Late-Night Talk: Sam Webster, PhD. Anatomy, Gaming, and what a PhD Really Teaches.

Sam Webster, it's a pleasure to meet you and welcome to to PhD launch. Thank you for inviting me. So before, before the questions, I when we've met back at at the canteen with Emmanuel, who's who's not here. I went there, I went to I went back home and said to my to my partner saying, look, I'm going to have some, some of Webster on the podcast. I say Simon Webster. Who someone Webster the the anatomist. Oh yes, he's wildly known in Romania. She's she's, she's from Romania. Oh, really? Yes. In CBU, OK, a bit far from from Bucharest, the capital. And she was telling me that, oh, he's quite popular in Romania. And thanks to his YouTube channel, we get on there for now. And, and she, she has a friend who I think she has finished her anatomy undergraduates there in Romania and say, oh, we follow lots, some Samuel Webster there. And they say, oh, OK, so he's quite popular across Europe. Yeah, I've been to Romania the last couple of years of the conclusion of Pocket for. They've invited me to give a keynote talk at the Heart conference. Those guys over there, they're amazing. I mean, they're always amazed by medical student conferences and student conferences. Like as an academic, to be honest, I try and avoid them. And then when students organize these things and they're that good. Yeah. So I I have had some good instructions to Romania. Yeah. Well, that I can say that the world is so small in that regards because speak and also network is also a big plays a big part on that. I spoke that you would be my guest here at Bhd Lounge, and she was so happy to know related to her friend. So this is not to me. And then amplified this whole this whole this whole situation and say, OK. And so since he's popular, I got to check what he's been doing. And then I noticed, oh, there was a LinkedIn post you've typed a couple months ago. Oh, it was a great pleasure to be in Romania and oh, my God, no. Everything is connecting. Yeah. Yeah, it's a small world. I mean, that's the beauty of this, right? Because, I mean, I've ended up making podcasts and videos because I'm a nerd. Well, that's the same reason I do everything like This is why I'm in science. It's because I'm a nerd. But it's it's it's amazing how because I grew up with the Internet, as in the Internet was becoming a thing. This is what we wanted. We wanted to be able to share information freely. We wanted to make the world a smaller place, right? And. We never, we never expected to make that into videos was basically audio at the beginning. And then YouTube came 20 years ago and they said, oh, now it requires an online presence where we share moments, we share lessons, we share things that connects with us and resonates with the rest of the world. And that's where it can and, and what what it's currently doing from the most from the most of us, I guess. And before that, I was text right, 'cause when the web was the web, we wrote and we wrote vlogs because we were nerds. We wanted to share our lives, and then we wanted to share the science that we were doing. And then as a teacher, I would write vlogs, blogs about whatever we've been teaching that day. And then it's just as the technology changes, the media you use just rolls along with it, you know? Yes, and from blogs and then videos of vlogs nowadays and then podcasting. Don't know what's next. You don't know what's next. They're trying to. Keep up with people so will Superlay. I will take over the world and say, well, we don't know actually, but the the world is keep keeps evolving and and that's the beauty of it. So you said you were kind of a nerd in the field. How does that evolved your throughout your your academic background until you decided this is my aha moment of doing medicine and specifically anatomy. At school, I by the time I got to A levels, I was doing all the sciences and I was doing the sciences because I just wanted to know how everything worked. I've always wanted to know how everything works. I've always taken stuff apart. I love watching those documentaries on TV with factories that make things and you know, all that sort of stuff. It's like, how does everything work? But I didn't know what I wanted to do with three sciences after school. So normally when you do 3 sciences, you get pushed go and do medicine, right? I'm not really the right person to do medicine, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. But my teachers, I think my teachers, certainly one of my biology teachers knew me better than I knew me. They obviously had experience with this and they saw a new anatomical sciences degree programme starting in Cardiff, but it wasn't starting for another year. So they said what about this? It's like, yeah, cool, that sounds, that sounds cool, anatomy, that sounds good, human anatomy. And they even also said, well, and also in the local NHS, here's a job working as a, a microbiology lab assistant for a year. It's like, so you know what I mean, teachers really feeding you into the right thing. So I work part time, there's an MLA medical laboratory system working with in microbiology for a year, which I loved at the bench. And then I started the anatomy degree and you do the Physiology and the biochemistry and the anatomy and the philosophy of science and all these other things. And it was great fun. But I still didn't know what to do and I was still learning how to work hard. But it was that third year where you have a decent 3rd year, proper third year science project. We're like, here's the project, here's the problem. You go off and do it. He's looking at tongues, frog's tongues and rats tongues. And the idea was why can some frogs throw their tongues out further than other animals? And we thought about the, the arrangement of the connected tissue. So I was set up with, I was shown how to use a scanning electron microscope and light microscopes and cut sections and