Neuro-Ophthalmologist Dr. Kim Blankshain: "What Is Happening?" Her Husband's Brain Surgery

<p>A Monday morning, 6:45. Dr. Kim Blankshain is changing her infant son when she hears a crash in the next room. Her husband is sitting on the edge of the bed, bleeding from a gash in his forehead. She expects a few stitches. Hours later an ER physician says the CT scan came back and he is being sent downtown to see neurosurgery right away. "What is happening?"</p><p>Dr. Blankshain is a neuro-ophthalmologist in the Chicago suburbs, a specialist in vision problems that begin in the brain and nervous system. She was in fellowship, trained to read MRIs and CTs, when the scan on the screen was her husband's: an epidermoid cyst pressing on his brainstem, and brain surgery set for the next morning. She joins Dr. David Spiro to talk about being the doctor in the waiting room, and how it changed the way she delivers bad news to her own patients.</p><p>In this episode:<br />- Why knowing the medicine made it harder, and the moment the neurosurgeon asked, "What do you do for a living?"<br />- The waiting-room buzzer three hours into a four-to-six-hour surgery: "That can't be good"<br />- Receiving bad news as a physician: "I wasn't really hearing what he was saying"<br />- How she gives hard news now: slow down, say it more than once, and sit in the silence<br />- Going back to work the day after her husband came home, with her time off for the year already used on six weeks of maternity leave<br />- Parental leave in medical training, and why she calls the culture "cruel"<br />- Working-mom guilt and the "have it all" lie: "Something has to give on any given day"<br />- Marriage after a baby: feeling like roommates, a year of couples therapy, and TV-free Thursdays<br />- What she tells pre-med students: "It's still just a job"</p><p>Dr. Spiro also shares how he gives bad news to families in the pediatric ER.</p><p>Chapters<br />00:00:00 "What is happening?"<br />00:00:20 Meet Dr. Kim Blankshain<br />00:01:50 What a neuro-ophthalmologist does<br />00:02:22 A crash in the next room<br />00:04:10 The ER and the CT scan<br />00:06:08 Rush University: the MRI and the neurosurgeon<br />00:07:27 "What do you do for a living?"<br />00:08:14 Brain surgery, tomorrow<br />00:08:53 The waiting room: "That can't be good"<br />00:09:43 Six weeks of recovery<br />00:10:13 How it changed the way she sees patients<br />00:11:45 On the other side of bad news<br />00:13:04 Slow down, repeat it, sit in silence<br />00:14:17 Dr. Spiro: bad news in the pediatric ER<br />00:15:25 "You a