? It's this identity , you did not know you're burnt out. Right? And really, I think it goes back to our training, right?
It goes back to our training that, our worth. Our identity, you know, and I'm gonna date myself. This is, you know, my first resident, second resident, anyways. And, and at that time, , you were graded as how hard you worked. A good resident was, Hey, can you stay up for 30 hours without falling asleep?
How many patients can you carry? You know, can Yep. And remember it's like, Hey, what could I do to better read more, learn harder, go along the pimp lines and, and that, that was it. If you were a rock star, you were the hard worker. , And the only way to advance and get better in medicine was to further that identity, right?
Is to basically put yourself out there and work hard and give the most, right? And if you didn't right, the bad residents were the ones that, you know, [00:13:00] wanted time for themselves, wanted wellness times, so forth and so on, right? What do you mean you're gonna leave, right? No, exactly right. If you can't hang, get outta here, right?
And. I'll be honest, I was, I was a mean senior resident. My, my first resident, they didn't know any better. They didn't know any. No, no. And that's how you were trained. I remember talking to my attendings and they're like, Leo, uh, you're a senior resident today. Go for it. You, you need to take care of this.
And you know, that meant Yeah, yeah. Tear 'em down. Right. And. It's funny how we carry that, right? And it's funny how we can't really shake that. And even, , when I was making my transition, , mine and your story, there's a lot of parallels. I was an nocturnists to level one trauma center, 10 years so forth, so forth and so on.
And then when I made the switch to telemedicine, I was telling all my colleagues, I was so excited. I was like, Hey, there is a light out there, there is. I feel great. Yes. You know, I, I'm doing what I want. I'm surfing every day. I'm working out every day. I'm doing these things. How, how about you guys jump on the bandwagon?
And I remember one guy and this guy, he's been in the ER for 20 years and he just [00:14:00] listens to me. He's like, but you're not saving lives . I'm like, oh, okay. Well first of all, how many lives do you actually save on a shift? Right? In a level one trauma center at nighttime? Most of the times it's a, , five and two of them, you know, that was like half my patients .
But you're right. And when you run into that, , and I, I bet it's a frequent thing. When, in your coaching sessions, , how do you approach that? How do you , you know, that saying that you, you can't change things unless you accept it.
So , when you run into a client or a physician that you're help coaching, what is your approach and , how do you break it if you can? So I think the biggest part is, the first thing is to realize the loudest voice is from your own brain. Because they're only affecting you, because you are, you're already saying that all they did was reinforce your fear.
You're no longer saving lives or I'm not doing well enough. I'm not doing enough for these patients. I'm not doing enough for the medical profession. I'm not, [00:15:00] I'm not doing enough. I'm not good enough. Right. Let's just break it down to what it sits as. And so the first thing is to realize , you are the problem.
Uh, now you are also the solution, though. That's the good news. So you come at me and you say, it's social media, right? When you put your voice out there, you put your voice out there. And I've had people tell me, you're not, but you're not a real doctor anymore.
My son asked me, , are you a real doctor now that you don't go to the hospital? , And the funny part was, thank goodness it was late in this journey because. If he had asked me six months before I probably would've started sobbing, but I said, but I had gotten to the point of absolutely, because doctors don't only have one way to help people and that's what we don't realize.
You know, my, my husband's also, he is still full-time on the ground emergency medicine as we speak. He is on shift and, and, which is really ironic, right? [00:16:00] And. He, you know, , he's there saving lives. It's a very high medical acuity facility and he is still very traditional and , he came to me and he said, probably about six months ago, emergency medicine is a young man's game.
And it is, yeah. , It really is. You know that study right? You know how long we're supposed to survive if we stay in the er? Oh, it's bad. Yeah. Yeah. It goes like, cardiologist, 75 years old, blah, blah, blah. , All these, these sexy, , specialties. And then you get to the er, it's like 58. You only supposed to survive until you're 50.
I'm 51. Yeah. That does not work for me. No. Right. And I was like, oh man, that's, that's less than a decade from now for me. And I'm like, yeah, no. Something has shifted. Mm-hmm. Um, but we've accepted that, you know, as, as the ER community, we're like, ha ha, we're gonna die first. Right. Or that's who, I'll be different.
