My Perfect Path

I am a doctor who was also a DJ

• Daniel Koo • Season 2 • Episode 5

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When Dr. Kenneth Kwon applied to Columbia Medical School, he never expected his college DJ experience would become the connection that helped him secure admission. This unexpected twist exemplifies his entire career—a journey of calculated risks and pivots within a traditionally conservative field.

For over two decades, Dr. Kwon has been at the forefront of emergency pediatric medicine, serving as Chief of Staff at Children's Hospital of Orange County. His path took remarkable turns: completing an economics degree before medicine, transferring from UCLA to Stanford during residency to be near his future wife, and pursuing a second full residency in emergency medicine after finishing pediatrics.

What makes emergency medicine unique? Dr. Kwon describes it as "controlled chaos" requiring thick skin, decisive action, and exceptional multitasking. Emergency physicians must constantly prioritize the most life-threatening conditions while managing 10-20 patients simultaneously. This high-pressure environment isn't for everyone, but for those with the right temperament, it offers tremendous fulfillment.

The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted frontline healthcare workers. Dr. Kwon shares a powerful memory of receiving limited PPE supplies in March 2020—a somber moment when physicians realized they were "running into the burning building while everyone else was running out." This period accelerated burnout among medical professionals, including himself, leading to reduced clinical hours and earlier retirement considerations.

Perhaps his most valuable insight is about maintaining identity beyond medicine. "Don't identify only as a doctor," he advises. By compartmentalizing work and nurturing family relationships and outside interests throughout his career, he approaches retirement without the identity crisis many professionals face. This wisdom applies across all professions—your work should be part of your life, not its entirety.

Ready to shape your own career path? Remember Dr. Kwon's advice: research thoroughly, trust your instincts, and commit fully to well-considered decisions. What unique experiences might become your unexpected career differentiator? Share your thoughts and follow us for more inspiring professional journeys.

Feel free to leave comments here!

Kenneth Kwon:

What's interesting about that whole experience to me is I attribute getting into medical school because of my DJing. Really, and I say that because when you apply for college or you apply to medical school or graduate school, there's some sort of an angle or some sort of a hook or some sort of spike that you want to try to promote. That you want to try to promote and I decided to try to promote DJing in some of my personal statements and some of my essays. I was trying to give off this vibe that I was like I'm not just a bookworm, you're very cool. Well, I tried to be like you know, yeah, something like that, I guess maybe.

Kenneth Kwon:

But what was really interesting was at my interview at Columbia, which is where I ended up going to medical school was at my interview at Columbia, which is where I ended up going to medical school, my interviewer asked me specifically about DJing and I didn't realize that she was completely into it as well, and so we just connected on this level. That was amazing and I think it was because of that interview that I probably got in. That's what I think. But, like I said, without that connection it might have been a different story.

Daniel Koo:

Hey, welcome back to my Perfect Path. For those of you who are new, I'm your host, daniel Koo, and I welcome you to season two. For me, at large, pivotal moments of my life, such as applying to new colleges, applying to new jobs or determining what next career move is right for me I spend time researching and finding mentorship to determine what was the best path for me. I knew that this struggle was not isolated to me. Everyone struggles with this, simply because we cannot predict the future. However, I found something that is second best to predicting the future it's learning from those ahead of our career and from those who've seen more and experienced more. After all, there are not that many problems that have not been solved yet. If you've ever felt unsure about your next career move, you're in the right place.

Daniel Koo:

Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr Kenneth Kwan, former chief of staff at Children's Hospital of Orange County. In our conversation, we talk about his career covering two decades. His journey took him from Columbia to UCLA, stanford and UCI. He completed two medical residencies along the way. What makes Kenneth's story compelling is his willingness to take calculated risks in a traditionally conservative field. He transferred programs to be closer to his future wife. He pivoted from pediatrics to emergency medicine and he maintained his identity beyond medicine from college DJ to hospital leadership. Kenneth offers honest insights about emergency medicine realities, covid-19's impact on frontline workers and the importance of recognizing burnout.

Daniel Koo:

In this episode, we'll discuss career pivots, essential qualities for emergency medicine, work-life balance and why you shouldn't identify solely by your profession. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Why you shouldn't identify solely by your profession. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Dr Kwon, you've built an extraordinary career at the intersection of pediatric and emergency medicine and I think also with leadership in education as well. Your journey began at Columbia University, leading to UCLA, stanford, uci. Now you're the chief of pediatric emergency medicine and for over two decades, I think, you've been at the forefront of shaping emergency pediatric care basically, and I think that's such an incredible achievement. I think there's going to be so much to learn from you and your insights, so I welcome you to the podcast.

Kenneth Kwon:

Oh, thank you, daniel. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and your words are too kind, so thank you.

Daniel Koo:

I honestly can't say enough about your achievements. I think they're incredible. Before we get into it, I do want to ask about what your daily life looks like right now, working almost half like admin and half as a physician. What does your day-to-day look like?

Kenneth Kwon:

Rather than day-to-day, I think it's probably better to go week-to-week or month-by-month. I would say that when I first started emergency medicine I was working about 14 or 15 shifts a month, which is kind of the full-time load for most emergency physicians. In time that becomes a little too much and so several years ago I've kind of weaned it down to about 11 or 12 shifts and that was kind of my zone 11 or 12 shifts. And I also had an administrative workload meetings, calling patients back, peer review that took up probably the equivalent of one or two shifts a week as well. In recent years I have cut it down to currently where I work about one or two shifts a week and still do administrative work, which is equivalent to about five or 10 hours a week. So my workload for a month, which had been up to over about 150 hours, has dropped down to about 50.

Daniel Koo:

That's a little bit more manageable. So are you chief of staff right now?

Kenneth Kwon:

I was previously the chief of staff at my hospital, which is Providence, mission and Chalk Children's Admission Hospital, which is the pediatric hospital in Orange County. Our hospital is unique in the fact that we have an adult hospital and we also have a pediatric hospital within that general adult hospital which occupies the top floor. And Children's Hospital of Orange County is the only children's hospital in Orange County and they have two campuses. The main one is in the city of Orange and their second campus is at Mission Viejo and that's where I work. And so for about five years ago, for two years, I was the chief of staff of Chalkett.

