The Neurologist Is In, Episode 9: Why Dr Marie C. Eugene Loves Academic Neurology and Epileptology

In this episode, Rachel Marie E. Salas, MD, MEd, interviews Marie Eugene, DO, Assistant Professor, Neurology Clerkship Director, University of Connecticut, Neurology, about her work in medical education and training, what being an epilepsy specialist involves, and new developments in the field of epileptology.

Can't get enough of The Neurologist Is In? Make sure you're caught up on all the episodes--find the full catalogue here.

About the Speakers:

Rachel Marie E. Salas, MD, Med, FAAN, FANA, is a professor in the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine with a joint appointment in the School of Nursing. She is board certified in Sleep Medicine and Neurology. Dr Salas is the Director of Ambulatory Sleep Services at the Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep and Wellness. Dr Salas has been the Director of the Neurology Clerkship for over a decade. She is the Chair of the Undergraduate Education Subcommittee for the American Academy of Neurology and is an appointed member of the Alliance for Clinical Education. She is the director of the Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice for the School of Medicine and a Co-Director for Interprofessional Teaming for the High Value Practice Academic Alliance. Dr Salas is also the founder and Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Osler Apprenticeship Program (in Neurology), a medical education research program for senior medical students and the Johns Hopkins PreDoc Program, a pipeline premedical college program. Dr Salas is a certified strengths coach and uses a strength-based approach and coaching to connect to, support, and develop those involved with her educational mission and clinical practice. Dr Salas is a 2019-21 Josiah Macy Scholar, a 2019-20 AMA Health Systems Science Scholar and a 2021 AΩA Leadership Fellow.

Marie Eugene, DO, is a Neurologist and Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn) School of Medicine. She is Vice Chair of the Neurology Department, and has been Medical Student Clerkship Director since 2014.  She is actively involved in teaching medical students and neurology residents.  As a Clerkship Director, she develops, administers and evaluates the clerkship as well as directs teaching activities and evaluation of students.  She has been an active member in several educational committees at UConn.  She is also involved with the American Academy of Neurology – this year serving as the Chair of the Research Methodology and Education topic for the upcoming annual meeting. She has been granted the role of Gender Equity Liaison for the UConn School of Medicine and American Academy of Medical Colleges (AAMC). In her spare time she enjoys bike riding and spending time with her family. 

Read the transcript:

Dr Rachel Salas:

All right welcome back everyone. This is The Neurologist Is In podcast. I'm Dr. Rachel Salas, I am a sleep neurologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, and I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Dr. Marie Eugene. I'm going to have Dr. Eugene give a little bit of background on who she is and then we'll get started. Dr. Eugene.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Hi, Dr. Salas. Thank you so much for having me, inviting me to speak today. This is quite an honor. You have been a real role model and mentor. So, thank you for inviting me. I am an epileptologist at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. I'm also the Neurology Clerkship Director. So those are two roles that I feel very passionate about. I have been the Neurology Clerkship Director for about seven years now, and I do a lot of work with the medical students. I also chair our clinical competency committee for the residency program. So education is something I feel very, very passionate about. I didn't go into neurology considering a career in medical education, but it is something that I have found to really bring me a lot of joy when I'm able to impart knowledge to medical students and residents when it comes to neurology.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Fabulous, and we're going to definitely take a deeper dive into your role as an educator because you're doing some very interesting things in terms of getting formal training and building curriculums. Not a lot of neurologists do that. So I think that most physicians and clinicians are very interested in education, right? Because at the end of the day, not only are we teaching students that may be shadowing or whatnot, but we also teach our patients, right? So I think teaching is something very natural to us as physicians. But I want to get started first hearing a little bit more about your clinical practice. You're an academic neurologist. You're very busy, I presume and I know. So tell us a little bit about your practice right now. What's a typical week look like? What kinds of patients do you see? I know you said you're an epileptologist, but are you just outpatient or you do consults? What does that look like?

Dr Marie Eugene:

Yeah, so I enjoy my job because I do have quite a few different facets. A majority of my time is spent in neurology clinic, seeing patients with seizures or question of seizure or epilepsy. So that would be a bulk of my time. Another big component of my time is reading EEGs or electroencephalograms. We do those in a variety of different ways. So outpatient EEGs, inpatient studies, study long term EEGs in the intensive care unit, and we have an epilepsy monitoring unit. I have three additional epileptology colleagues here at UConn, so we trade off weeks covering EEGs in addition to, of course, seeing patients with seizure or epilepsy in clinic.

