115. Zero Warning | Scott Weingart on frameworks for no-notice critical patients

When a critical patient lands on your department's doorstep without prior notice, even the most seasoned professionals can find themselves momentarily at a loss — wondering what steps to take first and how to prioritize actions in those crucial initial seconds. What do I do first, what do I do next? What’s REALLY important in the first few seconds? In this episode, emergency intensivist and physician coach Scott Weingart breaks down how to get your mind unstuck and move into action. 

Guest Bio: Scott Weingart, MD is a physician coach and emergency department intensivist from New York. He did fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and ECMO. He is best known for talking about Resuscitation and Critical Care on the EMCRIT podcast , which has been downloaded > 40 million times.


Awake and Aware | Our 2024 Live Event

Join us at Awake and Aware 2024, a transformative 3-day workshop from May 1st to 3rd in Bend, Oregon. Focusing on interactive experiences, this event offers a unique opportunity to reset, reflect, and connect with like-minded individuals. Limited slots.

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CME? Yes! This is a CME event

The Flameproof Course | Self-mastery and anti-burnout

This 6 month, bi-weekly course will make you so burnout-resistant that when they tell you to see 5 patients an hour with only a rusty spoon in your pocket and a unit clerk at your side, you will just smile (results not guaranteed).

The next cohort begins Feb 1, 2024. Learn more here.

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4 free resources specifically designed to address pain points in emergency medicine practice



For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website


We Discuss: 

  • Temporizing vs. Stabilizing: Why Seconds Count but Don't Really Count
  • The Emergency Action Drill
  • Get Off the Spot: Taking Action to Get Out of the White Noise
  • Beat The Stress Fool: Breathe, Self Talk, See (Mental Rehearsal), Focus with a Trigger Word
  • Using Operant Conditioning to Train a De-escalating Trigger Word
  • You Don't Need to Be Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: The Critical Steps to Start Unfreezing
  • The transition from temporizing to definitive care in a trauma arrest
  • Why ACLS Fails as an Emergency Action Drill: Strategy vs Logistics
  • The Reason Why Cognitive Freeze Happens in a Zero Warning Critical Situation
  • How to Craft Your Own Emergency Action Drills: The Difference Between Thinky Time and Pure Action
  • Building an...

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