Daniel Koo:

Mission Hospital. I mean obviously because it's not my industry. I think chief of staff was something that I had to research and from what I could gather it was, you know, if there were two sides of the hospital like the administrative work and the physician kind of work, that position kind of is the leadership of the physician side Is that correct?

Kenneth Kwon:

That's exactly correct, daniel.

Kenneth Kwon:

So, yeah, the hospital administration is made up of what they call the C-suite right, which is usually the CEO of the hospital or the chief executive.

Kenneth Kwon:

There's a chief medical officer, there's chief operating officer, chief financial officer, like pretty much any business, and on the physician side, there is a medical staff in this hospital, and my hospital has about 500 physicians on staff, as well as probably, I would say, 100 or so, what we call physician assistants or advanced practice providers, which are what we call kind of like the middle tier of care, just underneath what we do.

Kenneth Kwon:

And so, as chief of staff, my job was to be the support for the medical staff, so I would support them if there were any issues with administration, with some certain patient care related issues. But on the flip side, I had to provide oversight and leadership into specific provider issues within the hospital or within the medical group. One example would be behavioral issues of a physician, another would be maybe quality of care issues with a physician, and another issue may be an impaired physician, someone that may have some alcohol or drug issues that is affecting their work. I mean, unfortunately, you know, physicians it's a pretty stressful occupation and we're not immune to those sorts of issues as well. I think a good way to look at it is the chief of staff of the hospital is both a supporter of the medical staff as well as almost an oversight of them Almost equivalent to what internal affairs would be in a police department.

Daniel Koo:

So I guess it kind of is the role that keeps the bar high and kind of keeps like a nice standard and does that through leadership.

Kenneth Kwon:

Correct and it's usually a process that takes several years. To get into that role you usually have to start in other hospital leadership within your own department, and then, as you develop that knowledge and what we call institutional memory with issues that come up with the hospital, with physicians, with the community, as you develop those experiences and kind of spend more time and build more wisdom into what's going on, then you are considered in that position. It's a position that's voted in by the medical staff and it's usually for two years, but there's two years, what we call a pre-chief of staff term, which is two years, and the chief of staff term is two years, and then there's an immediate past chief, which is two years. So the whole cycle is six years, I see.

Daniel Koo:

I see. So they kind of prepare you for that role as well, correct, which I'm sure you learned a lot during that time as well. Now that we went over kind of what your week-to-week is, I want to ask you how different that was from what you imagined when you started. You got your first physician role around early 30s. Did you imagine this kind of advancement and career progression, or did you have like a grand plan basically, when you started?

Kenneth Kwon:

I never, ever ever thought that I would be in administration or hospital leadership or even leadership within a group of people. I initially went into medicine because it was something I was interested in and I wanted to help people. But when I started out I never, ever thought that I would be interested in any sort of administrative role. Because, let's face it, it's politics. It could be very painful and it's not necessarily anything that I thought that I would be good at or even want to do.

Kenneth Kwon:

As I progressed in my career, you realize that these positions of leadership are important to secure your job. It's important for your group of doctors that you're in I'm in an emergency physician group so it's important for all the other people in my group that if we have leaders in our group that are liaisoning with the hospital leadership, then that builds stability with our group within the hospital and so that builds stability with our group within the hospital. And so once you kind of realize that, you realize well, this is important and you know, in time, as you progress in your career, you realize that you build up experiences that the younger physicians don't have, and so you are naturally going to slide into those positions have, and so you are naturally going to slide into those positions but to answer your question, I did not imagine doing any sort of administrative or leadership role when I started my career as a physician.

Daniel Koo:

I also wanted to ask if you always saw yourself in emergency medicine or did you struggle with defining your path?

Kenneth Kwon:

I never thought I would do emergency medicine with defining your path. I never thought I would do emergency medicine. I have a very kind of I would say a unique path in medicine. Medicine is very structured. It's long and it's structured. You have to do four years of medical school after college. Then you have to do residency, which lasts from three to seven years. Some people do fellowships and then you go on into work and there's always structure in that and I've just kind of taken these kind of turns here and there. That's led me to emergency medicine.

Kenneth Kwon:

I initially actually started as a pediatrician. So when I entered medical school I was thinking about pediatrics and as I progressed I decided to do it During my pediatric residency. I didn't quite love it. I love the children. I think the parents were a second patient that you had to kind of deal with and some while I was doing pediatrics I actually worked in the emergency department and I saw how kind of interesting and exciting it was and I hadn't seen adults for a few years, because in medical school you see all sorts of patients, right, you see the whole age range, but once I started pediatrics it was 18 and under. But in the emergency department you see everything else is going on and I was fortunate enough to you know, medicine is all about mentorship as well.

Kenneth Kwon:

But while I was a second-year resident, I met an emergency physician attending professor who had also done pediatrics before, and so I asked him about it and he was telling me you know, ken, I started off in general pediatrics, just like you. I finished it. Then I decided to do a second residency in emergency medicine. I finished that and here I am now and he said, if I could do it, you could do it Right. And I thought about that and it kind of it kind of hit me and so I, instead of just stopping pediatric residency I only had like a year, year and a half left so I actually completed that. And then, after completing my pediatric residency for three years, I just kind of went right into an emergency medicine residency. So it was a second residency.

Daniel Koo:

Just to, I guess, provide some context, your pediatrics residency you started at UCLA, but you ended up transferring to Stanford, yes, and then your emergency residency was at UCI, uc Irvine. Yes, okay, yes.

Kenneth Kwon:

I see, and how that happened is also kind of an unusual situation, because once you start a residency, it's unusual that you transfer.

Kenneth Kwon:

Usually when you transfer, it's due to some sort of maybe disciplinary issue or quality issue, but for me it was because I was getting married and my wife was definitely going to graduate school up in Northern California and I was in Southern California, and so, you know, we were already kind of long distance at the time, and so that was one of the big decisions points that I had to make in my life is am I going to transfer um residencies, which is hard to do Um?

Kenneth Kwon:

But what was fortunate was that at that exact moment that I was thinking about you know, you know, maybe I need to transfer to to be closer to, you know, to my future wife, it was at that time where I called one of my med school friends who was actually a pediatric resident already at Stanford, and he said Ken, it's so weird because there's a pediatric resident in my class that wants to go to LA for the exact same reason, because she's engaged and her husband is in Los Angeles. So it was just fate, I think. Right, it was so coincidental and I had already interviewed at Stanford for residency the year before, so I knew the residency director and it was just a matter of making a few calls and then it was done, and that's very unusual. So that's how that happened.

