 Alright guys, welcome to another episode in the MD journey. Today I'm super excited because we are doing one of our first interviews here on the channel and on the podcast. I couldn't think of anyone better to begin that process with than one of my good friends, Tommy Martin, and he is an absolute rock star at all the different aspects of his life. He's going to give you examples of why that's true. But more importantly, he's going to show you how you can become the rock star in your own life. So stay tuned, enjoy the conversation. If you're coming from Tommy's channel and you're new to ours, consider subscribing and liking this video. And if you're unfamiliar with Tommy, then he will let you know where he thinks is best for you to follow him and learn more about him. And I will put all that information in the description as well as the show notes for the podcast. But hopefully you guys enjoy it. We'll talk to you soon. Alright guys, welcome to another episode in the TMJ show and MD journey today. I'm super excited because, you know, we wanted to get some guests on that could go ahead and speak to the mission that we do here at TMJ and MD journey, which is to help people on a medical journey, motivate them, encourage them. And I was thinking of people that we can go ahead and get on this channel, get on the podcast. The first person that came to my mind was one of my friends, Tommy, huge influencer on Instagram. He is an amazing guy from Missouri. Interesting. Also did his medical school in the Caribbean. That's where he met his now wife and they together went ahead and got couples matched to the University of Arkansas where both of them are doing their internal medicine and pediatric residency. He's currently finishing up his second year. But in addition to all the medicine stuff, again, the reason that wanted him on is just he is amazing at having balance. So he's a freakish athlete. That's definitely something we'll talk about. And he's just he's just a well rounded guy. So Tommy, welcome to the TMJ show. Thank you so much for being a part of it. Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. It's definitely an honor and I love the opportunity to speak to medical students and hopefully, you know, future doctors and encourage them along their journey. Yeah, so we'll talk a little bit about that. I kind of want to start tradition because you'll be one of the first guests that we have here on the channel. And so, you know, there's obviously the part of being able to share something about yourself that tell me about yourself that we kind of can all figure out through Instagram. But what's something that people don't know about you? Hmm. You know, that's a tough one. I'm a very open person. You know, like, I think I have most of my life on either Instagram, TikTok, YouTube on some social media platform. So that's a hard one. So something that people I mean, people that know me really well would know this and this is just something weird and strange. But I used to be addicted to ranch dressing. So I would eat about three bottles a week of ranch dressing. And I would eat it literally on everything from hot dogs, pizza, chili, eggs, biscuits, like anything in the world that you could imagine I'd eat on and I quit. Oh, I went through, you know, the seven step or 10 step program, whatever it is, and got over my addiction. I think when I was 21, and I haven't had ranch dressing since that day. 28 now. So seven years clean. Seven years hiatus from that's, that's a very good place to start. So like I mentioned, you know, we can we can take this conversation so many ways, based off of just your background, your experience. One of the places that I think is a cool place to start because personally, I don't have experience through this. And I know a lot of our listeners may want to know more information. You obviously did medical school in the Caribbean. So like walk me through that process, like, what was your experience like? What did you think of it after finishing? Yeah, for sure. And I'm going to tell you, I'll start even from high school, just give people a little bit of my background and then go on to going to the Caribbean. And partly it's because I think I'm kind of atypical, you know, I am a first generation doctor. And neither of my parents finished high school. And so I think that's, you know, kind of unique as well. In my parents that ever told me that I had to be a doctor or be some kind of prestigious, have a prestigious career, they told me whatever I love, that's what I need to do. But from a very young age, seeing my parents struggle financially, struggle in their careers, and seeing their work ethic, I think gave me the work ethic I have in all areas of my life. Now, I remember my mom going to work, you know, like at six in the morning and coming home at seven at night and would be black from head to toe, from working at a scrapyard all day long, you know, and she did that to provide for us. And I think I took that work ethic that I saw that my parents had, and I applied that to every avenue of my life. And so I tell that just to tell any medical students or premed students that are out there, like, do not let your current situation or your family situation hold you back. Like you can literally achieve anything in this world that you want if you have the hard work and the work ethic to do so. And so regardless where you're at right now, if it's your dream to become a doctor, you can do it. Okay. And so with that, I worked my butt off, I graduated high school as valedictorian. And then I went to college out in Salina, Kansas, small