stuff. And then I was just left alone. Figured this out for yourself. In fact, my supervisor left halfway through to a job in Holland, I think. So I was really left alone, but this really opened my eyes. It's like what I, I can do science with these tools and using a scanning electron microscope is mind blowing, right? It, it was just incredible. And there were technicians who would help me. So there was the support, but there was also that sense of independence. You go about this however you think is fit and sort it out with your supervisor because they're more experienced than you. And I realised that you can do this as a job and you can do this as a career. And the pH DS were things like, yeah, OK, I want to do a PHDI want to do this. You can do more of this and you get paid to do a PhD. Not much, but so it was that basically it was that whole experience. It was a teacher at school understanding her students and then university showing me things I didn't know existed, that then, you know, I latched onto that route. So it wasn't more of a practical way of doing your PhD with all the technology and some of the dummies as well when doing when analysing the human body or even the anatomy of animals, she was talking about frogs. Yes, that was the the the PhD then was a molecular cell and developmental biology project. I was looking at the genes that might be regulating endicontal ossification. Cartilage is becoming bone, and there's a chick model for that. The sternum. Next time you have a roast Sunday lunch, if you look at the sternum, the top third is bone and the other 2/3 of cartilage. So, yeah, so in the embryo, in chick embryos are quite good because they come in a little package. It's an egg, you know, so you can, with chick embryos, we were looking at the cartilage and looking at the genes that kept one area of cartilage, cartilage and the genes would that would drive the other cartilage to become bone. So I was learning differential display, RTPCR and things like that. Really tricky, problematic techniques that other people weren't using at the time locally. So I had to figure out all of these problems myself and it was just incredibly challenging, incredibly difficult. And you know, one of those PhDs where you have no results for the first year because you're figuring out these problems. And then when they start to work, then you start getting differentially displayed genes. You get, then you start to get targets and then you can start sequencing those targets and, and it all kind of started rolling. But my word, PhD is the hardest thing I've ever done by far, and one of the best things I've ever done. I, I think it gets the best of both worlds, the best and well, the worst to an extent of both worlds because I was chuckling and then you, you, you we laughed at same time because it also resonates with my experience. I'm stillwell doing the corrections of course, but technically APHD student. But during my first year I was quite lost and trying to get everything done for the the probation period and I had to to postpone it for this for the second year. And I only managed to find to to do the findings right at the end of my third year and then during my 4th. Year. Then I, I've gathered every material possible and compiled it into 100K words because we like to write a lot. And my main argument was literally at six months till the end of my submission. And so I when you said there's a bigger challenge, it was so hard to not to get everything done in the first year. That's where I started. I had the chuckles on that. I think it's a common feeling in, in, you know, it's such a challenge, these things and it's so different doing the PhD and doing a bench based PhD. You know, no battle plan survives the first encounter, right? PhDs are like that. It's like we're going to do this and then you do it. And yeah, it's the techniques you learn are often incredibly high level and very technical. If you're lucky, you've got a lot of people around you who are doing this routinely. Oh man, that's great. But you're still doing something novel. So it can be very off putting, can't it? When you're putting all this time in, you're not getting the results back in. You're wondering, have I made the right decision? That's when I'm having conversations with met students and including PhDs in medicine. Not long ago I was having a talk with one of the PhDs in medicine you might have knew, might have crossed with him. His name is Angelo Robles is doing another sort of Peach sort of PhD in medicine and he's not been this is so hard for me just doing some lab work and needs to be done at this specific time. What if this is wrong? It is it was completely non-stop of talking medicine also with other things, but the main the main focus on the lunch was medicine and say I need to send this to my supervisor. I don't know if this was going to happen. What's going to happen afterwards and say well, the only thing look, I'm from arts and humanities. I don't understand STEM. The only thing I can say to you give it a shot and see how it goes. Just don't think about it. Yeah, you have. You just got to keep pushing on and see what happens. I think this is This is why I I do have great respect for people that have done, I mean, particularly STEM PhDs, because if we feel like we've gone through the same thing, the same difficulties, and I think if you have succeeded, it means you have found ways of getting through those, those difficulties that most people don't encounter. Yeah. I don't have much experience of the arts and humanities PhDs. I'd like to know. Yeah, I know a bit about. I know a bit about what goes on. It's. A similar concept because it's just it affects we obviously we, we tend, we write more, we write a huge, a huge dissertation with thousands and thousands of words. Mine was 100 a hundred and K words. And in other fields it's literally the same. Yeah, yeah. And of course in that first year, you're really