I'll be different. Oh no. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's me. Oh, I'll be different. Until I was diagnosed with a 20% [00:17:00] LAD stenosis in November. Oh wow. Yeah. That was probably, probably twice that two years ago. Yeah. So yeah. This is why, and , you're not the person that I look at and you're like, oh, you're gonna die of a heart attack.
Right. You know, triathlete, you work out all the time. And it's, yeah. This is the state of things, Russ. So, so, and so , how are you now like. If you look back and you talked, let, let's say you have a time machine. You go back and you talk to your intern self July 1st.
Ooh. You know, you're going right, right. July 1st. Ooh, that one. I don't wanna talk to her. Right. What would you, what would you tell that doctor, you know, bright, your bright-eyed, bushy tail. You're like, I'm gonna go save lives. I'm, I'm an ER resident. Here we go. I am badass. So funny thing that I probably wouldn't have done anything terribly different in residency.
, I did , my first Iron Man in 2009, which was right after residency, uh, by design. [00:18:00] 'cause obviously you can't, I couldn't do it during med school or residency. There are people who do I. Kudos. I did not have that. So for me, I, but we did start running, you know, we did our first, I ran, I, I wasn't a runner before I, I swam, uh, competitively and certainly not a cyclist.
Still not. And I get from the Swim to the Run and I'm actually not even really a runner. I, you know, I just have a great time. I smile a lot. Have a blast. But in residency, I wouldn't have done anything different because like I tell residents now, I have a lot of med students and residents that find me on social media or pre-meds that'll say, would you still go into medicine?
I'm like, a hundred percent, yes, absolutely. I frigging love it. Like this is, no, this is me. I am Dr. Mo. Oh, imagine that, right? Even though I don't do the same things but my, like my intern self, I would've told her, you know what, listen, this is gonna suck. Real bad, you're gonna question your entire existence in so many ways.
[00:19:00] You're gonna come out completely torn down. Where I would've grabbed her is that first year as an attending, because I ended up at the lowest of the low places. Uh, there was no attempt, but I had a great plan. And if you're listening, I'm gonna say this so we can put this out on social media and not get banned in places.
So if you're listening, pick up what I'm saying because I'm not gonna say it. And I mean, I had a great plan because I'm a physician and female physicians, uh, we top males in our attempts, so leave the planet. In when we're physicians, and I would've told that girl, girl, I was old. I was 32 at the time, 32 when I graduated med med school.
But I would've told me that this is gonna be really hard. It's hard in residency, but when you get to be an attending, it's like those memes where it's July 1st. You're the attending. I need an attendee attending because you are by [00:20:00] yourself. You don't know. And it's not just the medicine, it's you've got someone coding.
'cause back then someone's coding upstairs in the hospital and in the er, and you're the only doctor in the entire hospital at night. So who do you let die? Those are the decisions you're making As a brand new attending, I would've told her, okay, listen. You need to spend three to five years on the ground learning how this works.
You're gonna do that. You're gonna do okay. You're gonna survive. Trust me, you will survive. You've got someone to talk to. We have a mentorship program here at this hospital. Nobody has it. We have a mentorship here at this hospital where we've got another physician that's three years ahead of you. They can help you through and.
Somebody you can just, all you need to do is text, send a message, send a video message just to unload because you didn't have anybody would've said, now, five years we're gonna start creating your exit strategy. You're not gonna think you need one, but the best time to grow is when you don't have to.
You're not burned out, you still think, oh, I could do this. Captain [00:21:00] America's, I could do this all day because it's what you know how to do. But then at year five you start thinking, oh no, I'm gonna start honing these stills. They here are the things I wanna tell people. Because you don't need to know everything.
You just need to know, like you said, that girl three years ago, what does she need to know because that's who needs you? So that's the frustrating thing is we don't put these things in place. We don't have the systems, we just. We don't train, we don't train for the position. No, absolutely not. Right. How many med school courses did you have on that?
Yeah. Zero. Zero on my end. You know, how many residency, you know, talks Did we have on that? None. None. Right? It's, it's just go faster, go harder, go home, sleep for two hours, come back, redo. Right. It's ridiculous. And, you know, thank you for sharing that, by the way. That's very personal. Um, it's reality.
I. You know, and sadly it is. Sadly it is. , And our profession is, you know, that's a reality that a lot of us don't [00:22:00] want to talk about, don't want to realize. And you know, by a lot of times, you know, you were lucky and you identified it, but a lot of times this is too late. I went to two funerals two years ago.