Daniel Koo:

I think there's a couple of unusual things here, I guess, yeah, as you mentioned, transferring residencies is no easy feat and I think being able to make that decision to you know, transfer, I think would have been really difficult and maybe it felt a little risky. How did you kind of think through it? What was kind of going through your head at the time?

Kenneth Kwon:

Yeah, it was. It was definitely risky. Medicine is is odd. I'm I'm intrinsically a pretty risky person. I think I've always been that way.

Kenneth Kwon:

But what happens in medicine is because it is so structured, because there is a very linear path that you have to take and a very conservative path. For the most part, you have to be a risk averse. I think the people that are attracted to medicine as a as as a field, are, for the most part, risk averse and very conservative. Right, I think so. I think you have to be, and if you're not, what happens is that when you're in that field, you become more risk averse, because that's kind of the way medicine is.

Kenneth Kwon:

There's an adage in medicine in emergency medicine, but also in medicine in general is first do no harm, first do no harm. Before you even think about helping a patient, diagnosing a patient, treating a patient with certain medications, first do no harm. So intrinsically, inherently, if you are a physician, you're not going to do no harm. That's kind of the mentality that you have, and so I like to take risks when I was younger, but as I entered medicine, I became more risk averse.

Kenneth Kwon:

So these points in my life and this was probably one of the big points in my life is I had to make that decision and I was like whoa, this is risky, and so I don't know if I really should do this. But I think my intrinsic risk-taking behavior kind of took over and said, hey. Behavior kind of took over and said, hey, you know, you kind of do the math, you do your due diligence, you kind of weigh the pros and cons and it was a pretty easy decision for me. But certainly I had to think about that and it was risky. But once you kind of go through all the scenarios and what ifs, what ifs, and I decided this is an obvious yes, and then so once I determined that it was very easy just to jump in. So I would say that it took a little bit of time, but not a whole lot of time.

Daniel Koo:

No, yeah, I think I really admire that. Right now, living in LA for a couple of years, I feel very rooted and I can't imagine moving being that easy. So if I try to put myself in your shoes and if I'm choosing my next kind of career step, I think it'd be really difficult to kind of switch something after you've gotten in. So I think I really admire that. I think the second thing that was really interesting was doing two residencies, and can you tell me if that's somewhat common or not common in the medical field Also?

Kenneth Kwon:

not common. I would say that when I was doing residency in the mid to late 90s, um, there were, you know, a number of of physicians that would kind of do a second residency, what they call a dual residency, where they would finish one or do another. There's actually some programs that actually offer two specialty. Yeah, you could five, six years you can do medicine and pediatrics or, uh, medicine, emergency medicine. So there are those dual residencies, but those are very few and far between. But still some people were actually doing one residency and saying, oh, I'm going to do a second one. Not that many.

Kenneth Kwon:

Nowadays it's very, very hard because residencies are funded by certain funding groups, certain entities, graduate medical education entities, and so they usually only allot a certain amount of money that they give for a residency program to have residents. But if someone has already been a resident, they've already kind of filled up their allotment. If someone has already been a resident, they've already kind of filled up their allotment. So they don't allow. If, say, you did three years of residency and you want to do a second residency, if a program decides to take you, they may have to fund that 100% by themselves, as opposed to having a funding agency give them 50%, 100% of the salary. So that has made it kind of exponentially harder for people to do two residencies. Back then it was unusual, but not Not as impossible, not as impossible.

Daniel Koo:

I see, and I think choosing to do that second residency must have been really I don't know if it's risky, but it certainly was kind of a turn in your path, deciding to spend another few years studying and practicing a new kind of medicine. What kind of gave you the push to do that? I guess we did mention your mentor as well, but was there something about emergency medicine that really attracted you?

Kenneth Kwon:

Was there something about emergency medicine that really attracted you? Yeah, I love the pace. You know you're a bit young. I think many of these viewers will probably not even know, but there was a show called ER that came out in the mid to early 90s George Clooney but it was a very popular show that kind of introduced the nation to a certain degree to what emergency physicians do. Emergency medicine is actually a very young specialty. It only became an official specialty in, I think, 1979. And it was predominantly only in certain areas of the country.

Kenneth Kwon:

Historically, emergency rooms or departments were staffed by internal medicine doctors, surgeons and pediatricians, and this is, you know, they don't didn't have any expertise in any other field except what they were doing, and so it became very vital when emergency departments started getting bigger that a surgeon is not the appropriate person to take care of a pediatric patient or, you know, an intern medicine doctor is not the right person to take care of a pediatric patient. So it required its own specialty and so that all happened. A push for more residencies in emergency medicine as a specialty really started blossoming in the 80s and 90s. I remember when I was actually in medical school I was going to do pediatrics. But in my fourth year you have opportunities to do electives and kind of see what other specialties are about. And I actually did an emergency medicine month, or what they call a clerkship in an emergency department in New York City and I loved it and I was actually thinking about maybe switching course and doing emergency at that time.

Kenneth Kwon:

But once again, this medicine is somewhat hierarchical and it is based on who you trust. And my mentors at my medical school, which was a very traditional medical school it's like the oldest medical school in the country they like to produce mentors there and to the dean of the school because they have to kind of sign off on what specialty you're going to do she said frankly, like you know, I wouldn't do that because emergency medicine is so new and you don't know where it's going to be headed. So because of that I didn't make that leap at that time and do emergency medicine. I, I, I did pediatrics like I had always intended to do going through medical school, but then it was really in in residency. That emergency just kind of kept coming back into my mind and in in almost everything that I saw. You know. You know pediatric patients have emergencies all the time and so that's when I thought, hey, I could do this, or I'm interested in doing this, and then that's how it happened.

Daniel Koo:

To some degree it's always been with you, kind of that interest. I think it's interesting to see that you ended up kind of going to where you originally wanted, even with, I guess, some advice that may not have worked out in the most perfect way.