fleshing out your own discipline, right in your own thoughts. You're right in that introduction, you're pulling all that, all those literature reviews together, and you're really assimilating that information, which in itself is a big job. And I think that's something else you don't realize before you get into a PhD is the level of understanding you've got to get to in that niche area to be able to complete what that PhD means. Yeah. And you figure that in the first year. It's like during my degree, I didn't understand what hard work was until I probably got to the third year. And I kind of figured it out by then. And the PhD was another big step up again. And it may be the person I am, I think. And you said yourself that you are competitive. So you, you've brought that competitiveness into your journey pre and then during your PhD. And also you said, you said also you have a, you did a postdoc as well. So you got that also alongside your academic journey. I did a few postdocs. I'm naturally competitive, but I try to be less competitive academically. I'm very, very competitive with myself. I expect a lot of myself, I think, and when I succeed, I feel good about that. Do you know what I mean? But no, during the PhD, during postdocs locally, it wasn't about competition. It was about collaboration. It was all about support and working together and helping. You know, you're always going to, if somebody's learning a technique, you know about, oh, I love teaching people about how to do that thing, right. You love sharing that knowledge and showing off your skills. So now there's a lot more collaboration, maybe a bit more competition between universities, but even then there's a lot of collaboration between different research groups as well. Probably more collaboration than people realize. Yeah, I well, we can, we could ask straightforward then about academic competition and also the competitiveness and how happy you think you feel about of seeing others thriving through collaboration as well. And I'll ask you because you, you said you have a YouTube channel with your, with your name and I, I'd like to know who is Sam Webster the the lecturer and then Sam Webster, the YouTube are two are two, 2, two different persons. No, I'm not that clever. It's all the same. So the YouTube thing got a little bit out of hand. I mean, so like I say, when when I had a blog, you were just trying to share your life and I was reading blogs of other people who would share their lives because that's what US nerds did. We were making the web, right? This was before it became corporate. And then when I started this job in 2004 and I started teaching, like I say, I'd write articles about this is what we did today. Oh, and here's that paper I said go and read. And here's an annotated picture of that thing I showed you just to add to the learning. It's basic e-learning. Ever since I started this job, I've always done various e-learning things and then the podcasts. So then when video became the thing that was fairly easy to do because you'll remember that we didn't have the bandwidth for video when YouTube was young. You couldn't watch YouTube at home because you'd have, you know, we wouldn't have 150 megabits per second. You'd if you had a megabit per second. I mean, whoa, half a megabit per second. Yeah, you're gonna. Be showing off. My first modem was 28.8 kilobits per second, right? And then I upgraded to a 56 kilobits. So and then video was actually quite easy to make because digital cameras came along earlier. So it's quite easy to make digital video, quite easy to edit it, very expensive to host it on a server, very expensive to stream it. Nobody really had the bandwidth to watch it. So it's that general thing. That's why YouTube got bigger is because all the other technologies caught up. So at that point, what I'd been doing just shifted to video. So I wasn't making videos for the world. It's just that every time I make an e-learning resource, it's like if I'm putting the time into this, I should share it with everybody because that's what we've always done us all people on the web. And that means that time I've put into it is more valuable, more efficient, because as many people as possible use it. Great. I spent 30 minutes on this and loads of people used it. That's really efficient, right? So I'm making anatomy videos like the blogs for my students, just sharing them widely. And then the vlogs were just a continuation of the blogs. And then, well, like I say, I got a bit out of hand. Do you have in memory your first ever video of anatomy? So because I'm an outdoorsy person, so the, the vlogs actually have another purpose. I like to because I'm a very active person. I like to be doing active things and outdoors things. Just to just like with the blogs to show this is a normal, this is how I normally live my life and try to encourage people to do it right. You normalize these things like cycling to work, going for a run on the beach, you, you kind of encourage other people to do it and it adds a bit of context if you're teaching stuff as well. So I think my early videos were I was talking about cardiac output and I think I was running on the beach with the GoPro and and then I was also doing one about lungs or maybe maybe it's the mechanisms of breathing, which I did on my bike with another GoPro. So I think those were the early ones. Wow, so sharing moments and then just going through anatomy lessons. It's a different way of teaching, right? If I could take a camera outside. It's alternative teaching and I think just many of the, many of the lecturers are taking that step forwards. I, I would assume it's, it's a small, it's, it's small percentage, I would say. But there's there's I can see there's still people who trying to elevate their their position as lecturers and to show to the rest of the people what we can do as teachers. What goes beyond the teaching room, essentially that teachers have a