school, Kansas Wesleyan University where I played football. I graduated there in three years in a degree of biomedical chemistry. I graduated with like a 3.89 GPA, I believe, and took the MCAT I did not study on for the impact. And so I know that's so dumb, right? And so like I didn't study, because I'd always done well on exams. I always, you know, had a high GPA. And I honestly was pretty ignorant. I was very naive and didn't know that it was not really a test based off of your science knowledge, but you really need to study for this exam. And so I probably made the lowest score in the history of the MCAT. You know, and so with that being said, I decided to apply anyway. And I ended up, it was like late November, December, I applied to St. George's University, which I didn't know anything about. But my aunt, who's a doctor here in Arkansas, her boss is like a big time doctor. He told me I should definitely apply there that I'd be done not to try it. Well, I applied in December got accepted and left in January. And so then for those that don't know much about their Caribbean medical schools, you know, there is definitely a stigma about them. And partly that is because one, getting into it's easier. And so you do not have to have as high of an MCAT score. You do not have to have as high of a GPA. And they take a lot more people. And so that alone makes people automatically, you know, think that it's like not nearly as good. And then also, it's a lot harder to get a residency when you get out. And so people need to keep that in mind when they're applying to Caribbean medical schools and know that there could be some really big challenges that come ahead of time. Okay. And then so my experience at a Caribbean medical school, I could only speak on St. George's University, because that's where I went. But it was awesome. I love every single second of it. It was looking for I was waiting for you to tell me that. Yeah. So it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. I'll be completely honest. But it was also the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I'm a little biased because I met my beautiful wife there. Right. And so we love it. And we fell in love there. And so we definitely have a lot of special memories. But so you do two years in the Caribbean. And that's like all of your book work. And after that, you take step one. And if you pass step one, then you go on to clinical rotations. And if you go to St. George's, most of them will be on the East Coast. And so we were in New Jersey and New York for two years. And then we applied to residency and couples matched here at Arkansas. Wow. So I there's so many things about that that resonates similar to my journey. In fact, I have my parents both, you know, blue collar workers barely saw them in the morning, barely saw them on night. But the hard work basically told you kind of what you could do, right? So I think that your story about your mom totally hit home. I'm actually surprised. So I don't know if this is something that's typical for Caribbean schools or if it's particular to St. George, but is it normal to do your rotations back in the States or do some institutions continue to do it in the Caribbean? Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And again, I can only speak for St. George's and a couple others. You know, I think Ross and AUA, I think they do their rotations back in the United States as well. Again, I'm not 100% sure, but I think a lot of the big time, big time Caribbean medical schools would do their rotations back in the U.S. Interesting. That's something I didn't know. So that's that's good insight for me. So what is let's just say somebody is considering going to Caribbean school and they're aware that, you know, it may be easier to get into your definitely have to work your butt off to get back into residency. What's kind of things do you would you give to advice, you know, somebody that's already gotten into the Caribbean school or is doing, you know, their training there to potentially get a good residency spot when they come back? Yeah, so it changes a little bit now that step one is past fail, right? And so that definitely changes things. So one thing that they could do is study hard and make sure I have a high GPA. Now, I don't think that residency programs are still going to put a ton of weight on GPA, but now that step one is out of the picture, you need to make sure you have a good GPA and past step one. And so first and foremost, past step one and have a good GPA. I think those are huge things. Another thing is that in doing those two things, that's going to prepare them to do well on step two CK. And so I think step two CK now is going to be what residency programs like anchor everything on. This is great. Yeah, that's what they're going to look at, right? And so the hard thing is like IMGs or Caribbean medical students used to have a second chance, right? Like they did okay on step one but maybe didn't do their greatest. Well now they have a second chance to crush step two CK. Well that second chance is taken away now, right? So now you have to crush it on your first go. And so don't fail step one, crush step two CK and that alone I think would get them a ton of residency interviews. But then outside of that is when I was at St. George's, the opportunity for community service is huge. We were able to do so many things around the island. Like we, there's a school that the restroom facilities were just destroyed, looked terrible. Like I wouldn't let my dog go to the bathroom there, let alone any child go to the bathroom there. And so we were