GREGORY HOUSE, BRUCE MILLER AND THE ART OF TRIATHLON COACHING

Dr. House existed before House.  My ex-supervisor and somebody I consider a friend, Bruce Miller, was the living Dr. House before House. I remember when we were in the elevator at Children´s Hospital of Buffalo, a pregnant lady entered it followed by a little girl holding her hand.  She dropped her keys in the elevator and I tried to get them for her.  Bruce just touched my chest and looked at me. I understood that I should not move.  After the elevator´s door opened and the lady left the elevator, he bent over and got the keys for her.  He just told me:  “You do not know what that lady thinks of you; you are liable.”  I understood the game and made up my mind to move back to Mexico.  I wanted to play more House even before the existence of House (House appeared ten years later) and I had my only chance of playing House in Mexico. Bruce plays it in the USA because he is a “big fish in the pond” there.  House´s game is a real pleasure.  I love to play House in the full sense without the arrogance.  Perhaps just a little; otherwise one is not the Chairman of the English Department at Austin like Hinojosa and nobody believes you.  April first in this blog.  Eight part.  Few words on languages and lactate.  And above all, I would not put the patients in danger.  PLAYING HOUSE IS PLAYING MEDICINE TO THE LIMIT TO OBTAIN THE IMPOSSIBLE.  This is also what I try to convey in this blog.  Creating a winning team needs a clever, understanding and “brutally honest” leader.

Dr. Miller is Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry. He supervises child psychiatry fellows in consultation-liaison psychiatry and child and family psychotherapy. He is an internationally recognized physician-scientist focusing on psychobiologic mechanisms by which child/adolescent stress and depression affects physical illness and somatization in children. His translational research program takes place in the Center for Child and Family Asthma Studies, (Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo) of which he is founder and co-director.

 

Coaching is very similar to seeing patients and families as a doctor.  A healthy environment is needed to have the winning culture in a team while in families it's necessary to have a helpful environment to decrease distress and illness.  A clever, understanding, intelligent and “brutally honest” leader is needed to create a winning team. Talent is not physical, but educational and mental.  We have the example of Brooks leading the USA Hockey Olympic Team in the 1980 Olympics (see the film Miracle). Coach Carter film shows a story from California that needed “THE MAN.”  What I hear in consultation and see in real life is beyond any film, even horror movies.

Playing House is not just rewarding. it is the real passion of being a doctor. A few patients understand that if they do well I feel good.  The same thing for triathlon; if our athletes do well we feel great and the opposite.  But we need the winning team or create it to perform well.  There is no short cut.