have a have a life they like, as you do with you with your channel and and is is education basically for towards medicine. But I do, I'm a subscriber myself and I've liked it's really fun to watch actually, and since to get like a brief knowledge of, oh, it's how a liver works. Yeah, it's our own bodies, right? We've all got one. That's the other thing is I want everybody to know how this works. So I started making shorts as well. Sure. I don't know why. I remember, I don't know why I started doing that, but I started making shorts for some reason. And the shorts are interesting because it's a case of, OK, how can I teach somebody interest something interesting about their body in less than a minute? And that's quite nice. And that then ends up being not at a high level, but a very everyman level. It's like, yeah, everybody needs to know this. Everybody's got a body. Everybody has things that go wrong with their bodies. The better people understand their own bodies, the better for themselves and better for everybody else, right. So that that's a big part of it. I think academics as well. Are we we're probably quite bad at having like a life and a job, aren't we? It all blurs together because I mean, I right, So I work at a university and they pay me to study anatomy and then tell other people about it, which is what I would be doing anyway. But they tell me they pay me to do this, right? Because this is just what I'm interested in. How does the body work? So then of course that bleeds into my home life because that's what I'm doing at home. I'm just want to know how everything works, right? So then in terms of videos and podcasts, it's the same thing. That's just me. On video or in real life, it's the same. Wow, do you get have you ever got any any not so pretty comments? When or do you ever pay attention to to the to the commentaries of down below? It's basic human psychology, isn't it? You get lots of really nice, really good supportive comments, but it's that -1 that then sticks in your head. Yes. And then, yeah. So you, you kind of when you get, when you get big, I get, I think I have about 2 million views every month. You get to a point where you partly I don't have time to read all the comments and partly I don't want the. Middle of the comments that that would be great if we if we would make a living out of it just reading positive negative commentaries and reply to them the. Vast majority are incredibly supportive and positive. But like I say, it's just my own personal psychology that you tend to fixate on the negative ones. But it's the same as student feedback, right? If you, if you've got 150 students and you deliver a whole bunch of sessions, you deliver a module and all the feedback you get says this was good, this was fine, don't change anything. And then you get one bit of feedback that says, I hate this bit. What do you do? Do you change it? Well, you shouldn't, right? But yeah, So it's the same with YouTube comments, except YouTube comments are weirder. Much, much weirder. Yeah. Yeah, and obviously I my, for my podcast, I never received any comments or whatsoever like in such nature when I started to put it on YouTube, I, I can't recall a one time that I, that I had a comment, but it was a very elaborative commentary. That's that the one user said I was unimpressed with one of the interviews we got. And I say, no, this is a nice constructive feedback and I own the subscriber from that. And I say I really thank you for that. And we just, you can't control basically what other people are saying. And as you said, we just gets in your head, but then you just have to release it. But I do have some very supportive people making comments and I've, I've made, I've made friends with people who've made comments and made links and we've talked together by e-mail. So comments are weird as well. It's a bit like trying to get student feedback again, because you asked for student feedback and you mostly don't get any. You just get either end of the spectrum, you know, really enthusiastic or really unhappy people and YouTube, the vast majority of people on YouTube and on the Internet generally never comment on anything, never say anything. Twitch, YouTube, the vast majority say nothing. So you've already got a very small self selected pool of people that are saying things. So it's difficult to know how to take that. But like I say, most people are positive. It's just, it's, it's just me really. My main, my main aim is to make stuff and the topics I choose every week are just stuff I'm interested in that week. That's why there's not much structure. So there's something we've done or something I'm interested in that I need, I just need to tell everybody about. So it's not, it's not the on what you teach, basically. So in other words, you have this, you have this module about about the the human brain, the anatomy of the human brain. Do you take something, any information from that module onto YouTube? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm, if we've been teaching something that week, I might make a video about it. But you do this for 10 years, you've already made a video about it. So you're looking for something else to make a video about. The videos themselves. So you've only got so much time with the students. So the other thing, the written blog and the video does, it gives you more time with the students. So I can, the videos are structured so that they start off with a very low assumption of knowledge, right? So anybody can come in and I'll introduce stuff and lift you up. I find that students that already know this stuff don't mind because they like the refresher and they think, oh, I know this, this is good. So it's quite positive. And the people that don't know it, well, it's good for them because you're lifting them up. And then I kind of cover the material that's most important, most relevant. And as you go through the video, it starts to get more detailed