Kenneth Kwon:

Yeah, and I think that goes to show that there is no perfect path. I mean, I think this is what you're doing is great, because everyone has their own journey right and mine kind of meandered from one interest to another, one special to another, one residency program to another, and I still ended up kind of in the same place, I think, at the end of the day. So you know, life has this weird way of working out. I think right, and you just have to trust what you believe in and you have to trust your gut. I think.

Daniel Koo:

So today's episode title is my Meandering Medical Path, as you've chosen, and I think we've already kind of delved into some of it. But I guess for you, looking back, would you say you shaped your career more intentionally or you felt like it was totally unexpected the way it came it was unexpected and, if I can go all the way back to childhood, to kind of. I think that's perfect. That's what I was going to go into.

Kenneth Kwon:

I was the youngest child of three, and you know I'm from an immigrant family. My father, his father, my grandfather died of tuberculosis when he was only 19 years old, so my father was only six months at the time. So my father grew up without a father. He was raised by a single mom, and so it was always his dream to become a physician. He tells us these stories of how my grandfather was dying and told my grandmother make our son a doctor to kind of cure this disease that I'm dying from. I don't know how true this may have been, but as you grow up, you hear these stories, and so that was always in the mind of me and my siblings. But I was the youngest, I had no pressure.

Daniel Koo:

How old were you when you first immigrated to? I was four.

Kenneth Kwon:

My sister was the oldest, she's seven, and my brother was six and I was four. So growing up we hear these stories. Growing up, you know, we hear these stories, and so in our conscious or subconscious, you know, I think, there was always this thought, or maybe a little pressure to consider medicine. But as you know, in an Asian, specifically Korean, family, it's birth order is everything right, and certain expectations, certain duties are based purely on birth order. And so my sister, I think, had thought about medicine, but she ended up going into government, international relations and law, so it wasn't going to happen for her. My brother thought about it briefly as well, but he ended up going into investment, banking and business and business school, so it didn't happen for him.

Kenneth Kwon:

For me, you were the last one, I was the last one, but my parents really didn't have any expectations of me. I think they didn't put any pressure on me, which I thank them for. It's the privilege of the last born, right, it's the privilege of the last born. So I was kind of free to do what I wanted. So I kind of just explored and said, hey, I'm going to try this, I'm going to try that.

Kenneth Kwon:

So I was not afraid. That's kind of what I was talking about. I felt like I could take more risks and not worry about any consequences. Right, so I go to college, and even college. It was interesting because my sister was already on the East Coast, my brother was on the East Coast and so for me I had to choose between staying in California, which I wanted to do, or going out east. And because they were already out there, I decided to kind of take that risk and go out there, which wasn't really a risk because once again, my siblings were out there, did they recommend that you kind of branch out from California.

Kenneth Kwon:

Yeah, they did. They did because of their experiences and what I really wanted to do was I was really interested in possibly hospitality and hotel.

Kenneth Kwon:

Oh, I mean Cornell is very famous for it Exactly, and Cornell has one of the best schools for that. So I went to Cornell thinking that I may kind of steer in that direction and that was really the appeal of that school to me. And then I went there and I was also interested in math and even the sciences. But medicine to me was a possibility, but not really in view yet. Medicine to me was a possibility, but not really in view yet.

Kenneth Kwon:

So in college, as a typical stereotypical Asian male, I was very interested in math. But I was also interested in sciences. But the biology and chemistry really weren't that exciting to me. I was kind of more interested in some of the social sciences, and so economics was very, very different and new to me and I was like this is great, it has a lot of math, um, it it is, it's a science, but it's based a lot on on on society it's, it's, it's it's economics and so I guess you feel like you're learning about the world and the general trends and things like that so then I became an economics major.

Kenneth Kwon:

But because of that little voice in the back of my head from my father saying you know, hey, does anyone want to be a doctor in this family? I took all my prerequisite medical school courses.

Daniel Koo:

So you were an economics major but pre-med at the same time.

Kenneth Kwon:

I was an economics major but just took pre-med courses. So you were an economics major but pre-med. At the same time, I was an economics major but just took pre-med courses. There was no exact major called a pre-med major. Right, it's like a set of courses that you need to take. It's a set of courses and what's kind of a I don't know a misconception or a falsehood is that to go to medical school, you do not need to major in a science. You can major in anything you want. You can major in English, you can major in art, literature, or you can major in economics, like I did. And then, I think, right around junior year in college, when I had to decide if I was going to take this really hard test called the MCAS, which is a medical college admission test, or if I was going to potentially just maybe go to grad school in economics, because I was thinking about getting a master's.

Daniel Koo:

Oh, even while fulfilling the prerequisite, you were considering grad school for economics.

Kenneth Kwon:

For economics.

Daniel Koo:

right right, that must have been a very confusing time.

Kenneth Kwon:

It was not so much confusing, but it was somewhat of a busy time and, like I said, I did my due diligence and then I said you know what, I'm going to take the MCATs and that's going to determine my fate. Because, believe me, I wasn't a great student. I didn't have a really high GPA. I started school kind a really high GPA. You know, I started school, you know kind of you know not very motivated, but I kind of let the MCAT kind of determine if I was going to try to go that direction. And you know this is the mid to late 80s.

Kenneth Kwon:

I mean, it was difficult to get into medical school, but not anything like it is now. It's so much more competitive now. We all talk about this. My physician friends always talk about we would have never gotten into medical school. But back then if you didn't have such a great GPA but you did well on your MCATs or you had some other activities or did something that really kind of made yourself stand apart, then you might have a chance. So I took my MCATs, I did pretty well in it and so I decided to apply to medical school and kind of forego Not, forego, just not continue on it.

Daniel Koo:

You also mentioned that you worked as a DJ and a bartender. Yes, were those, any potential paths that you had to forego.

Kenneth Kwon:

Well, I've always loved music. Music has really been something that I just absolutely love. They say music is a soundtrack to your life, and for me it really is. I could hear a song and I could remember exactly what I was doing when that song was playing. You know way in my past, right? So music's always been that way for me. And so, um, in college, uh, a close friend of mine was also into music and then we we he decided to get a couple of turntables and we started just kind of screwing around with it and scratching and and and doing some beat, beat mixing, and then, before you know it, we decided to start a dj, like a gig, just a group, just the two of us and um, and we called it subliminal beat productions and and we just started kind of doing the parties around campus that we did.

