The Emergency Mind Podcast

Patrick Pollock, veterinary surgeon and One Health academic who builds remote and rural veterinary programs, discusses the collision of people, animals, and complex systems. He talks about why animals complicate rescues, horse senses and hidden risks, training trade-offs between calling experts and cross-training, and practical system fixes for safer, coordinated responses.

Christine Stead, CEO of ELSO and leader in global ECMO coordination, shares how networks of people, data, and organizations drive innovation. She recounts rapid data-sharing during COVID, the shift from centralized labs to collaborative systems, challenges of crisis decision-making, and bold ideas for expanding ECMO access through coordinated EMS, transport, and engineering advances.

What do theater, crisis response, military service, and social work have in common? In this episode of The Emergency Mind Podcast, Dan Dworkis sits down with Adam Milano to explore a powerful idea: high-performance teamwork under pressure looks a lot like ensemble art.

Marius Aleksa, a performance advisor who coaches elite athletes, military, and medical professionals, explains why curiosity fuels growth under pressure. He discusses using questions to reveal hidden strengths, integrate mental and physical support, and build reliable foundations. Short, practical approaches help performers notice choices and create systems that extend their limits.

Annie, a neonatal resuscitation clinician, Patrick Hetrick Schauenberg, a surgeon-intensivist training mission-critical teams, and Preston Klein, CEO of the Mission Critical Team Institute, discuss what team performance means in crises. They explore measuring performance beyond outcomes, simple signals like willingness to rejoin, process and behavioral markers, trust and adaptability, measurement fatigue, and how team identity and environment shape sustained performance.

In this discussion, trauma surgeon Eric Benoit, visual neuroscientist Zab Johnson, risk management researcher Jay Bologna, and critical care expert Ayan Sen share insights into the nuances of measuring team performance. They explore how teams often fixate on outcomes instead of processes, the perils of subjective self-assessment, and the importance of after-action reviews. Ayan highlights efforts to develop cardiac arrest team scores, while Zab opens up on neuroscience metrics of teamwork. The panel emphasizes trust, leadership, and the integration of creative friction as keys to enhancing performance.

What happens when life-and-death decisions must be made by a team rather than an individual? In this episode, Dr. Mark Ramzy — cardiothoracic intensivist, emergency physician, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of REBEL EM — joins us to explore how teams think, decide, and act under pressure inside the ICU

What happens when life depends on perfect coordination between human and machine? In this episode, Thomas Preston — a veteran ECMO expert and executive leader at Integration Health — joins us to explore the high-stakes world of ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) and the complex teamwork it demands.

Harry Moffitt, a corporate psychologist and former SAS member, dives into the concept of modern stoicism and high performance. He introduces the idea of philosophy as the fourth pillar of human performance alongside physical, psychological, and social facets. Moffitt highlights the need to preserve humanity in today's fast-paced world and emphasizes practical philosophical practices for daily life. He encourages everyone to engage with philosophy actively, using metaphors that foster growth rather than mechanistic views, ultimately advocating for a balanced, fulfilling existence.

How do complex systems shape the emergencies we face—and how can understanding them help you perform when it matters most? In this episode, I talk with epidemiologist and emergency responder Geoff Dougherty about how complexity science shows up everywhere from individual patient care to statewide population health. We dig into what makes a system complex, why small changes can have massive effects, and how feedback loops, phase transitions, and path dependence shape what actually happens under pressure.