My, my close colleagues that just, wasn't identified early enough. You know what I mean? And, and this, this is the reason why I think this is just we, we don't have the structure in place. We don't have the processes in place to one identify. And if we do right, it's, it's still kind of taboo, right?
Just kind of absolutely sweep it under the, under the rug and work harder, work faster, and you're gonna get better. Or just work harder, work faster, and then just save enough money so you can retire. You'll be fine, right at 65 after your whole life's done. And Right. And after you've had that third heart attack.
Right. You know, so it's, yeah. You become best friends with your cardiologist, not because he is a cool dude, because , you have to. Right. Yeah. Geez. Yeah. No, I, I get it. . You know, [00:23:00] um, we've, for me, I found kind of that exit, not necessarily, I wouldn't even call it an exit.
It's almost a pivot, right? Where I've kept my identity as a doctor, I've been fulfilled doing what I do, and I think I'm touching more people than I have actually, uh, while I was in the er, which is amazing. And, doing the things that I wanna do, admin, so forth and so on. But again, it's hard to make that mental.
Switch. Mm-hmm. Right. , And the people that I've coached just like you, it's just, you know, you've had to, it's almost second nature now right. As we talked about it. Right. But, you know, for those people coming in, it is just over and over and that whole, am I a doctor? I remember going through that.
Everybody goes through that stage, right? Yeah. , You're just, and you're going to telemedicine doctor, right? . You're just, , a online doctor, Amazon doctor, just turn it on and go. You're not a real doctor anymore. Right. So, , let's talk about , your telemedicine company and your coaching company, active Medical Solutions, you know.
Tell me more about, I love that shirt shift, right? [00:24:00] That's what's the title of your podcast again? So the title of the podcast, it's the Dr. Mo Show subtitle is Freedom to Shift. Yeah, I love that. And I wanted to ask, one, get to know your active medical solutions more and get to know your podcast a little bit more and really interested in that title that, that whole shit title.
So it's funny, I've. The more I'm in this space, the more I see, even in other high level professions, it's not just physicians. We're 30, 40, 50 years old asking for permission slip to get a new job. Right? Right. Like, can I have a hall pass? I just gotta go pee like right. Yeah. Can I work on something else that I really like doing?
No. Yes, I'm not. And the funny thing is, in medicine, we think about it very differently, and I won't belabor this point because I do wanna, my, my practice is a, what I think is a unique model. It's not terribly anymore, but that, the freedom to shift is about. Having the [00:25:00] freedom to shift, really saying, wow, I wanna explore this.
Alright, let's go. Like we have hobbies, but in medicine we're not allowed to change careers sometimes. No. Oh. Unless you do another fellowship or another residency. 'cause that makes it okay. Once you get another piece of paper on the wall, then you're allowed, it's a permission slip. Right? It's not a, it's not, you know, it's not a certificate, it's a permission slip, but.
That's what we challenge on the podcast. The podcast actually started off as way more general than just medicine. Starting July 1st by design, uh, it's completely focused on medicine, right? Because there are so many doctors out there that need, and I don't mean freedom to shift people, like, oh, I, you know, I like to play golf.
I don't, it's not what I mean, because we need autonomy. We need to be fulfilled. We need to start creating these things. And you're like, well, how do you do that in telemedicine? Well, when most people think telemedicine, they think what you and I are doing right here, synchronous. Yep, exactly. They think, okay, so why would I trade walking around having fun with my [00:26:00] colleagues in the ER to sitting on a computer having a visit, and I'm going to challenge that because my practice is 99%.
Oh, 90%. It's asynchronous. Yep. Why? Because when you need a prescription refilled, who wants to go to the doctor? How about I sit in the waiting room for two hours and fill out some extra paperwork to get a prescription that we all know we need? Right? Like it's the same thing. My lesion didn't change. My numbers are better.
I get monthly blood work now on my own practice. Right. You know, it's tough. It's tough 'cause I don't wanna be my own doctor. Yeah. But frankly, I know I do things better. So our practice is asynchronous, but I am the coach in my practice. I'm not the one on the ground prescribing any longer because that's my zone of excellence, where my zone of genius comes in as a life coach.
Success coach, physician, coach, whatever you wanna call me, doesn't matter. I don't care what you call [00:27:00] me, just if you need help get it. But when you're my patients, we do happy hour every Wednesday. We've got a community, we've got courses, we've got, it's all lifestyle medicine. So it's all based on, you know, metabolic repair habits.