fortunate enough to raise money. A group of us raised, I think it was like 20,000 EC which is equivalent to like eight thousand or nine thousand dollars US within six days and refurnish their bathrooms. You know and so doing, doing things like that and we raise money this in children across the sea to Jamaica to get surgeries done. They couldn't have them done in Grenada. And so doing things like that that you're passionate about, that you love, that you can put on your resume, I think is also pretty big. All right, no it's really helpful. I think, I think that that message kind of correlates with anybody regardless if you're, you know, doing your training here, especially what's, what step one becoming pass fail. In my opinion, I don't know where you stand on this, but I do think having the emphasis on step two CK lines up with more of what you actually need to know as a doctor, you know, you especially as a second-year resident. I don't know how much of your step one knowledge you remember, but mine is pretty close to zero at this point. Yeah, there we go. So just, just what are, you know, our viewers to know that you don't really take that knowledge much, much further than that's day. But yeah, I think that's, that message of just focusing on really what matters, which is making sure you're doing well on your classes, you're learning how to become a good physician, and ideally that helps you on step two CK, but then obviously doing the humanistic parts of medicine that we're kind of built to do, right? You spoke about amazing community service projects, but people can do that in so many different avenues whether that's helping one individual that's interested in medicine or, you know, that's interested in public health to taking it in the form of, you know, international global health like you were speaking of. For sure, and you know, that's why we're doing what we're doing right now, right? Like the whole reason for this podcast is to help others, you know, like to encourage others. And I think that doing things like this, whether it be like raising money for those things that I talked about doing these podcasts, talking to my people on TikTok over here, whatever it is, like this helps us and inspires us and I think helps prevent burnout, you know? And so like as we do these things and pour ourselves into these people, we're doing it, yes, out of selflessness to help them, but also out of selfishness which this gives us energy, this gives us fuel. Totally, totally gives us life, you know? And so, you know. So I want to kind of go there because I think like we mentioned, like this is something that we have on the side, you know, we're both physicians, we can come home and we can do the typical work long hours, come home, you know, hang out with their significant other and go to sleep and repeat. And we probably see a lot of examples, you know, you have your residency program and definitely me at mine where it feels like everyone's just physicians or a medical student for a majority of their lives, a majority of their day. What have been some things that you have done to manage that balance? You know, we spoke about having something to give us energy, but what other things do you find keeps you going and avoids that burnout? Yeah, for sure. And so there's a couple things I do every single day no matter what. So first thing, I usually wake up at 4 a.m. every single day and then I start my journaling. And the first thing I keep in my mind is that being a doctor is part of my life. It is not my life. Okay. And so that being a doctor does not define me. Okay. It's just one little segment into my life and I have to make sure all these other areas that help define the whole part of who I am are included. And so at 4 a.m. I remember I being a doctor is part of my life. It is not my life. And then with that I write down like three goals of mine that I have for that day. And then after that I write down my why. Like why it is that I am a doctor. Why it is that I want to wake up and do this. Why it is I want to go to the hospital and serve with all my heart. And then I Bible study, work out, get to the hospital. And so and then before those things I also make a daily plan to kind of fill in everything else. So in short I would say things that I do to help me prevent burnout is remember that being a doctor is not my life. I remember my why every single day. I make sure to include my hobbies such as fitness, family, faith. And then I rely on God a lot for strength to keep me going every day. And then do things that give you stress relief and making sure to get adequate sleep. So it sounds like a lot. But if you make it like a detailed schedule and I have my schedule is like what I call the unbreakable schedule. If you do that and do it every single day and make sure you do things that destress you. I think burnout kind of burns out. So you mentioned two phrases that like one the last one burnout kind of burns out. I should be on a teacher for sure. But definitely something that I really enjoy which is you know doctor is a part of my life but it's not my life right? Like it's the idea that it's not about fitting yourself into medical school or you're filling your life into medical school that's fitting medical school into your life. And as you kind of mentioned at the very end like when people talk and they see examples of people they want to emulate that they want to have like that stress relief kind of Aurora around. Sometimes they see everything they do and they get overwhelmed that maybe it's not possible for them. I enjoy your concept of them breakable