Outside of that time, most of our patients are being seen in clinic. I would say, probably are doing about 10% tele-neurology at this point. So we have been in clinic a majority of the time, even throughout the pandemic. I do feel like there is something additional to actually being in the room with the patient. So I think that's a component that is hard to actually put into words why I think it adds an extra nuance or an additional component to even my decision making and getting a feel for where that patient is when we're picking medications or discussing different treatment options. There has been something particularly special about seeing patients in clinic. I chose epilepsy because it's a sub-specialty I feel very passionate about. It's a subject I find very interesting and every patient has an individual--I take an individual approach to every patient. So with all that, I do really enjoy this sub-specialty. I do like the flexibility that it offers too, that it's not just clinic, that I'm capable of actually doing the EEGs, reading them from home. Sometimes on the weekends while the boys are at games, I'm able to pull up EEGs if I need to. So that flexibility is also kind of nice.

Dr Rachel Salas:

I definitely think that I can relate to that as a sleep neurologist. For me, tele-sleep has been great because a lot of times patients will actually be in their, sometimes even in their bedroom when I'm on a consultation with them. So it gives me insight to their sleep environment and I can actually make more customized questions and recommendations, but I definitely understand that some of my colleagues in neurology, the in-person just makes more sense. I agree with you, the epilepsy patients, you definitely want to probably do neuro exam, and obviously we could do a neuro exam to some extent on tele-health, but in person makes a difference. Epilepsy can be very--there's just a lot of other factors that come in, so I think like having that one-on-one human touch is really important. Sometimes we may have learners listening to these podcasts. Do you mind just kind of telling us, how do you become a epileptologist? What does that look like? You do the traditional neurology residency, and then walk me through that.

Dr Marie Eugene:

After neurology residency, then it's one or two years of epilepsy fellowship. Ultimately, I think you can imagine that epileptologists, there are a subset that focus on medication management and another subset that will focus more on epilepsy surgery assessments. Most of us do both. That's a majority of epileptologists.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Okay, great. So, and remind me, is epilepsy an ACGME [Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education] fellowship? Because we in neurology, we have a lot of ACGME, but we also have a lot of non-ACGME, especially the niche kind of neuroimmunology, even movement neurology, is not ACGME

Dr Marie Eugene:

I'm not too sure about this, but I do know that neurophysiology rotations, which some component of that, they can weight it more towards epilepsy and having a subset of that still be some EMG and visual evoked potentials or evoked potentials in general. So neurophysiology rotations tend to be ACGME accredited. Epilepsy, some programs are moving towards that, but not all programs are ACGME approved.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and just like movement, I think, the big reasons that some of the fellowships that you would kind of just assume are probably ACGME and are not, is probably because there's just so much diversity in what that specialty is doing. Like you said, for epileptology, you could be kind of focused on medications, but then inoperative EEG, it's kind of its own specialty in itself.

Dr Marie Eugene:

It ultimately, I think, boils down to how you think you'd like to practice. I did know once I finished fellowship that I wanted to do a lot of education and teaching. So a statistic I use all the time when I'm talking to medical students and even residents is that two thirds of patients with epilepsy are well controlled on anti-seizure medications. That's a very encouraging statistic and so I did focus a lot of my time, and still do, on learning all the different drugs, their mechanisms of actions, which ones are better for young women of child-bearing potential, for instance. I spend a majority of my time doing that.

Nonetheless, throughout fellowship, you definitely will have exposure to intracranial EEG studies. The myriad of diagnostic studies that are done to assess if a patient is an appropriate surgical candidate. Now, if patients are not appropriate surgical candidates after they've been assessed, there are at least three devices that are still options beyond that. For the one third of patients who are not well controlled, the next step is to see if they could potentially have a lesion that's surgically remediable, if not, would they be a candidate for a device? So another reason I do like the sub-specialty is that you can offer patients different treatment options, even if they're not falling, unfortunately, in the two thirds where they're well controlled with medication.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit more about what's happening in epilepsy, what's kind of new. As a sleep neurologist, we do do get referrals from our colleagues in epilepsy, because obviously sleep deprivation. If people have an undiagnosed sleep disorder, then obviously that could lower their seizure threshold. A lot of times, 80% of patients out there that meet the diagnostic criteria for sleep apnea, for example, are not even diagnosed. So that would include even people with epilepsy. They may have untreated sleep apnea and therefore not be treated. Even though they get enough sleep, it's not good quality. So it's almost like they're sleep deprived. So I always want to know a little bit more about kind of what my other colleagues are doing and what are some new things in their specialty. So what's going on with epilepsy? Are there a lot of new medications coming out? What's here? What should we know?