The same thing I teach doctors. Right? Imagine that. 'cause guess what? We're humans who need the same things probably more. 'cause we just, probably more because we've neglected it for 20 years. No, absolutely. So I am the coach in the practice. We have happy hour every Wednesday and patients can come every Wednesday.
There's usually at least three of my providers in there. We've got five providers now. We'll have about six or seven by the end of the year. And we're nationwide except for Mississippi. 'cause they don't like telehealth. Yes. Um, absolutely. Si. However, we do the coaching in Mississippi, so we do, and part of our coaching is healthcare navigation.
So even for those people or if you like, if you get your prescription from your doctor, you're like, well, I don't need a telemedicine provider, but I need to know what to ask my doctor regarding this. [00:28:00] That's what the coaching aspect, so that's why we do both in a MS. So it's just really fun to me.
It's fun. No, and it's a holistic part, right? In the er, you treated street. You know, I don't know. My, exams and my interviews, I'm gonna put myself out there. They didn't take that long. Right. You know, most of the times I had my plan before I started seeing 'em. Right. Yeah. You know, all the labs and stuff were done and you just had to, right.
If you're gonna carry 10, 20 patients at one time, you just had to. Right. But you're right. I like this kind of, you know, when I'm doing telemedicine stuff and, there's different stuff I do, synchronous, so forth and so on, but I get to connect. You feel that a little bit more, right?
You feel a little bit more, and they're actually very thankful most of the times. Yeah. Like, thank you so much, you saved me so much time. You know, you're actually changing my life for some effect, right? Or for some degree. But yeah, they're super thankful and they're super happy. it's kind of life changing when they're actually like, not cursing you after you leave the room.
You know what I mean? But, um, well, it's funny you say that though, because [00:29:00] let me ask you this. So, you know, when you, feel like you can create that connection. I got asked a lot when I went from in-person to remote care. Yeah. And a lot of people ask me, a lot were very close to me and asked me, how can you form a relationship in telemedicine?
And I just heard you say the relationship is better. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 'cause well, you know, just like you were saying, right. You know, we worked in a trauma center, right? it was run and gun go. You know, you're carrying so many patients at one time in the er. You go in, you're like, what's gonna kill you if it's not killing you?
That's it. Right? I'm good to go. I'm gonna try to figure things out, so forth and so on. but that's the relationship, right? But now you get to go in, you get to talk to people, you get to actually really remember their names sometimes and get into what they're doing, what they like, and depending on kinda the service, you know,
And you have more time, you have more interest. It's just a little bit more relaxed environment. there's no beeping in the [00:30:00] background. There's no nurses knocking on the door saying, uh, room five is coding. You know, there's no apologies saying, oh, you know, hold that story. This is the third time I've interrupted you.
I'm sorry, I need to come back. Right. So it's kind of that and plus, so true. The reach, like I never put that together though with the beeping, the EKG getting handed to you, the right. Absolutely, absolutely right. You're talking to a person. Doc, can you sign this? EKGI. Again, duh. Can you look at this gas?
Right? And you're like, oh, sorry, this is the fifth time. I swear you're important to me. Patient. Yeah. You are important. Except they're dying, so they're more important. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yes, absolutely. You know, so, but again, it goes to that thinking that this is the only way you could practice medicine, right?
This is the only way it has to be. I think, we'll have a better, you know, gosh, I'm gonna do it myself again, as the kids come along, right. And they have a better idea of technology and, you know, especially with COVI, you know, that [00:31:00] generation is used to making relationships through video, right? So this is gonna be more the norm.
Right. and then you're seeing it, I'm sure you're seeing it already. you're in the telemedicine community. You see it now. Absolutely. It is more acceptable. Now, right. To actually have a relationship on video or asynchronous even. You know, so, um, well, I mean, even think about the asynchronous portion, people say, well, you know, I, wanna be able to shake hands with somebody.
And I said, how often do you talk to your best friends and how do you talk to them? Yeah. Oh, I text, I'm like, yeah, exactly. I get that. Yeah, no. Right. that's how you're maintaining the relationship. Yeah. Yep. And, nowadays too, that is a norm, right? You're running around instant, you know, you're not gonna wait, you know, sending voice messages.