and more esoteric. It gets summarised at the end, but what that means is the viewer can just jump off when you've got enough, that's it. You, you're done. You can jump off. Because I'm not actually fussed about YouTube status. Yeah, I'm not actually fussed with numbers. So that would be terrible if you wanted good YouTube numbers. Because the main determinant for the algorithm at the moment is, is if people watch to the end or not. If people, the more people watch the end of your video, the more your video will be shared by the algorithm to others. But I don't care. So it it, it does that. So it by doing that we can I can cover the content I maybe talked about that week and then add the other detail I didn't have time for and maybe tie in other things which the learner will then make those connections and remember it better. So those ones that you had this through YouTube Shorts then, isn't it those extra layers? Those are the long form videos the. Long form from. The long form, the 10/20/30 minute videos or 30 minute is a bad idea. Did you ever try to include any students into one of your videos? No, not intentionally. I'm a one man band. I am so busy, I do so much work that honestly this gets squeezed in when I can. I, I found in the past that if I work with other people for this sort of thing, rely on other people, it doesn't get done, doesn't get finished. The only it seems like the only person who can keep up with me is me. I have done something, I think there's some students in the background of one video because they were just there and they wanted to do it for a laugh and bits and bobs. But no, it's that's why it's just me is because then I've got control and I I won't get it done if I'm waiting for other people. Wow. I mean again, this this is all completely new for me when it comes to anatomy medicine in general. But to say just one man person to hold on to to to himself, and then just to explain all the the beauty of the human body in in a plain and simple language with less jargon, although it sometimes it's necessary to add some specific words to it, right? Yeah, you build up the jargon. You love the jargon and say, OK, I don't want, I don't want jargon. I just want to see the to see the the the dummy. Yeah. So the shorts are interesting because if they're an interesting challenge because trying to do it in a minute and I usually will get it in the first take as well is what have I absolutely got to include. So that's an interesting challenge, so. So could you explain one time you had the challenge when to make a a video about a specific region of the human body? Do you have a? Did you have a video where you found it was the most difficult to explain? It's always neuroanatomy and it's mostly because most of the body you can like pull layers aside and see other things. The brain is so soft. I don't use human tissue in the videos, it's just plastic models. But it's the same problem with plastic models. You can't move it in such a way as to show the things you want to show, Like a muscle is a muscle. See, that muscle starts there, ends there. That's a muscle. What does it do? It does that, and that's the nerve that innovates it. Brain isn't like that. It's soft tissues and tracts and nuclei and Gray mattering overlaps and it blends and they share function and they're all interconnected and they have circuits. And I know from my own experience that learning neuroanatomy, neuroscience is very difficult. It's scary for most students because it's so abstract, I think. So that is a, it's a major challenge. And also my own understanding of this is improving. And humanity's understanding as a whole is improving, Right. So that's another thing that annoys students is, yeah, we don't actually know what all these things do yet. So sorry. And I'm teaching you this thing might change in the next five years. I'm sorry. Because we're at that end right at the cutting edge. So that that's what is the hardest. Those are the hardest topics. It's so kind of ephemeral. Wow, I mean as as you said, it's also keeps keeps evolving, Yeah, but then. During COVID, I, we, I, I was still making videos during COVID, they were mostly in my back garden. And the one on my list to do soon is I did the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia structures deep in the brain. They're involved in movement. They're actually involved in inhibiting movement. So with Parkinson's disease, that's when those circuits stop working and then you start to see resting tremors. I don't know how I recorded that video without any models, but I basically did it from I think a three-year from photos that I had and justice describing it. So, and I'm writing a textbook at the moment with a colleague, Pocket Atlas of Neuroanatomy. Now I understand the basal ganglia better. So you see, now I want to go back and do that video again with the models I have in the lab with my improved understanding and maybe I can do a better job, but I don't go back and watch my own video. So maybe I did a great job last time, I don't know. But don't you, you do backtracking to see, oh, what I've what could I improve here? What can I improve? No, I assume I did a great job. So it's just the essentially of I'm going to make this video, I'll edit it when I'll edit it. Yep. And then I'll launch it and I'll just ghost myself. It's done, done, done. Yeah, you're just only going back. Oh, let me see the comments. No, it's just what's the next video? Just the next video. What am I interested in right now? What are we going to do the next video? It's always about the next. I've got a post it note above my monitor. So I October this year I've been making a vlog and an anatomy video every week for nine years. And there's a post it note which I put up at the beginning, which just said just keep uploading and it's still there because you've got to simplify, right? Yeah, make a perfect video every week. Now, if you make a perfect video, you're never