Kenneth Kwon:

We, we did a lot of fraternities and sororities. We did pretty much all the Asian parties kind of in that time frame and so that was fun. That was a lot of fun and so, yeah, I did do DJing in college and part of that whole thing with DJing is that you're always kind of in these scenes where people are just kind of having a good time fraternities, sororities. So then I saw that people were hiring bartenders to serve drinks and back then the drinking age was actually a little lower. It was like, I think, 18 or 19 in New York, yeah, in New York state, and then it went up to 21 right when I was in college.

Kenneth Kwon:

So then I was like, hey, you know, let's see if I can make some more money just by doing some bartending. So let's see if I can make some more money just by doing some bartending. So I took a couple of just classes around, like a one or two week class, and then, boom, I was a bartender and I started bartending some of the same parties that I was teaching at, and so that was great. But what's interesting about that whole experience to me is I attribute getting into medical school because of my DJing. Really, and I say that because you know, when you, when you apply for college or you apply to medical school or graduate school, you know there's some sort of an angle or some sort of a hook or some sort of spike, that that you want to try to promote. And for me that was really.

Kenneth Kwon:

Uh, I decided to try to promote dj in my, in some of my personal statements and some of my essays, just about kind of entrepreneurship, maybe, you know, just kind of socialization and and and just kind of I was trying to give off this vibe that. I was like, hey, I was, I'm not, I'm not just a bookworm, you're very cool. Well, I tried to be like yeah, something like that. I guess maybe. But what was really interesting was at my interview at Columbia, which is where I ended up going to medical school, my interviewer asked me specifically about DJing and I didn't realize that she was completely into it as well, and so we just connected on this level. That was amazing and I think it was because of that interview that I probably got in. That's what I think. But, like I said, without that connection it might've been a different story.

Daniel Koo:

Right. That's incredible. I think oftentimes with getting jobs and interviews, a lot of it is kind of coincidences and luck. I remember with my interview as well, back when I was applying, we had a huge hiring freeze throughout the industry. Offers were getting rescinded left and right, but when I was interviewing with my hiring manager, we really connected on cycling, on random things that I was really surprised to have this commonality and even with coding philosophies and engineering philosophies we really hit it off and I really believe that if I did an interview with him and it was someone else on the team, I wouldn't be here. I would be in a totally different company. So I think that's super interesting that that worked out that way. So I guess if you're a pre-med student with a DJing career, I think you should continue it.

Kenneth Kwon:

That's the advice. Well, what's interesting is that, even now because I still am around a lot of the residents and what we call medical scribes, who are in their teens and 20s, nursing as well, and music is everywhere, right. And so, for some reason, uh, word got out that I was previously a dj, right and and and so they, some people think like, wow, you were like on the radio, you know, and I was like, no, it's not that kind of a dj. You know, there's, um, you know there's, you know there's a radio disc jockey, and then there's just people that just spin and play music, right. And so, uh, you know, I have to kind of explain.

Kenneth Kwon:

There's a radio disc jockey and then there's just people that just spin and play music, right, and so, you know, I had to kind of explain that. It's funny, because people always thought that my friends said, hey, you have a voice made for radio. You know it was my, you do. But it was those same friends that also said that, hey, you also have a face made for radio. So it's kind of a simultaneous compliment, simultaneous compliment and an insult.

Daniel Koo:

I see Face because radio people don't have to show their faces Correct correct, correct, but you bring up an interesting point about the connections.

Kenneth Kwon:

Connecting is really just vital to almost everything you do in life.

Kenneth Kwon:

And I say that because, as an emergency physician, I think the most important thing that you have to do right away, in the first minute or two that you walk into a room, is you have to be able to connect with your patient or the family member of the patient, and so you have a very short time to build that connection. And so if you're kind of good at that and I'm not saying that I'm great at that, but I'm saying that, you know, through the many decades of experiences that I've had, I think I've developed a way to somehow make that connection pretty quickly with patients and their families. And so to me, because it was kind of a natural thing to do and, you know, I think it makes my job a lot easier, because I know a lot of physicians emergency physicians that maybe can't do that, or it takes them a little bit longer to do that, or you know there's just something that doesn't allow for them to do that in a kind of a natural or organic way, can you?

Daniel Koo:

walk us through what happens when an emergency event happens. What's kind of like the order operations, what you look for like if you find the patient first or if you try to root cause it first.

Kenneth Kwon:

Well, our patients just kind of come in just through the waiting room, typically right. And so there's the ones that just walk in and you know that they're really not that sick because they're walking and they're talking. And those are the ones that you know. You go into registration and they, you know they have to sign in and then they do their vital signs. And then those are the ones that have to wait for an hour, two hours, even longer. Then there's ones that come in, maybe unannounced or by ambulance, that are really sick, that are having difficulty breathing. That's not talking, that's completely altered. So those are the ones that are kind of the true emergencies. And so when they come in, they come at your door, we bring them right to a room and we have a team that just jumps on it.

Kenneth Kwon:

My job as an emergency physician is to be the leader of that team and to be the one that is the decision-making on what we're going to do. It could be stressful, obviously it's very stressful, but it could also be very kind of fulfilling and rewarding. You know there's so many nuances to practicing medicine, but I think the key in emergency is that what we have to do is, rather than look for the most common reason why someone comes in and their abdomen hurts, which is usually like a muscle pull, or maybe it's a stomach flu, which is not a big deal. We have to kind of think what's going to kill this person, what's a really serious cause of this pain? And we have to try to make sure they don't have that first. And so we have to be a little more, I guess, pessimistic. We have to be like, you know, we can't you know?

Kenneth Kwon:

So it's about prioritization, because it's emergency Right we have to think what's the most deadly thing that's going to hurt or disable or kill this patient, and we have to make sure they don't have that, and then afterwards we just kind of say, okay, then they don't have that.

Kenneth Kwon:

Then we kind of, you know, kind of ease off and kind of go down that list. You know one, some things that we have to be really good at is we have to learn to multitask, because we are dealing with, you know, sometimes, know sometimes 10, 15, 20 patients at once, so we have to be able to to do a lot of things at once and not really, you know, we call it controlled chaos and because it can get very chaotic, but we just have to control it. We have to control our own emotions and we have to control kind of everything that's going on, because I, you know, I I have younger people that shadow me and I have some colleagues that aren't in emergency medicine that come in and kind of see what's going on and they all say the same thing. It's like, wow, this is like nuts in here, right.