schedule. I think one thing that I remember giving tips to especially as my former self when I was learning and realizing that I was getting not burnt out but realizing I wasn't able to enjoy everything the way I wanted to was simply giving myself something as it started today. For me it was my workout just like you you know waking up at four or five and getting that fitness in. And at the end of the day like I hate it I don't know if it's true for you but I hated that part of like studying and going straight to bed. It made me feel like my day was like it started with med school and ended with med school or start with residency and vice versa. So if you're struggling you're listening to this and you see two people with examples that clearly enjoying their lives while medicine is a part of it. I'd recommend you know like Tommy mentioned having some form of unbreakable priorities or schedule where you start in with something that's you know special to you and then build from there. Yeah and then one thing that I should have touched on more because I kind of rambled there for a little bit is like there are some pillars that I would say that helps prevent burnout and one would be your health. And so with that just eating eating a balanced diet making sure to get seven to nine hours of sleep at night and people laugh oh I'm a resident I can't do that yes you can. And having that unbreakable schedule helps with that and then exercise daily. So in the health pillar it's sleep exercise and good nutrition and then I think for like your emotional pillar that is like for me that'd be my faith my relationship with my wife and my relationship with my friends and family and so making sure you include those in your day every single day and then the last one I think would be like kind of like a motivation pillar and what is it that keeps you going every single day and that's what I was talking about in the morning when I write down my why when I write down my why not only am I writing it down but I'm reflecting on all these like big magic moments that I've had with patients right where like a patient told me that I made a difference in their life where I went off of four hours of sleep even though I shouldn't have been lacking that much sleep I went to work anyway and I did the right things for this patient spend extra time praying with her or him and they told me that I changed their life when you hold on to that that's when burnout burns out right that's when like tiredness isn't a thing that's where your motivation is lacking because you're remembering these things and it's going to get you jacked out of your face to go to work every single day totally I think I think we have the same concept I call it my golden nugget where like every time you have one of those awesome patient experiences or life experiences you just when you feel demotivated you're like well what was the last time I felt amazing and it was like the effort that I spent in that patient room or studying for that exam you know if you're a student was it worth it to get the result that I did and if you crush your your your test or you you felt amazing about the patient interaction you had the answer is always yes and so when you're feeling demotivated and you can walk into that patient's room or wake up in the morning say I'm going to try to make a difference I may not do it to the level that I did on that golden nugget but maybe I can get one later this week and that definitely keeps me driving forward I'm glad that we have that concept you know between us yeah for sure I agree completely so another element of your balance that we got to touch on because I am nowhere at the level that you are and I want to know you know how how you clearly got to this point or we got to talk about your fitness man it's clearly on another level like where is the background where did it get started and then you know we'll touch on most importantly how you're able to manage to incorporate that in a busy residency medical school life yeah for sure so you know fitness I would say it's always been part of my life not necessarily fitness but getting stronger getting faster getting bigger because I started playing football at a young age going into third grade is when I started and I started lifting weights going into the fifth grade and so I started lifting weights and doing like athletic type things at a very young age and it was just for performance or to do good at football I ended up I was really overweight in elementary school and going into high school I was sick of everyone making fun of me so I decided to I think you have a good picture on your Instagram showing that right yeah I definitely do yeah so I was pretty I was pretty overweight and it was sick of people making fun of me so I lost on the weight well then I got made fun of for being too small and that I couldn't play football being that small and so I was like you know what I'm going to lift weights all the time even more and so I just fell in love with lifting and then I ended up going to college football and that's really where my passion for lifting and studying it and learning the knowledge behind building muscle and things of that happened in undergrad and then it was like I'm going to be as big as possible I'm going to be as strong as possible and so I was literally just lifting the ton eating the ton and so at that time fitness I wouldn't say was a priority but bodybuilding or weightlifting that was a priority now I was eating absurd amount of food at that time weight a ton but then after college I then found a passion for fitness what I mean by