Exactly. Whatever. Exactly. do you even send voice messages? I don't even send voice messages. So, you know what's funny? I just started, oh really? It's funny you say that because just this week I've actually started leaving some potential clients' voice [00:32:00] message because it's easier because they have questions and a lot of times I do coach in the dms.
I know I'm not supposed to, I get it as a coach, but you know, I just like to give value and that's just how it works. I can't help it, but I don't have time to sit there and type it out in the car. On the other hand, I can press record and I can give you a, that's true.
Little message. So it's funny that I've started, and that's why I've also started to give the respect back of, I used to get annoyed. Don't send me a voice message 'cause I'm not gonna listen to you. You know why? Because it smacks a voicemail. And when people call me, I'm like, did you think I was gonna answer?
Right, right. I'm not answering my call. Well, Now you can. Right. and how does it feel now that you could create your own schedule? That, it's amazing, right? You know, back in the days when you were a full-time er, right? Life revolved around your ER schedule, right?
When you open up your calendar, right, what's the first thing you put on your calendar? Your ER schedule? 'cause you can't do anything without your ER schedule. Yep. Now it's like, Hey, I'm gonna put life on my [00:33:00] calendar. you know, surf time is in the afternoons right when the noontime guys leave.
So it's one to three, And then, you know, kiddo drop off time and then you know this and that. But you get the kiddo drop off time. Yes, I do. and just like you, I was a nocturnal zombie, right. There was no kiddo of dropoff time. There was no kiddo tuck in time. Right. And when you weren't working.
You were just angry. You weren't present. you know, you were either building up to that nocturnal schedule or the next two days you were just a non-res zombie, where you were just like, please leave me alone. I just wanna live. I didn't know that though. I didn't see it. It's just like, I think I did okay.
Right. I still think I did okay because otherwise my guilt would probably crush me. But, so I'm gonna keep telling myself this, right. Leo, don't ruin this for me. But it's normal. Right? that's what was normal, especially for us in Nocturnists. this is what we did.
Right. And you know, half the time you were living half there, right? Because, well, sedating rhythm was off. So, well, it's funny you say that 'cause I have [00:34:00] this group of women physicians that I worked with in the ED and, well, I didn't work with them 'cause I was at night and no one works at night except for the crazy ones.
Right? Absolutely. And so she texted and she said, oh, 'cause we're trying to plan this dinner. And she texted and she said, oh, how about Sunday? And somebody chimed in and said, oh, it's Father's Day. I'm like, oh, thanks for the reminder by the way. 'cause I don't really know what day it is because I don't.
Right, I live by my calendar now, not, you know, Julius Caesar's. Yeah. but she said, oh, I looked at my work schedule and not my home schedule and that hit me really hard. Oh, that's tough. Yeah. Yeah. Because I said, please don't be offended if I use this on social media. Yeah. Because you are you.
You are a doctor and you're a mom. She's got two kids. Yeah. You're a wife, you're a mom, you're a friend, you're a daughter. These should be integrated. This should be part of your life, not two separate lives, that you've got a huge rift in between. Yeah. what took precedence? Which calendar took precedence?
[00:35:00] Oh, you know, which one did you don't like it? Yeah, absolutely. Like you can't, even now when my, 'cause my schedules populate, everything's all integrated because if you don't have systems, you're failing. Yeah. I failed a huge system last night. Kept me up last night crying, to be honest. I lost about 30,000 photos because, oh, I thought my backup systems were okay.
Um, so sorry. I thought they were. It's okay. I just wrote, it's not okay, but it is what it is, right? Yeah. And there were course when my son was born, ugh. So I've got about four years in there. now the good news is I was not shy about putting my kid's face on social media, so that's some, so they're there.
you know, and I've got some things in place and I actually talked to my primary coach about it today. By the time I talked to him, I had already written an article for Kevin MD. I realized that I was running my life based on like a trauma, like an ER shift. Yeah. It was just, if it didn't take precedence, I didn't address it.
it's really hard to create that [00:36:00] space. I'm three years in and I still have systems failing big ones. Yeah. Well, that's kind of mind blowing to me. 'cause I do the same thing, but I didn't realize, you know, it is just something you just said. It's just that's how we run traumas, right.
And. sorry, I'm just dumbfounded right now because, you know, I'm trying to think about how people see how I run my daily systems and, you know, and with family, you know, even with my spouse, there's sometimes, you know, friction because she doesn't understand how I prioritize things.