Daniel Koo:

I'm feeling anxious just thinking about the 10 people that you have to manage.

Kenneth Kwon:

So we have to multitask because we're literally getting bombarded by people left and right with questions, things to do. I have to sign this, I have to sign an EKG, I have to talk to a family member, I have to get on the phone oh, someone stopped breathing and so there's a lot of things that are happening and you just have to be able to multitask and just prioritize, as you said prioritize exactly what's the most important thing that I have to do at this moment.

Daniel Koo:

I usually ask this question at the very end, but I feel like I want to ask it now. Do you feel like there are certain qualities that are necessary to be an emergency medicine?

Kenneth Kwon:

Yes, you have to have a thick skin because not everything that you do is going to be necessarily correct and you're going to make mistakes, right? And people are going to call you on those mistakes, whether it's a family member, whether it's another provider, whether it's a consultant that said you didn't do the right thing with this patient. You have to have a thick skin because there's usually not a shift that goes by where we're not yelled at or, conversely, we don't express our anger or our frustration to somebody else on the team, Because that's just the nature of what we do. So you have to have a thick skin. You just have to have a short memory span, a short memory, and you just have to just go on. And just no hard feelings, right? It's just like you know I should be insulted with how you treated me, but I'm just going to go on, and vice versa. So, so if I, if I came off as being abrasive or hard on you or whatever, sorry, but you know that's just the nature of what we're doing. So you have to have thick skin.

Kenneth Kwon:

I think the other thing that that emergency physicians have to have is they have to be decisive, because you have to just make decisions pretty quickly and some of those decisions are not right, but you just have to, you know, say this is what we're going to try and if it doesn't work, hopefully it doesn't hurt the patient. I mean, it happens unfortunately, but if you decide on one course of action, one medication, unfortunately, but if you decide on one course of action, one medication, one certain test, and that's not going to give you the answer, that's not the right thing to do, then you have to be able to pivot. So you have to be decisive, but you also have to be flexible, I think, in your thinking and you have to be able to multitask. So I think that those are probably the three most important aspects or tools that you can have as an emergency physician.

Daniel Koo:

Wow, that's certainly something that I appreciate about my field, where we don't need a lot of those things. Well, I mean, obviously we do have to be decisive in some way and things like that, but I don't think it would be to that degree, and I think it's important for people potentially listening to this podcast and considering their path in medicine to be aware of this and to see if they do have those qualities or if they need to work on those things as well. One of your key lessons was about burnout, and you've mentioned that. Burnout is real, so you need to pace yourself. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Was there anything that you went through that made you realize this?

Kenneth Kwon:

Yes, it was COVID, 100% COVID. Covid was really tough for a lot of us. You know, I can look back on it now and even when I look back on some of the moments that we had, it kind of it brings back some trauma, you know, I mean, I think there is a degree of PTSD that all of us that kind of went through COVID has, and I'm talking first responders, right Because? Or the frontline healthcare workers. I'll give you a little story, if I may. This was, you know, covid started sometime in, I think, january of 2020. It's COVID-19. So it was, I think.

Kenneth Kwon:

The first virus was isolated in 2019, late. So 2020, very early was when the first cases started happening and there were deaths happening. So we were all pretty scared, right, because we didn't know what this virus was, we didn't know how to cure it, how to manage it and we didn't really even know how to minimize our risk to this, except for personal protective equipment, right. Ppe, right, you probably heard. You know everyone knows PPE because of COVID, right, everyone knows what that means now, but there was a specific day in the hospital, I would say March in 2020, in the hospital, I would say March in 2020, when we were all given just a certain allocation of the N95 masks because they were so hard to get they were really difficult. Everyone wanted it in the entire world, right? And so the hospital only had a certain supply. So they were only giving it out to the frontline people or the essential people in the hospital, because a lot of the non-essential people weren't even coming into work, right, right, because of the risk. So in march I remember we were all sitting around in a circle because there were some emergency physicians, there were some nurses, there was anesthesiology hospitalist doctors because they have to manage the patients upstairs as well as critical care doctors. So we've had maybe a group of 10 or 15 of us. We all got our one N95 mask by 3M, right, which is the manufacturer, right. And then we had this thing called a fit test, where there's someone that you put on the mask, because there's two straps and there's a couple of different sizes. You have to make sure that you're putting it on right and you know how to pinch the nose and you have to make sure there's not leakage in certain parts, because otherwise it's really not helpful, it's going to be useless, right? So then they spray these little things to see if you could smell it or if it, if it permeates or not, and so it's called a fit test.

Kenneth Kwon:

So during that time, which was probably about a 30 minute period of time, we're all kind of in a circle. It was quiet. There was no one was smiling, no one was joking, it was just very somber because I think we all knew that that like wow, this is we're're, we're, we're running into that burning building when everyone else is running out, right, and and I think it was at that moment that that it really kind of. I look back on it now and I felt it at that moment like wow, like I almost felt like you were. You know, you're in the military and you're given a gun and you're going to go to war, and they show you how to use the gun and they say good luck, and then you're off right. So I just remember that mood in that group at that moment was just so somber, you know, and because we had no idea what was going to happen, right, we didn't know if we were going to track COVID on our next shift with our next patient, right.

Daniel Koo:

And you don't know if you're going to spread it to your family members and be on a respirator or die.

Kenneth Kwon:

You know, I've had some colleagues that that you know were hospitalized in the ICU and on an event for a prolonged period of time and that could have easily have been me. And, and you know, isolation at home. I had to, you know, go home and and for nearly six or twelve months, um, when I came home, I had to undress like in the, in the laundry room or, like you know, I guess a mud room, so to speak, right, you and then, and then I had to sleep in a separate bed, I had to eat in the corner of the table when my family was eating at the other corner, and so I had to do that for six or 12 months and at the time you don't really think about it, you don't really think it's a big deal to say this is what I signed up for and the family, we're kind of just interacting kind of normally, otherwise, not really thinking, hey, this is potentially really cause I don't think, I don't think I or my wife really wanted to kind of acknowledge that to the kids, that that, hey, you know, um, there's a big risk, it's a big risk and so we're trying to minimize our risk, but you know, uh. So I think I minimized what sort of a toll that took on me, because what happened afterwards was when COVID kind of subsided and then everyone kind of went back to their routine and and what was interesting was right, when COVID was dying down, like, say, maybe a year after that, you know we were, we were all heroes, right, superheroes, right, they call it.