going to get it done. Just up. The only rule I have is I have to upload something. And going through that process of having to upload something means iteratively I keep improving because you always reflect on what you're doing, especially if you're a teacher and it's in the editing process. You think next time, next time. All those little things add up and with time, hopefully I get better. But I'm not, I'm not aware of any videos that I've done really badly that I want to do again. But things that I understand better though, or things that I've learnt new and cool things about, I'll do that again. That's an excuse to talk about that again, I see. Well, and as you said as well, because I was watching a video this morning as in doing the hard things you it was a vlog that you have uploaded. And these, these if you just go and wait for the perfect time to, oh, make this perfect video. As you said, you never get it done. It's just making the hard things. And as you said, we were talking about the at the beginning of of the of the of the stalk and saying just bring the hard things. Yeah, I think the vlogs are a bit of a cheat because really, I can do a vlog however I want, I can do it low quality, I can talk about whatever I like. It's a vlog, right? I can. Whereas the anatomy videos have to have a bit of structure and stuff. But yeah, with that, I was talking about how when you realise you can do hard things and the PhD very much teaches you that, it's absolutely revelatory because you see other people do hard things and you think and then you learn you can do those hard things. Like man, I, I can do anything if I really put my mind to it. I can do whatever I want. Now, what is it I want? And a lot of that is having this support around you. You know, you're as a PhD student, if you've got a good supervisor and if you've got a great Co supervisor that that is the support that will make you realise you can do anything. And we're making videos and podcasts. I talk to lots of people about this. And the hardest thing is not the recording, it's not the making, it's the hitting upload, it's the sharing it, right? That's the terrifying bit. And I, I still get it every week, every time I get it every day of the week when I'm editing a video, I am grumpy because I'm not, I don't want to do it. I don't want to share it. I'm just kind of got this grumpy mood on. It's like. So there's this that that bit of I don't know, I'm going to do this. And then when it hits the moment of yes no I want to upload yes no. The rule, the only rule is I've got to upload something, so it's like it's done, it's going up, then worry about the next one. I think that method of worrying about the next one means you don't dwell on the last one because I really don't think about it. Once it's gone, it's like, great, what's next? I think the PhD is the same thing, right? Because my PhD was not finished as I expected it to be, wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be, wasn't as complete as I wanted it to be, didn't go in the way I wanted it to be. But it's like a case of you just got to finish it. You just got to, you got to get it finished, you got to submit it, move on to the next thing. Yeah, that's what I'm also pondering what to do next. Started finishing yeah, yeah, I'm, I know what I know what I want. I just need to do a breakdown of OK, first do the corrections and then what's coming next. That's. You looking for jobs or have you looked? Yeah, I've already glanced them. Just seeking out career boost here and they they're really helpful in seeking out graduate jobs in arts and humanities. But my background is ancient history. So at the moment just glancing finish up the corrections and then after that just start just searching for graduate jobs on that, on that, on that site. You know that that is the route I'm I kind of almost saw my youngest going down the same route. Really interested in history. We went to the open day here. Very impressed with the history lecturers here, man, they are really good. And they did the small group thing afterwards. Really, really nice. So and they're interested in the ancient history side of things. And I could see, and they were talking about academics and stuff. So I could see PhD in the future and what have you. And they were nailed on for that, but they were tied with illustration as well because they're an artist. They've picked the illustration route, I'm afraid to say. Oh. There's an illustration you ended up winning. Yeah, I guess applications going in. That's something that you said as well. That's here the the arts and humanities department they have, we have great lecturers and they are great, great supervisors. And she was saying also the supervisor, if a supervisor is an excellent tutor, then I think the PhD card will also be outstanding. And I think that's what makes the department so good. If someone tries to motivate that person, only if the student motivates himself or herself as well. And that's basically then. And that that is how how it works. And we were saying, saying about competition. If you are competitive with yourself, as you said, and but you like to see all this going through and that's what makes you fulfilling in your role as a lecturer. I do. I wonder how your students are competitively. They're Med students. Yeah. Famously competitive. Yeah. It's really interesting. So when you've done your medicine degree, there's no, there's no grade as such, right? It's either you get it or you don't get. It's not like a first or two, one or two, two. And then after the degree, you go into the foundation programs. You got two years of foundation training, F1 and F2, and it was so part of the algorithm looked at the decile that you finished in and what your scores were like in medical school to determine whether you got the job you wanted to get in the first foundation year. They've changed that to a different method. They don't look any of your