Dr Marie Eugene:

The medications are always scrolling in. One of the newer drugs that we've been using now is called cenobamate. So that's a sort of a newer drug that I will try for patients who have not been able to control their seizures with more conventional anti-seizure medications, like lamotrigine or levetiracetam. As I said, if a patient's not responded to two drugs, two appropriately chosen, appropriately dosed anti-seizure medications, the next best chance of stopping their seizures is to see if they are an appropriate surgical candidate. Then those patients will get referred for an assessment where they will have PET scans, perhaps ictal SPECT, and a whole host of different imaging studies. I say that the goal there, I tell patients, is to answer two questions. One is, can I find where are the seizures coming from, and can we take it out? Can we safely take it out without making you have any major deficits, meaning affecting any eloquent cortex?

So if we can find the spot where the seizures are coming from and take it out without affecting language, motor, or visual function or abilities, then that's a score and that's the next best chance we have of stopping that patient's seizures. If that's not a possibility, because let's say the lesion does involve eloquent cortex, then there are some newer devices. There's the responsive neurostimulator and also deep brain stimulation, typically of the anterior nucleus, that are options for patients as well if they're not found to be appropriate surgical candidates.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah. I always feel like... I just did my re-certification and definitely a lot of questions on even some of the new medications that are out there. There's like migraine too, right? There's always new medications for...multiple sclerosis too is another big one. So yeah, I think for any learners out there, I mean, neurology is literally booming. I mean, our patients are living longer. One out of 6 Americans for example, have a neurological disorder and they're living longer. They're having better quality of lives and there's a lot more treatment options that were not even available even just 5, 10 years ago.

So, Dr. Eugene, at this point, what other things beyond medications and maybe surgical stimulation, what other options are in your toolkit or your neuro bag, as far as improving the quality of life of your patients? I'll give you an example, for us, where you may recommend other things like cognitive behavioral therapy. So they work with a sleep psychologist, if they have issues with insomnia, or we may even think about acupuncture or massage. So some of these other things that people are very interested in. A lot of times there's a push to not always just focus on medications and obviously with epilepsy, that's very important, right? But what are some other domains of the management of patients with epilepsy?

Dr Marie Eugene:

Outside of medications, of course, being the mainstay, at least initially for patients with epilepsy, other things I advise--well, mood disorder is often comorbid with epilepsy, and we work very closely with our psychiatry colleagues to optimize medications or have patients participate in therapy, whether that's group or individual based on the patient's preference, I think is very, very important to work towards just overall wellbeing. Those patients are likely going to be more adherent to medication regimens. So addressing and aggressively addressing mood disorder is important. As far as lifestyle, it's sort of the general stuff. We recommend a good diet, appropriate amounts of exercise, all that also has ramifications as far as mood. So I do advise many of my patients to have an exercise routine, even if that's 15 minutes a day, that will ultimately serve them quite well just for overall health, but can improve mood. So that's primarily my advice for beyond medications and sort of the mainstay of treatment.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Have you thought about asking--when it comes to sleep, for example, do you automatically refer your patients to a sleep center or do you kind of screen or ask, or how does that relate? Because I know at Hopkins, I feel that our epilepsy team routinely sends patients here. So I almost feel like that sleep aspect is kind of part of their evaluation. Is that something that your team does or how do you handle potentially undiagnosed untreated sleep disorder? A lot of times patients have issues with sleep, but they just don't think it's a problem or they don't think that anything can be done.