Kenneth Kwon:

You know frontline workers or super firemen, you know policemen, you know emergency first responders, emergency physicians, people that worked in the emergency department. They were all like touted as these heroes, superheroes, and so it was really kind of uplifting and it kind of kept us going for a while and to the point where even patients were actually being very kind. You know, instead of saying they were grateful, instead of saying, damn it, doc, I had to wait here for three hours, what's wrong with you guys? You know I should have been seen sooner, right. So they said, hey, thanks. Well, thanks for what we do. It's great, you know. Hey, can you help me doing? I mean, they were very kind. I have to deal with with a lot of patient complaints from the hospital Demanding Right, right, I have to call patients back, I have to call parents back right. That period of time, right after COVID for about a year, year and a half, had the lowest number of complaints that I had to respond to.

Daniel Koo:

I think everyone was glad that there was a department that do what you do.

Kenneth Kwon:

But then fast forward, maybe about two or three years ago, everything kind of went back to the pre-covid kind of attitude of of, you know, I, I, I waited too long to see you. You know why am I paying this ridiculous amount of money for, for a care that I didn't receive? You know that sort of thing. So that superhero status for us has just gone. It's gone right.

Kenneth Kwon:

And I think a few years ago I felt it. I felt it and I felt like, wow, that was tough. And so that's when I knew I was burnt out or I was burning out, right. I truly believe that we all have a certain tread life, right, I mean, and my treads were pretty bare a couple of years ago and I think it was because of COVID, I know 100%, because before COVID I thought I could practice emergency medicine for another 10 years, so that would have been well into my 60s, right. But now I'm pretty burnt out and that's why I'm doing less shifts and I'm trying to manage doing mostly administrative stuff and I'm trying to manage that burnout. But I know, I know that I don't have much left and so that's why you know that retirement is in my near future because of that, and that was really 100%, I think due to COVID, and that's unfortunate because I really thought that I could go a bit longer.

Daniel Koo:

So I feel a little bit disappointed in myself, but at the same time I think I have to be true to what I feel, your current conditions and I think a lot of us, you know, during COVID just stayed home, you know, and it's actually incredible to hear your side of it. You know the side of the emergency doctors, the front, the frontline responders, and I think we probably can't appreciate it as much because we just don't know. So I think it's incredible to kind of hear your side of it and I think it was certainly not something that an average person would experience.

Kenneth Kwon:

Well, yeah, I appreciate that, Daniel. You know you mentioned that and I think I was mentioning this show called er. Back in the 90s that was pretty popular, right, and there's actually a, a reboot of that show that just started on on max, called the pit. Oh, okay, that's the one that you and it stars, uh, one of the actors that was in the original er. He was a, he was an intern, a medical student back then. His name is no, while now he's the, he's the, he's the attending who's the seasoned guy and it's actually a really good show. It's spot on, it's point on with with kind of what we do currently in emergency medicine. Of course it's a lot more fast, it's faster paced and whatever what happens in in that one hour episode for us happens like in a shift. But if you ever really want to know what we we are currently doing in the emergency department, that show the Pit is really good, it's really authentic.

Daniel Koo:

I'll have to take a look, and if they have a COVID episode, I think that would be interesting too if they are able to kind of emulate that Well part of the story is that the main guy.

Kenneth Kwon:

he is experiencing some flashbacks to his COVID.

Daniel Koo:

Oh wow, the COVID era which was four or five years ago, and that's even more close.

Kenneth Kwon:

And just watching that sometimes I have to just kind of pause it because it's bringing back some emotional feelings for me. And it's interesting because all of my colleagues are kind of talking about this show and I guess the public is also kind of thinking. It's interesting too because there was a whole New York Times article about this show and how the emergency community is really liking the show and it's because it's done really well.

Daniel Koo:

I guess it's kind of like the feeling of being seen, yes, and feeling like other people can also know your story I just so.

Kenneth Kwon:

I mean you could watch this podcast, or listen to this podcast, or you just watch this show please, uh, yeah, watch, watch the podcast is what I would say okay.

Daniel Koo:

one last thing I wanted to talk to you about was one of your other key lessons that you mentioned was don't identify only as a doctor. Keep up with your other passions and relationships, and those relationships are also. You mentioned that they were long lasting, so I wanted to ask what are some of your other identities, other passions that you're interested?

Kenneth Kwon:

in Hi, it sounds pretty mundane, but I identify first and foremost as a husband and a parent. Being a physician or whatever profession that you might do or what I may have done, I think is important, but it never, ever, dominated my life. It was always a big part of my life, but I think what I was able to do was compartmentalize my life at work and my life at home and my relationship with my wife, with my kids, with my parents, with my siblings, with my friends, and so I think that's so important because I know so many colleagues and friends that say, oh, you know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to work 15, 20 shifts a month, not even see my family, and then in five years, when I've, you know, when you have time yeah, when I have time and I, you know I am a little more financially secure I'm going to, I'm going to spend more time with them.

Kenneth Kwon:

You know I think that's probably not an ideal approach, um, but I see it all the time. So I think it's important to kind of keep your other identities with you like really much throughout your life, identities with you like really much throughout your life. It's important, and I think that because I was able to do that, I feel like I could retire and feel good about myself. I know that when you retire, some people feel lost because they lose their identity. Right, they've been doing one thing, one thing for their entire life, 40 years. I never felt that way and I don't feel that way right now. So that's why I feel that I I can retire without any regrets or without knowing, knowing that I'm not going to feel that way and I don't have any suggestions or guidance on how you do that. I think it's just a matter of prioritizing what's important to you and I think that you just can't lose sight on the important things in your life that you find rewarding and interesting. I think that if you just try to put it away and forget about it for a while. That's not healthy. It always has to be in your life somehow, and so I think to kind of dovetail on that. I think I'm going to have more of an issue trying to keep that growth mindset to try to do new things and to try to meet new people.

Kenneth Kwon:

Because I think when you enter this stage in my life where you know you're waiting off of work and and you know like what's next, right and and would I rather you know, for instance, music wise, would I rather hear the same music that I heard in the eighties and nineties, or what I, what I want to hear something new.