And Terry, you know, it's everything at once, so forth and so on. But, you know, it's, I do the same thing. This is my priority right now. Everything gets dropped. I. Right. And then I go to the next one, next one. And this thing may not even be a priority. Ever, ever, ever. Yeah. Which you may think it's a priority, right.
But to me that is normal. But it's so funny how that's normalized for us. And You just made me realize, uh, maybe that is not normal for everybody else. Um, it's hard. No, butI don't think we're alone in that. I think [00:37:00] very high achieving professionals. Do that because we have so much want to do, right?
Yes. Yeah. We wanna change the world, period. Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, ER doctors specifically too, we're really. I'm gonna quote really good at multitasking. We're not really good at multitasking. No, we suck. We're just, we really suck. Oh, we think we're good. Yeah, absolutely. We're just really good at carrying multiple things at once and forgetting everything else.
That's not the first priority, right? So, right. 'cause when you need an airway, sorry, the legs falling off. Yeah. Let it fall. No. Yeah. that's big deal. Like we think in different circles. Yeah. we think in different diagrams. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting how we carry that to everything else, or in priorities.
just like that, you know, like work comes first, family comes second, and it was mind blowing when I was able to, you know, just meld all the calendars together, bringing that back and actually populating life first. Right? And I may work the same [00:38:00] amount of hours that I did in er, but I work my hours.
Not anybody else's hours. It's my hours. So, and you can own that. How long did it take you to? It took me about three years, I'll be honest. I just honed the, I call them time boxes. Yes. I don't like blocks because blocks are solid. Yes. I like boxes. I put things in boxes. Yep. And how long did it take you?
It took me a long time. Still working on it. Still working on it, yeah. Right. Yeah. I haven't been here for a year, done this for like two years, still working on it. And everything's always changing. It's always in flux. Mm-hmm. Right. Because I'm always, you know, taking something new, you know, doing something, have a new position, so forth and so on.
So the boxes, it's funny, the boxes change, right. But, yep. Um. Yeah, that's kind the most part of my life. Yeah. Like, you said, you've got your surfing box. For me, I've realized that my first, I usually have two boxes of activity a day. Ideally they're both in the morning, but I'm gonna be honest, I'm not a morning person.
I work nights 'cause [00:39:00] I'm a night person. Same. Same. The world doesn't work that way. So I'll tell you right now, I'm doing no cold plunges at 4:00 AM ever. I get up at four, only if there's a medal involved or a flight. That's awesome. I did schedule my cold punch to turn on it for, I'd move the schedule along.
'cause I was like, there's no way I'll do it after I drop off my kids. Right. No, I'm not doing it at all. Just so you know, if the water's not mommy temperature, I'm not getting in. That's awesome. That's what we call it in my house. Mommy. Temperature? Yep. I grew up in Buffalo. I was cold for three years.
No. There, is no cold punch. I get it. No, this is awesome. So, um, shoot. Yeah, we're closing up on time, but it's awesome talking Nia. Um, yes. I always ask if there's one thing, the drop a mic kind of comment. One thing that you want our listeners to take out of this, what is it? I think it [00:40:00] really is going back to the best time to grow is when you don't have to.
Because we don't do that. Right. I'm not backing up all of my systems until my systems failed, uh, correctly anyway. Yeah. Right. And because I didn't invest the time, I didn't think I needed to. We don't listen to the people that have come now. I think the world's getting a little different.
'cause we do have a lot of physician coaches. We've got people taking different routes. Yeah. So you can't really say you're not exposed anymore. Well, you probably can't because if you don't sit in circles like we do, you're not exposed. I'm just about to say like, I didn't know this at all. This wellness, the physician coaching ever existed until I stumbled on it and I wouldn't have known.
Right. Because, you know, you're earning. 2, 3, 4, whatever, and you're just kind of happy, you know, doing that life. But you're right, it's a golden handcuffs, right? You just, oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. there's no push to look out there because one, you think [00:41:00] that this is normal and this is just the way it has to be, right?
And you think you can handle it. No. and then you talk to people like us now and you're like, oh, those guys are weirdos. I don't know. I don't know about them, right? For real. No. Right. Like, what am I gonna do? Sit behind a computer and talk to patients? Not Oh, absolutely. How boring.