Dr Marie Eugene:

I absolutely screen, and you alluded to this earlier. So I tell patients they need seven hours of efficient sleep per night. That means not frequently waking up and other components of that. I will screen to ask them if they feel that they're particularly more tired throughout the day, whether that has to do with the medication itself, or it could be a sleep disorder is something we definitely think about. So we also do work quite closely with our sleep colleagues here at UConn to refer patients who are reporting excessive daytime sleepiness, especially if we don't think it's related to the medication. If you've been on a medication for a long period of time, and it's sort of a new thing that's come about, if they report that they're snoring or sleep partners are reporting that they're snoring, or if in general, the patient feels like they're not rested by the time they wake up in the morning, those are all red flags for us to consider a referral to one of our sleep colleagues.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and it kind of goes vice versa in a way, because sometimes we'll have a patient come in and they're reporting issues with their sleep. They undergo a sleep study and we may actually pick up that they have epilepsy during sleep. As you obviously know that there are certain types of epilepsy that only come out during sleep. So, that's one of the reasons I love sleep neurology because I get to see all--I almost feel like a general neurologist in ways because we see all, pretty much any neurological disorder is a risk factor for a sleep disorder. So I get to see all types of neurological patients and probably like you, I'm not sure if you were one of the people that were in between kind of deciding back in med school, if you were deciding between neurology and psychiatry, I was between neurology and medicine. So which one were you?

Dr Marie Eugene:

I was the neurology and psychiatry. Just the whole idea of like how the mind works and why people think the way they do, why they behave in certain ways. What makes you think that way? What makes you behave that way? You definitely get a lot of that in neurology. So I was definitely on that camp, but I did my neuro rotation in my third year of med school and yeah, it was life changing. I remember seeing a lot of interesting cases and they really tugged at my heartstrings. So I didn't find that in any other sub-specialty, and when I'm giving advice to students and residents, I say, "It's kind of like finding the right spouse where you just know that this is where I really feel like I belong. This is where I feel like I can make a difference. This is the patient population. I really want to spend my time trying to make them better." So, yeah.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, that's great and I love that you talked about a little while ago about the comorbidity of mood disorders. So, if you were between neurology and psychiatry, you have that natural appreciation for mental health and psychiatry and how that plays in. For me being so divided between neurology and internal medicine at the beginning, when I get to see patients with sleep apnea, for example, that kind of feeds that part of internal medicine for me. But although we do see a lot of patients with insomnia who also have comorbid mood disorders and, so yeah, so it's definitely big overlap there. So it sounds like you've stayed busy during this pandemic and I'm surprised that your center was able to kind of keep seeing patients in person just despite this relentless pandemic. That's awesome.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Yeah. We had a high proportion of tele-medicine earlier on, so March, 2020, probably into May, 2020, but then we gradually streamed back just like the other institutions, the patients are screened, we're masked and the like, depending on where we are with different waves. The face shields and N95s, et cetera. But it was always important for us to be in clinic. Some of my colleagues, like the neuroimmunologists, for instance, their exams, they need their exams or the movement disorder specialist. They have to see the exam probably more up close. So a lot of those colleagues were definitely in clinic even in the midst of the pandemic, yeah.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah. Well, I think definitely the pandemic has forever changed some of the ways that some clinicians are going to do. Like I said, I mean, I have no... We'll see, but I mean, I'm perfectly fine doing tele-sleep for the rest of my career actually, because I mean, I was actually trained in it during med school and all through residency was even running a tele-clinic as a chief resident back at University of Texas medical branch, we take took care of the TDCJ, so the Texas prison. So a lot of times in order to--tele-medicine was just very common and very practical. So, I'm glad.

I'm hoping that the United States and maybe the world, we get a little bit better and more reasonable about having a united license, a medical license so that we don't have to keep doing these state to state licenses. Very problematic for our patients to not be able to see who they want or get that expert opinion or third or fourth opinion because that physician doesn't practice in their state or in their country. So the pandemic has helped with that. So I'm hoping that we'll have some headway. I guess time will tell. We'll see, but my fingers are crossed.