Kenneth Kwon:

I would say that I want to hear stuff in the eighties, from nineties probably would say that I want to hear stuff in the 80s, from the 90s, probably eight out of ten times, and only hear the new stuff like 20 percent of the time. Right where, whereas, like my wife is very different, she's, she has more like, hey, you know, life is all about new things. So she, she's more like the other way, she, she just rolls her eyes whenever she sees me listening to my old 80s or watching the same movies over and over again, or or or seeing the same friends that I've seen for 20 or 30 years, instead of maybe seeing somebody that we just met recently that we want to get to know better. So that's something that I think I have to work on as I enter this next stage in my life, but I feel fortunate that I could identify with other things than just my profession.

Daniel Koo:

Is there something about being a doctor or being in the medical field that kind of makes it difficult to prioritize other things.

Kenneth Kwon:

Yeah, it's the time.

Daniel Koo:

I think it's a time commitment and that's probably the number one thing Is that something that's kind of structured in the hospital that makes it difficult, or do you think it's more of like putting in more time just helps you advance your career? I think it's it's.

Kenneth Kwon:

It's what you just said, um, to be a doctor is is takes a long time right, and it takes a lot of work. You have to pull all-nighters, you have to study hard, you have to, you know and you have to you know, you know be a social person and you have to have other. I mean, it's like any profession is like that, but I think in medicine, it's very clear that you're expected to do all these things and do it at a very high level, and that takes time. That takes time, and so you have to forego other things, and those things that tend to go are are your relationships, um, are some of your interests that you know.

Kenneth Kwon:

People always say I should. You know I need to work out more, but I don't have time, right, everyone says that, right, but you know that's it's. It's another thing, and and but, whatever profession you're in, I don't think anyone looks back on their life and said that I should work more. I should work more. They always say I should work less, and so all these habits really start when you're younger. So I know that a lot of these listeners are probably going to be at this point in their lives where they're trying to figure out what they're going to do, what their path is going to be. And I would say that you can't forsake these other things in your life just to pick a certain path and say this is what I'm going to be. And I would say that you can't forsake these other things in your life just to pick a certain path and say this is what I'm going to do and everything else is going to go by the wayside.

Daniel Koo:

One of my last questions what's one piece of advice you would give to yourself? I want to say, maybe when you were considering med school, at that point in time when you maybe weren't sure where to go, what would you kind of tell them, time when you maybe weren't?

Kenneth Kwon:

sure where to go. What would you kind of tell them? I would probably say to not be afraid to take chances. You know, I say that with the caveat of you know you have to think out your decisions. But once those decisions are thought out and you're pretty sure of what you're going to do, just go in 100%, even though you know that it may not be necessarily the safe thing to do. And I say this because there's a lot of times in my life where there's forks, right. There's a few times in your life where you know that if you pick something it might lead to a completely different outcome. Right, and it took me a long time to sometimes make those choices right and it wastes some time for me. Had I been more confident in myself, had I wanted to take a chance sooner, I think I might have saved some time in my life. Interesting, I think I might have saved some time in my life. Interesting.

Kenneth Kwon:

I think there are three types of people or how people make decisions about what to do. I'm going to use swimming as an example. There's someone who just jumps into the pool. They don't know what the temperature is like, they don't know how deep it is, they just jump in. Those are the big risk takers, right? I think those are the ones that, and those are the ones that I think a lot of maybe your guests in the previous podcasts were like, kind of like the younger ones that said, hey, I'm just going to go for this, I'm going to go for this small business, I'm going to take this risk, I'm going to take a chance with this industry that I have no idea.

Kenneth Kwon:

Entrepreneurial type that I have no idea. The entrepreneurial type, yeah, the entrepreneurial type. So that's one type of person, right, and I totally respect that and I think that's great, right. Then there's the type of people that are very careful, right, they're going to feel the water. They're going to say, oh, it's deep, but it's not that deep, and then they're going to slowly kind of go into the pool, like with their feet, and then their you know, their, their body, and then they're going to get to a level where, oh, okay, I'm fully in the water, right, that's the very careful approach to to a decision to go into the pool, right. And then there's someone like me, who, who, I'm going to feel the water a little bit, and once I feel that the water hey, this, this water's okay, then I'm going to jump in like headfirst or whatever right.

Kenneth Kwon:

So I think that's kind of the way I am. But I think that growing up I was kind of more the diving in.

Daniel Koo:

Without even testing when I was younger right.

Kenneth Kwon:

But then when I took the medical path I became more conservative, a little bit more risk-averse and I was kind of more toward the slowly going into the pool right. But I think after these few decades I've come to the steady state where I think that's the kind of swimmer I am. I think that's the kind of decision maker that I am. And had I known what I know now, back then I think I would have told my younger self in medicine, who was kind of going in slowly to you know, just go with your gut and just do it, just go for it. Do your research, do your due diligence, make sure it's you know, kind of what you want to do and then go for it.

Daniel Koo:

To summarize a little bit about what we talked about today, you know, one thing that I'm really taking with me today is committing to your decisions and taking a bit of risk, because we're young and, you know, because things are going to work out generally, with the caveat that, you know, we test the waters first.

Daniel Koo:

The other one is, you know, not being too lost in your work and making sure you invest in other things as well, with your family, your relationships, your health, I think, as well. Another thing is really knowing what medicine is, and in this case, in this episode, we talked about emergency medicine, and I think that is going to be a big takeaway for a lot of the listeners. Considering med school and considering many different types of medicine. I know there's going to be people out there listening to this and thinking, oh, wow, that's going to be exciting, or other people listening to this and saying, oh, that's too much for me. So I think those kinds of insights and takeaways are going to be invaluable to our listeners. So I thank you so much for your time and your insights. I learned so much.

Kenneth Kwon:

Thanks, Daniel. Well, it was a pleasure talking to you and you are really good at summarizing things. You are a podcaster for a reason. It's because you just took whatever the hour and a half two hour conversation that you had and you just basically nailed it down to those three or four things that I think are spot on. So keep up the great work. I hope you know, I hope and wish you continued success in this.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, thank you so much. I mean, without guests like you, you know, this podcast is impossible, so I really appreciate it. You're welcome.