scoring data and I think the aim is to try to give everybody their first choice as far as they can. If you don't get your first choice, then your second choice and what have you. So try to get people to go where they want to go and work. And I've heard anecdotally from students that that has taken away some of the competitive, not just the competitiveness, though. The, the, the, that push to work really hard to score the best grades. They, they take the foot off the gas a little bit. Probably doesn't matter. They're still going to be excellent doctors. But now there is competition at higher levels surgically, like at trainee levels, because there aren't enough jobs, I think. And in some disciplines it's harder to get jobs than in others. So there's a lot of competition with a higher levels and I still see that in Med students. I whenever I do lectures and often in the anatomy teaching I'll use like cahoot quizzes and what have you. I heard of it, yes, Yeah. Really competitive and it's great fun because they're really noisy. They're debating, they're discussing the answers, they're talking about what we've been talking about. Love it as a as a teacher and also you get immediate feedback on they got the right answer that meant they were listening. Brilliant. So they're a naturally competitive bunch. Funnily enough, back in the day when I I run a series of Embryology lectures back before Kahoot, when we had physical clickers who you'd hand them out in the lecture and they press the button and for the answers you'd put up in your PowerPoint presentation. I used to run it as a boys versus girls. We did this for a number of years and the thing we learned was the boys cheat. They would pinch extra clickers and they'd sign into the girls team and they'd put the wrong answers in to bring the girls score down. We'll put, yeah. So, yeah, very competitive. I'm not sure, you know, and obviously they're not too seriously competitive, but there's this natural, I think it's very, very hard to get into medicine. Right. So it's a natural and healthy and unhealthy composition. It's, it's healthy if you manage it. You know, it's, I think you've got to be that type of person to do medicine, to go into medicine. You've got to be up for the challenge, right? You've got to be up for the challenge to get a place on the medical school program because it's hard. It's, you know, we have what 1300 people apply and we've got 150 places, you know, so you're already selected for that type of person. And then when they start, I tried to just encourage that collaboration, that working together, because they're graduates, they've, they've got degrees, they've got careers in different disciplines. So they can help each other. You know, the pharmacologist can help their group of friends and the anatomist can then help the pharmacologist and so on. And they'll all grow faster. But I think, I think competition is healthy. I think it also teaches you how to fail because you're not going to win all the time. And if you learn, if you get used to little failures, then hopefully you learn how to deal with the big failures. Medicine is often the first time somebody fails something meaningful. And the real challenge, the real the important thing about failure, is how you figure out how to succeed in that thing that you failed right, rather than giving up. How did you happen during your PhD and then your academic career? Any sort of a of a failing of a moment where you said to yourself, I failed in this in this aspect, how can how can I improve it to make it to make it a successful? PhD all the time. Yourselves Die. Yes, yourselves. Damn, I'll wear my lucky socks next time. We're so sceptical. And yeah, you know, there are some things in, in, in STEM subjects where we'll take all the luck we can get. Yeah. I mean, during the PhD, it was just failure after failure after failure. But it was also incremental progression. I understand this a little bit better. I understand why this. I understand what to do next. And it was that keep trying at this thing, which makes that final success so much more rewarding. And I think I found once I'd succeeded once, you could succeed more easily again, because you learn so much from each of those failures. You better understood the process. And then you would succeed over and over again. And you could train other people how to do it as well. The biggest one was during my degree, though. I was terrible at biochemistry. Again, probably because it's abstract, right? And because I want to know how everything works. I couldn't just learn biochemistry. And that. That plus that does that. Yeah. But why? Yeah, but why? But why? You go down this rabbit hole. But why? And I failed my biochemistry exams. So then I had to, you know, approach the biochemistry lecturers and do extra tutorials and accept this process of learn these facts. And you're not just learning and regurgitating. This is a useful thing that you're learning. But that's enough. You don't need to learn all the detail. And then I started passing my biochemistry exams. Then I could, you know, I didn't fail the degree. And that was the first thing I failed. That was really important, I suppose. I mean, my A level results weren't great, but that was the one where I had to really figure out how to change what I was doing. I was thinking on my mind here as well, because we all have failures. And I think from this stage, from a PhD candidate and then to a postdoc and then becomes a lecturer, most of the students will see as, as, as role models, right? And then they expect from us that we can't, we cannot fail because obviously they're paying their tuition fees. We get paid from them. But at the same, obviously we don't share these moments of failure because obviously you have so much to do in your head. But I was, I was recalling my, my times on in secondary school, but also during my uni times as an undergraduate that I had to fail three times