Voices in my Head!

So I spoke to a group of almost 170 residents and fellows the other night, regarding a program realignment. The residency and fellowship programs will now be managed by the hospital; the former dean of the medical school is now my peer. This is great, as my new peer is a take-no-prisoner kind of guy who gets things done.

Anyway, I'm working with the Director of Clinical Integration to create process improvement groups to attack each of the CMS indicators and Value-Based Purchasing metrics. This is a huge program that CMS put into place to ensure that patients, particularly patients the government pays for, receive excellent care and great clinical outcomes. So I got up there to talk about myself, how I fit in with the residents, and how we're all going to be holding hands and singing "Kum Ba Ya" as we climb the Value-Based Purchasing hill together.

While I like public speaking and get a high from it, it's almost as though I have a double-personality. One part of my brain is speaking confidently about the matter at hand and the other part of me is saying "What would happen if I barfed right now?" Or, "What if I pass out right here with a massive stroke?" Then my brain calms down because, even though the residents and fellows are still in the midst of their training, they ARE doctors. So that helps.

It's funny, though. Whenever I speak to groups more than 40, those two sentiments go through my head. I don't get nervous before speaking and maybe it's my brains way of HINTING that I SHOULD be nervous. I just hope I don't cross the wires someday and the confident side of my brain throws a random question into the presentation: "What if I barf?"