that is all-encompassing you know like exercise nutrition the foods you eat all that sleep hygiene everything that's when I really fell in love with fitness and but at that time I still was not into any kind of cardiovascular activity whatsoever if anybody asked me to run I would ask them what's chasing us you know like yeah like I was not for that at all and then I met my beautiful wife and I met her at 5 a.m. in the gym and she says I don't know if this is true but she says that I said that if she were to lift with me I would run with her now I don't know if I buy that I don't know if I ever said that I would ever run for any reason but I ran with her and we went on a 10 mile run I had a stress fracture couldn't walk for like a week it destroyed me great start to a relationship yeah but that's kind of how I got into endurance sports and then two years later I had ran nine marathons I ran a marathon with a 20 pound best a 40 pound best I qualified for the Boston marathon and I did all that while maintaining my muscle mass and then here recently I decided during my intern year I wanted to challenge myself and kind of show that you can maintain health and fitness during residency and I thought the best way to do that would be to complete a full distance Ironman and so I did that this past year during intern year congratulations that's huge oh thank you thank you so that's kind of the whole journey that's absolutely insane I'll give our listeners a second to like pause and just like let their mind be blown because like you know I've always been somebody that like gives you the tips to do your minimal amount of fitness to keep yourself energetic and like you mentioned have that energy and keep yourself healthy right you don't want to be a physician and not be able to take care of yourself but you clearly taken it to a different stratosphere to challenge yourself so it's super motivational to see you know I definitely this year actually signed up for my first marathon and the unfortunately it got postponed because of our current COVID situation but we will we will run it but the story from that is interesting because I could get up and run a couple of miles but it was never like something again who was chasing me as a concept if I was running I remember coming my wife and I we went to vacation after like it was my first vacation in residency for two weeks so we went to Denver we came back and we clearly didn't follow your diet tips so we felt awful when we came back and so I woke up the next day when we got back home tossed and which is where my family lives and just decided to run I told myself I'm gonna run as far as I can one way and then you have no choice but you have to run back and I ended up doing I think it was like 12 miles oh wow and so you know if you can get up and force yourself to run X amount of miles and you can do like the next challenge for some people that may be just doing a mile or 5k so I just signed up for a marathon but just like you you know you got to find time you can find the time to do those long runs and training so I'm looking forward to it I'll keep using you as a motivation to make sure that I don't miss out on those workouts yeah for sure and for the listeners like know that you do not have to do this absurd amount of thing like you don't have to run a marathon you don't have to do an Ironman you know I do it for you know specific reasons but for you guys you know just doing exercise daily you know like the recommendation is like 150 minutes a week and the American Heart Association has researched to show that up to six hours or more has been proven to be beneficial without being harmful and so you could definitely do a lot of cardiovascular activity and be very beneficial but you don't have to and so my advice in terms of fitness is one do what you love two do it often and that's it you know and so I think if you could implement some sort of cardio and some sort of strength training you'll be good to go and it'll be cold then no that's that's awesome man I'm glad that we can simplify for the people who have no desire to get into a gym or put on their running shoes but there's also people that probably want to see you know examples of individuals you more than I of clearly going out there and putting in the work outside of the hospital and bettering their life which is awesome so I want to wrap up with one last thing you know we've talked about balance and you mentioned some of your pillars your being one of them being that your family's a huge one you know we've talked about your wife a lot in this conversation but I know you're expecting to have a new baby boy join your life so tell me about the inside of how that goes that's another wrinkle all right like being becoming a dad in medicine in residency like what's been the challenges so far have you overcome it and then what kind of things are you planning on doing you know when the little one ends up coming to the world yeah for sure and so just in general like to have a healthy relationship in residency can be very challenging you know my wife is a resident as well and so both of us our time is very precious and very contracted there's not a lot of it and so with that we make sure that every single Friday no matter what we have a date night that we have pizza somewhere where like all social media is away all cell phones are away that is just the two of us every single Friday from the time we're off work till the time we go to bed and that's I would say is huge for us and then outside of that is every single night every single day we make sure to have time carved out