Who's Who: William Graham Carlos, MD, MSCR, ATSF
- Your full title as you’d like it to appear.
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- W. Graham Carlos MD, MSCR, FACP, ATSF
- Three statements about you – two true, one false. (We tease each new Who’s Who with statements about each featured person – two of which are true, one of which is false, all to be revealed in the last answer.)
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- I was born and raised in the woods of Poughkeepsie, NY which is the “reed covered lodge by the big water place” in the Wappinger language.
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- My dreams came true when I was accepted to The University of Notre Dame which is where I was wooed to becoming a doctor by a girl from Logansport, Indiana and a few patients at the Chapin Street Clinic in South Bend, Indiana.
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- Since graduating medical school at Indiana University, I have remained married to that girl and my appointments to Chief Resident, Clinical Educator, and Chair of the ATS Section of Medical Education have been unexpected and unpredictable.
- Give us your ‘elevator pitch’ biography.
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- I am not a fan of elevator pitches. If you were to meet me in an elevator, I would probably try to discover your biography. I have found that listening to my patients, students, and colleagues to learn their stories, receive their feedback, and understand their opinions has been the key to my advancement in relationships, patient care, and family life. If you were to ask me what I am most proud of in terms of my medical career it wouldn’t be my appointments to Chief of Medicine and Pulmonary/Critical Care at Eskenazi Health to Chair of the burgeoning ATS Section of Medical Education, or to becoming a Bicentennial Professor for Indiana University – rather, I would celebrate the four consecutive “Golden Apple” awards for top professor awarded by the students of the Indiana University School of Medicine. If I could put one thing in bold in my biography it would be to celebrate the feedback and accolades bestowed upon me by my students, residents, and fellows. In the end, they are the fuel to my fire to teach and transform health care.
- What would you tell yourself as an Early Career Professional?
- Find your passion. Discover your “why."
- If you weren’t in medicine, and were in a different industry altogether, what would you be?
- Easy. I would be a farmer.
- What is your favorite way to spend a day off?
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- Coffee. Book. Gym. Yardwork. Playground with my kids. Movie with my kids. Tweet something profound. Movie with my wife. Tell my wife about my profound tweet. Eye-roll and a kiss.
- What areas of medicine are you most excited to see develop?
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- AI. It terrifies me but I think it may help us get better at reducing medical errors and making better decisions. It will never replace the need for the human connection. That is why we need to continue to teach and preach how to “care” for patients.
- What is one advancement in your field you’d like to see in your career?
- I would like to be able to look at a phone or computer screen, state a hospital and EMR followed by a patient’s name, and have the patient chart open automatically. Then I would simply dictate my clinical findings and plan for care. That dictation would automatically be based on my level of complexity and time spent. This would afford me more time to take care of patients…and my family. I would also like ventilators to have customizable alarm options like “Help, I need somebody” (Beatles) or “Take my breath away…” (Berlin).
- Ok. Which statement did you make up?
- Poughkeepsie is actually “reed covered lodge by the little water place”