Dr Marie Eugene:

I think that's an excellent point, Dr. Salas. The convenience and flexibility offered by this option is sort of one of these COVID silver linings, if you will. That we had to sort of dive in, we're now more adept at using these virtual platforms and that if my patient, because of work or transportation, some of the patients with epilepsy can't drive, if I had seen them last visit and a video visit is more convenient this time, by all means, I think that is a great benefit to our ability to patient care more convenient for patients. More convenient, more accessible and it offers flexibility. So I definitely think it's something I hope that sticks around that we can continue to use it for all those reasons.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and you bring up a good point. Made me think about early in the pandemic, when we had to flip over remotely, start teaching the medical students. I had invited Dr. Ray Dorsey, who's up at the University of Rochester, New York, who's a movement specialist. He brought up a good point that I never thought about when it comes to tele-health which is, the confidentiality of patients. He brought up that point and I think it's something that we don't really think too much about. So there are reasons beyond safety, right? So safety: people with dementia, maybe having a tele-visit is better for them, right? Financial: some institutions have parking you have to pay for, and travel. So there's all those other things, but I think this other aspect of confidentiality is another important one that we really should think about too. I think at the end of the day, providing access to patients no matter where they are, if they want to see a certain specialist, then why not? You know? So I just hope that some of these bigger changes, I don't know if you had ever thought about that, that confidentiality component?

Dr Marie Eugene:

I had not. I think that's a wonderful... That's an insightful thought and comment, and it's not something I think about because I'm hoping that over time, the stigma that's associated with seizures or epilepsy does go away. Nonetheless, it is something that some patients do grapple with and I hadn't thought about it in terms of flexibility in that light, but that makes absolute perfect sense. I don't think patients are going to offer that. They're not going to say, "Well, I don't want to come to," and they won't offer that, but that might be a reason why some patients--the patient that doesn't show every time, it might be something that they're grappling with. I definitely have patients who struggle with the diagnosis and that may be our visit that we talk about, I know you have to take a medication, but your seizures are well controlled and this is something that we can treat. That's the good news. But nonetheless, I hadn't thought about that. That's a very important point.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and I think what you refer to that stigma, I mean, it's certainly there, I don't think patients always talk about it as freely and openly and, again, providing them a safe space and really at the end of the day, meeting patients where they are. I always talk about, I probably quoted them many times in some of these podcasts, but Dr. Roy Ziegelstein, who's our vice Dean for education at Hopkins, he's a cardiologist, this term, he coined "personomics" right? In the time of precision medicine and using biomarkers and traits and genetics to determine what best treatment strategies can work from a patient.

It's also about learning who the patient is, right? What their values are, what their past experiences are, who their support is, you know, what their friends told them. Like, "Don't go here because they're going to do this." All of that really factors in and I think having the option of telehealth, if that makes sense for them, for whatever reason, right? Whether they're still struggling with the diagnosis and being... Or even just, I feel like for our specialty, just even neurology, saying like, "Oh, I got to go to the neurologist." I mean, that that implies you have something probably major going on, right? So it's just something to think about that I certainly hadn't thought about until Dr. Dorsey had brought it up.

Dr Marie Eugene:

I think for colleagues who were involved in advocacy work and trying to keep tele-neurology around, I think that's another important point towards that element of accessibility for patients that some patients may not want to come in because of whatever stigma of the neurology clinic, of the sub-specialty, or subspecialist that they're seeing, but nonetheless, that those patients might receive better care through a virtual format.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and I think it also provides for our colleagues, I know general neurologists are watching this and very busy in their private practice and having just more options, especially if in your state... I mean, I think sleep and epilepsy, or epileptology, in some of the more smaller cities there, may not be those specialists there. So having more options, not just in your state, but outside that our colleagues could refer. I think it's, again, it's just helping everybody out, and in a time of burnout, not just with the physicians, but across the spectrum with all healthcare professionals, being more connected, knowing that, hey, my patient needs this expertise and being able to refer just makes sense. I'm not sure why we haven't been doing this.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Thanks for that. I think that was very insightful and I want to transition a little bit more towards your interest as an educator. Now, as you know, maybe 10 years ago when somebody kind of referred to a teacher and an educator, they were kind of one and the same. And now, I think people that are going into formal education with leadership roles, like your role as a clerkship director, or as a residency program director, as a dean, a lot of times these individuals are acquiring formal training in education. So tell us a little bit about that. What made you, because I know you're in the process of getting your Master's degree in medical education. What got you there? Do you think was your recommendation that others that are thinking about being a clerkship director or any type of course director, is that something they should be thinking about? Because there is this evolution and it's like now teachers and educators are actually not the same thing. So I'll let you take the floor.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Yeah. So, I think we all have heard that see on, do one, teach one. So, that carried me through residency and I enjoyed teaching my junior residents and medical students, even when I was a senior resident. Then after starting back here, I was focused more on epilepsy until I took on the clerkship director role. While I don't think it's definitely a requirement to have to get the masters in education or health professions education, personally, I wanted to learn more about the different concepts, the different educational techniques, the theory behind some of the practices for education as a whole. I wanted to hone that in specifically as it relates to medical education. I'm about 20 out of 33 credits in. So it has been a really positive experience. I do spend a lot of my weekend time working on my papers and my assignments.