for one another and so for us that's after we get home and our workouts are done usually from about 8 p.m till the time we go to bed it could be like seven if we get home earlier and have dinner together and stuff but we make sure to have that time and so having that special time together is very very important for a healthy relationship and then having a kid during residency you know it's comes with its challenges right now we have not experienced too much of them I haven't anyway because she's the one carrying the baby and dealing with morning sickness for her the first 14 weeks were pretty brutal she had morning sickness every single day and just to kind of make a statement of how much of a rock star my wife is not only was she 12 weeks pregnant not only was she working full time as a resident working full time as a wonderful wife but she also trained and completed a half iron man being 12 weeks pregnant and sick yeah so she is a rock star and she's just incredible and so you know I'd say the biggest challenges were those first 20 weeks when she was really sick a lot of the time now we're about to experience challenges of having daycare we don't have family nearby that would be able to babysit and things so trying to find daycare is definitely a challenge right now we're on every weighting list possible and we're only on spot number 50 and so we'll have to see how that works out well I mean I have no doubt that just listening about you and your wife throughout this conversation that you guys are going to be amazing parents so clearly you will make your child another part of your pillars and you'll find time to fit them in yeah so Tommy thank you so much this was an amazing conversation hopefully the listeners can get the energy behind just like what you're saying which is you know you are a doctor but a doctor doesn't consume your entire life and you can totally burn out burnout you're a perfect example of this I want to always end these interviews with something special which is we always give advice and sometimes advice is a little loose-ended but I think the best advice that we can give other people is what advice we would would we have given to our former self so put yourself back in that shoes of that early medical student you know deer in the headlight wanting to do this and looking at yourself now what's the biggest piece of advice you'd give yourself yeah of course I'd say that the biggest piece of advice that I'd give myself is to not give up in that at the end of the journey the hands that you hold when one of your patients are going to lose one of their loved ones and the conversations you have at bedside and the person's most desperate position they've ever been in in the most cherished moments of their life in the hardest moments of their life the hugs that you have after you've made the diagnosis that no one else could make tears that you share when you have helped someone be cured of cancer like all of those moments make all the struggles that you guys are currently go through so worth it and so do not give up always look towards the big goal and the light at the end of the tunnel because I promise you it's worth it I can't add anything better my friend so Tommy where can our listeners learn more about you find you you know this is your red carpet tell me tell me where they can learn more about you and where they should go for sure so you get a I love to have you guys join my Instagram family or my TikTok family and you can do that by just going to doctor.tommymartin you can find both of my accounts there and then on YouTube if you just search Tommy Martin I think you should be able to find my YouTube channel as well so I'd love to have you guys join all my platforms and join the family well be sure to put your links in all the descriptions but to all my listeners you know this is a perfect example of somebody we should try to emulate definitely a great position just from that last segment and cares about his patients but is able to balance that's the whole idea that both of us are trying to get across is that you can do this if you're early on you know don't feel like your background like both of us precede you or prevents you from becoming a great physician or becoming a physician in the first place but once you're down that line you know you don't have to be the burnt out tired doctor that starts to enjoy their life at 32 Tommy's a great example of how that's not true so definitely follow him on all his platforms we'll link it down below Tommy my friend it's been real thank you for joining us and hopefully we can have you on a future episode once we get a little bit further down on the TMJ thanks man for so much for joining of course thank you for having me all right guys hopefully you guys enjoy this conversation this interview that I had with Tommy again amazing guy definitely check out all of his Instagram his TikTok and all of his other social media platforms down below and also wish him congratulations because since the recording of his video him and his wife Phoebe have now said hello to their beautiful new son Oliver or Ollie and so you guys can find pictures of him on Instagram Tommy congratulations and again if you are new to this channel consider subscribing to this channel for more interviews more videos just like this one and if you're not familiar with Tommy make sure you follow him on all of his social media handles as well but thank you guys so much for watching thanks for being a part of my journey part of Tommy's journey hopefully we've been a little help to you guys on yours we'll see you guys the next one peace