How boring. You know, your life can be happy. You could have your own schedule. Whatever, whatever. those guys scrape the bottom of the barrel in residency. Those guys suck. Right. So, yeah. That is so funny though. But it's so true. And you know, someone out there listening right now is saying they're full of crap.
They're not. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And a lot of people that are coach, you just have to show 'em sometimes. And I hate it. I'm like, uh, you know, this is kinda my schedule. I'm kind of what I do now. And yeah. And they're like, oh, but still, it does take time. Right? It does take time and reassurance and inevitably you're gonna have them come back and be like.
This is a bunch of bs. You know, it's probably like the third, fourth month, and you're like, this is a [00:42:00] bunch of bs. Go F yourself. I'm like, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. Come on back. We talked about this was gonna happen, right? Yeah. We knew this was gonna happen, right? We knew you were gonna get angry.
'cause they're going to hit that point. Yeah, no, absolutely. They're going to hit that point where they're gonna give up. Yeah. Or they're gonna wanna give up. It's too hard and here's what always happens. It's just easier to work another shift. It is. Right. Until it isn't. It's planned for you. Right,
Like and when you went telemedicine, how well were you at organization Right in shift. I'm terrible. I'm still like, same. It was easy doing shifts. These are the shifts you're working, and when you're not, you're not. Right. But now you have to be like, oh, I got time blocks and what am I gonna put in 'em?
And I gotta stick to 'em. And you know, you're not really, the only one that's keeping yourself accountable, right? Yeah. So it's like, oh, okay. And if you don't create those systems, you are toast. No, you're done. You're done. You can't just be like, oh, I'm just gonna wing. We're so good at winging things.
Right, right. And I'm like, [00:43:00] yeah, it's definitely different . Still working on it. Still working on it. I was gonna say, and it's a work in progress, right? Because if you look at someone, one of my coaches is. he's a non-medical founder, but he is been in the telemedicine space for between 10 and 15 years.
And I, if I told you the companies he has founded and or consulted in, you're like, sometimes I'm like, how am I in this room? And it's, funny, you get in these spaces and you're like, okay, right. This is big. Right. But he is so much better. He saw my calendar 'cause I was sharing my screen to show him something else and my calendar popped up and it's like, oh, I could frame that.
And he was so proud of me. That's awesome. But you didn't learn that in med school? No. Oh God, no. No. you just had to trudge through it. Yeah. You just had to get done by seven o'clock so you could present on rounds. Oh gosh. I was never done at seven . D that bring up that visceral Oh, it's four in the morning and you can't get your crap done.
Right. I was just thinking, I haven't had my third capsule of caffeine yet to [00:44:00] get this done. You know, it's like that's what I needed to get through rounds. It was like, oh, man. And then there was always the person asking you questions that you're right. I'll never forget Hemoglobin's 10.
Exactly. 10. Yeah, right. Exactly. 10. Right. Oh, mine was, what diet do you want? And I'm like, I'm an ER guy. Right. We don't order diet. Like I don't care. Yeah. NPO don't care. Don't care if they ever eat again. Right. Food. Not gonna kill 'em. Whatever. The nurses and whatever they eat today isn't gonna kill 'em either.
Uh, gosh. No, that brings me back. It's like PTSD all over again. Right. Let me just throw that at you. Well, hey, thank you so much for taking your time today. It was a pleasure talking to you. How do our listeners, find you, how do they find a MS? How do they find your coaching business? you definitely have pearls to give.
how can I find you? Yeah, no, I love to chat with people for sure. Fastest way to get to me is DM me on Instagram. It's, I'm at Dr. Mo Gibbons, D-R-M-O-E-G-I-B-B-O-N-S. Like the [00:45:00] monkeys? No, everywhere on socials, but DM me on Instagram or just go to dr mo coaching.com. And a MS now has its own space.
We're pretty excited about that. That's pretty recent. So, I mean, it's had its own website, but we're also on Instagram at AMS Lifestyle Med. Um, but you can go to AMS Lifestyle Medicine to check out the practice if you're like, so what did she actually create? That's that. But if you wanna come to me, it's, dr mo coaching.com.
Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Mo. Um, you know, maybe we could have you back sometime too, just as a follow to see how everything's going. I love talking to you and I think, we're on the same kind of path and same kind of thought process. So, um, thank you everybody for joining at telemedicine Talks.
Um, if you want to drop us line at info@telemedicinetax.com, please do and we will see you next time.