Flourishing in Medicine: From Surviving to Thriving Podcast Episode 3 Dr. Jillian Horton
Listen to Episode 3 Below:
Show Notes:
The guest for this podcast was Dr. Jillian Horton. Dr. Jillian Horton, a general internist who has served in multiple leadership positions at the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College of Medicine in Winnipeg. These have included: the inaugural Director of the college’s Faculty of Health Sciences programs in Physician and Learner Wellness; Director of the Alan Klass Health Humanities Program; and Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Horton has also served as the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs at the medical college. She has won numerous awards for mentorship, professionalism, and teaching.
Dr. Horton co-authored a poignant graphic novel, Medicine, which focuses on the intense challenges of a medical student. Her latest book, We Are All Perfectly Fine, a Canadian bestseller is a memoir about mindfulness, and reclaiming our full humanity – and a call to reimagining medical education. I encourage you to read this beautifully written, highly personal, provocative, humbling, and at times shocking look into bringing oneself completely to the serving of others in the medical profession.
During today’s conversation, Dr. Jillian Horton shares stories of how the resiliency within her family upbringing contributed to her choice of medicine as a profession and vocation. She speaks of how the character of Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series MASH and the persona of Alan Alda has been a blueprint for her survival. She challenges the pursuit of joy in medicine and has us instead examine deeply what is meant by joy and how we must first attend to foundational needs among the hierarchy of needs found in experiencing this human existence. She explores how relativism can often discount the need for humanism and the importance of meeting each person where they are in the medical encounter. The power of deep listening and the centrality of presence are messages she lives and offers as gifts for us to explore as we work towards flourishing in medicine.
Guest: Jillian Horton, MD
Mentioned or referenced during the podcast:
Med Life with Dr. Horton Podcast
Jillian Horton on Storytelling to Address Burnout, American Medical Association
About the graphic novel Medicine, by Dr. Horton
Canadian bestseller We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing by Dr. Horton