Emergency Medicine Collective Wisdom: Victoria Brazil

Author: Victoria Brazil, MBBS, MBA, FACEM (Professor of Emergency Medicine, Bond University, Gold Coast Health Service) // Edited by: Alex Koyfman, MD (@EMHighAK) and Brit Long, MD (@long_brit)

1) Why still Emergency Medicine?

-Variety of patients and the chance to be involved at critical moments in their health and lives.

-Camaraderie of ED team work.

-Opportunities to balance other work with part-time clinical ED work.

2) Most impactful case

My own intermittent complete heart block and subsequent pacemaker. Made me realise that fit and healthy 33-year-old women with normal baseline ECG and dizzy spells really might have something wrong with them…

Has also adversely influenced my bikini wearing… 🙂

3) Most important career decision leading to satisfaction

Getting involved in education and healthcare simulation very early in my career. So much fun and so many friends as a result.

4) What does future of EM look like?

-I think the perfect storm of financial constraints, increasing patient expectations, and increasing complexity will be hard to manage.

-Masters of EM will be masters of complexity.

-Technology has to be bent to our will – it’s not right now.

5) Greatest achievement / why giving back is important

-Maintaining a sense of humour.

-Having more than 10 years of Education and Simulation Fellows and student electives in medical education is an extraordinary learning experience.

-Changing my own view of healthcare simulation – to be a service within a health service and to be directly targeting patient outcomes.

6) Favorite failure

-Not being able to stay up late – I tend to be pretty hopeless after 8pm.

-Not taking holidays… but only a ‘favourite’ because my work is diverse and interesting enough (or at least that’s what I tell myself…).

7) One thing you would change about our field

Rampant tribalism – when our pride in our specialty becomes toxic through belief that others are not also great. (I would change that about our field and others).

8) Something that you love that has indirectly impacted your EM career

Growing up in rural Australia on a farm taught me self-reliance, risk taking, and problem solving… I think the trendy folks call it a ‘growth mindset’ now. (Although it also probably made me oblivious to safety issues – 6 year olds in machinery sheds… Really Dad?)

3 people you’d like to see fill this out:

1) Victoria Stephen

2) Shahina Braganza

3) Adam Cheng