I've actually found that to be quite rewarding and a fun experience. I'm learning about the different theories. The assignments are sort of opening up my mind to a whole different facet of knowledge outside of medicine. I would definitely recommend it for those who are interested. I have a capstone project so that I have a mentor that works with me towards that. The goal is to pick things that are happening in my day to day and try to make them better. So whenever I'm taking the courses, I think about what else is going on and what I would like to improve as far as the clerkship, what I'd like to improve in terms of research and medical education.

So with my capstone project, I'm actually looking at doing a qualitative study with other attending neurologists who will fill out the evaluation forms for the medical students. That narrative component, there's a narrative component to that evaluation form for most of us. There are some comments that are very useful to students, others are a bit more slim and I'd like to know why, and based on talking to other neurologists who do fill out the form, how could we make it better? How can we make it easier for the faculty member to provide more useful feedback to students? From there, hopefully make some changes to the evaluation forms. We'll limit that to UConn initially, but potentially could that help other clerkships, and of course, could it help clerkship directors outside of UConn?

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think that's one area that everybody kind of struggles with just providing feedback and especially during the pandemic. It's busy enough, right? Then with social distancing, I mean, definitely had an impact with the medical students in terms of they couldn't see certain patients initially, and then you can't have more than one on the service. So, just all these things and to ask faculty, hey, we need more--that's more time that they have to put towards these. So it's definitely something that needs to be done. I know at Hopkins, they're working towards even providing people with examples of what a good feedback looks like, so that people kind of get... I don't think we do that enough, even just something basic like that, provide an example, right?

So, that's great. That's exactly the example that I was kind of referring to as a teacher, I think we're all bedside teachers, right? You're talking with a patient, you're kind of standing as a role model for whoever the learners are there with you, and then you can actually teach content, right? About a particular disorder or whatnot. But what you're doing is kind of learning curriculum building, program building, and then how to produce educational scholarship. That's really kind of what an educator is. An educator is doing that kind of work, they're in these educational leadership roles. Then you have the education scholar, which is actually publishing stuff, right? Because a lot of times, there's different levels, right? I think sometimes people get to that educator and they're like, "Okay, yeah. I'm clerkship director, I'm doing this, this, this, and this." But they're not really publishing what they're doing and kind of setting those kind of standards out there. So, I really have always liked that there was this kind of progression. There's no right or wrong, it's just what makes sense to you. What do you want to do? I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I want to put a plea out there for neurology educators to really think beyond neurology. So in other words, stepping outside, I think a lot of us as neurologists, we kind of stay in neuro and I did for a long time. Then I was like, "Well, let's see what's outside." So I'd love to see more neurologists step outside and be kind of like in the curricular, as deans, maybe even the president of the AMA or, you know what I mean, different kind of more broader organizations, not always just stay focused in neurology. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr Marie Eugene:

I think that is dead on. I completely agree with that. Here at UConn, I'm on a lot of committees and so why do I do that? I kind of want a broad exposure to what medical education looks like outside of neurology. So what does it take to sort of get our curriculum as a whole up to speed? I'm on the curriculum advisory committee with other colleagues, including basic scientists and what are they thinking about? What's important to them? How can we translate what they're doing initially from the basic sciences or basic neuroscience to the clerkships down the line? So I think it is important that we think on a broad basis and that we understand how things function, whether it's curriculum, whether it's---I also sit on the academic advancement committee. So helping students who may be struggling academically or otherwise, how can we help those students to get past those struggles and to be successful? I think thinking at that broad level is very important if ultimately you do want to proceed as far as a career in medical education.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, and I'm so happy to hear you say that. I think that we need leaders like you both in and outside neurology and I'm sure you're doing a lot for epilepsy as well. The discipline of epilepsy and being an educator, I've always said that I define myself a lot of times as a sleep ambassador. Right? Getting the word out, even just to the general public about the importance of getting your sleep issues checked out. That's education too. So I look forward to your continuation and progression of your career and hope that--I don't hope, I anticipate and I expect, almost that you're going to be some, fabuloso leader in medical education either at UConn or somewhere else, but in a more broader view. That's what we do. We need more neurologists to kind of get out there and kind of take those leadership roles. So kudos to you for investing in this and getting the training and networking and talking to other educators, not only neurology educators, but those outside neurology as well.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Yeah, thanks Dr. Salas. I am lucky here at UConn. The medical education team as a whole is very inclusive, is very approachable, and so I've identified mentors as far as medical education leaders here who have taken me under their wings and given me the opportunities so that I can continue to get better at the whole process. So, thank you.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Well, great. We're about to wrap up. So I always want to end with a couple things, but first I'd like to ask, what do you do for fun? What are your hobbies or something you like to do? When you're not working, because I know you said you were doing your med ed stuff on the weekends and that's pretty cool. I mean, that's cool, but what do you do for fun? You said you had some boys.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Yeah. Well, I guess it may sound cliche, but I do love spending time with my family. So I'm married. I have two boys, Liam and Luke, six and then three quarters and eight and a half. So they're very specific about their ages at this point. So I enjoy bike riding with them. We go swimming, we hike to some extent. If I have time to myself, I like shopping. I think while I want to say that I practice the piano and stuff, but I am really in the zone at a discount store like Marshals. So, time to myself, I will walk around and do shopping. So anybody who knows me who would listen to this podcast, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, because that is the truth as far as what I like to do on the rare days where I have all the time to myself. But spending time with family, swimming, biking, hiking, are all the kind of things that most of the time with free time, particularly when the weather's warm, that we will indulge in.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Well, I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I see a good deal or a coupon somewhere, I'll just have to forward that along to you. I love shopping too. So that's cool. I think that marking out, carving out that time for yourself is so important. I mean, you have definitely your family and your friends, but it's so important even just to take even five minutes, just even if you just meditate on your own. I think it's your time and finding those little things. For me, it's like maybe getting a manicure, right? I love a good spa day.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Yeah, yeah. I think it's so important. With medical education now, wellness, and how to mitigate burnout is something we're talking about more and actually doing stuff more here. I know the residents are allowed to carve out three half days in a year or so, maybe more, maybe it's like four, but they dedicate that to wellness. Dr. Schuyler, our program director here, she has designated a wellness chief resident. So that chief resident on those half days has something planned for the residents to do towards wellness. So it's not only just talking about it, having residents be able to recognize when they're burnt out, but also giving them options about things that they can do to mitigate burnout. That's often an individual thing. I think most of us know what we like to do and what we do to de-stress, but that we're verifying for trainees that that's important to keep up with as well, just as much as making sure your medical knowledge and patient care is up to par. Taking care of yourself so you can take care of others is just as important.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I also think sometimes, wellness needs to be about going to your own clinician for your wellness exams, making sure that you're being taken care of. Because I know we get busy and sometimes you're like, "Ah, I haven't seen my primary care in forever." So putting that on the schedule, making those dates, going to get whatever's due for however old you are. Your colonoscopy, whatever. Getting that done, because I think that clinicians get so busy and focused and they don't make time for themselves. I think, just reminding people to get their own medical care, getting that on the calendar.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Absolutely.

Dr Rachel Salas:

So Dr. Eugene, we've kind of come to end, but before we say goodbye, is there anything that you'd like with the audience? Sometimes people are about to do new things or something exciting or any last words you want to share?

Dr Marie Eugene:

I mean, I think I touched on this. I am very excited about completing my master's in health professions education. Getting more involved with medical education research, including this project that I have upcoming, and so I think the important thing is for folks to zone in on the additional thing that makes them passionate in their day to day work life and to stick to it. That can be tough with all the stuff that comes our way on a given day, but that would be my final word that whatever it is, that niche that you find that brings you that extra bit of joy, stick to it. Stick to it and pursue it.

Dr Rachel Salas:

Well, there you have it, everyone. Dr. Eugene, it was so great to have you and just to get a little bit of insight on the work you do, some of the passions you're involved with now with medical education and spending time with your family, and a good deal shopping, right? So it's been great. I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this. I look forward to connecting with you hopefully soon.

Dr Marie Eugene:

Thank you, Dr. Salas thank you for having me. You are an absolute mentor and a role model, so it was great to spend some time talking to you today.