during my geometry module. This was back in secondary school because I was doing visual arts at the time and I need to do lots and lots of exercises to in order to pass the exams. So at the 3rd at the third attempt I've managed to pass and then the university on the first year I had medieval history, no sorry second year medieval history. It was the hardest module I've ever faced and and say OK I'm keep failing this time so how can I revert the situation? And the solution was I'm need to go abroad. Yeah. I went to Spain to finish my undergraduate and I had only 6 modules left. The medieval history was the hardest one, and when I went back to when I went to Spain to, to to take that module, it was the lecturing style was even harder than my one than the the one that I had back in my home country in Portugal. I passed in a tangential at tangentially, I can't remember the the the proper name was was a little gap of one point above failure. Creeped over. So it was crypto, all that, and I say, Oh my gosh, I've passed already. So I, I was, I, I was so cheerful and joyful on the, that moment that, Oh my God, I won't have to deal with this anymore. And, and those are the, I think those are the moments where when you fail and try again and improve and review it every single day. It's a matter to it's a it's a one more point towards towards success, say to say that. And I guess students, we students sometimes have also to think about, Oh, so if despite all the failures that we because we're humans that we take through, they also expect from us. OK, So if the if some of Webster made-up this far, he had to learn a lot. So we can also follow his his example. Yeah. And I try to share my failures. You know, as a as a lecturer, my biggest job satisfaction comes from students that aren't succeeding and then helping them succeed, Right. And a big part of that is psychological, the things that you've been describing, right? It's, it's awful to, to not succeed, right? It's awful to fail. It's something, it feels terrible. If it's a little thing, you get over it. But if it's something that's really meaningful, it really knocks you to your course. Like this means I cannot do this thing that I really want to do because like you say, you look at other people and you don't see their failures. I work with a huge number of clinicians and as an anatomy teacher, I have orthopaedic surgeons who love telling me how they failed their anatomy exams. And now they're surgeons like, you know, because they're really proud of this, right? That's why they like telling me because they overcame this thing. Turns out they loved anatomy and now they've become a surgeon. I know some very eminent, very eminent consultant who failed his final year Oskies. You're not supposed to fail your final year Oskies. And he is now like super highly regarded. Nobody sees that. He doesn't tell everybody that. So people do hide their failures as well. But no, what we're what we're doing is not easy. If it's worth doing, it's not easy, right? If, if, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. But it does. It just feels awful to fail. So a big part of what I try to do is try to share that feeling of awfulness. Take a bit of the burden on, right, Say we've all been through this and there's a huge amount of psychology to success, right? I think another important thing, I think this is important for PhDs as well, is try not to let other people define what success is for you, right? Society is a construct, biology, physics is real. You're you are you. You define what is success for yourself. You define what it is you want to do. Don't let other people assume for you don't fit into those societal norms of this is what success means, because just because you hit those things doesn't mean you're going to be happy or feel good about yourself. What is it you really want to do? What is it you really want to get out of the PhD? And you might not know the PhD might just be I'm doing this because I'm really interested in this thing and I want to do this thing that that is your measure of success. And if you feel good, if you, you know, if you feel happy as a result, bam, big tick, right, right. I think. It is. So would that be your definition of success? No, I'm not giving anybody else a definition of success. You define success for yourself, right? So it's a personal thing. It's like happiness, happiness. Happiness is not a thing that people experience all the time. Happiness is a transient feeling. So people are chasing happiness. I'm not maybe expecting it to be a permanent state, but it's not. It's a, it's a, it's a thing that comes and goes, right? Yeah, it's, it's those, well, those definitions that are on the dictionary and then say the societal norm, it's just what society says. Those feelings are within, and you're the only ones who can cultivate that. That's the most important bit, isn't it? It's your brain, it's your psychology, it's your feelings. Yeah. So do you also feel, do you also feel that way when you play Hades? Right up until the last encounter. Yeah. See, I mean, video games are great, aren't they, for learning failure. Video games are just. I mean, the the people who make video games are genius teachers. The way they teach you how to do things and you don't notice that you're learning, then you become an expert at it and you feel like a genius. Yeah, Hades, I'm all the way through to the last encounter, but I still haven't done it yet. I didn't know. About the game, my girlfriend had to ask, have to tell to tell me. Oh love, what is Sam playing? Let me see. Oh, he's playing Hades. Isn't that Warcraft? No, no, it's Hades. OK, RPRPG games of that nature. Honestly for me it's doesn't work with me. I like more collective video games where in terms of more sport, sporting and cars as well. Maybe you should just try it. I need to try, just try. I need to try a bit more. I need to speak with my brother. But now, because my brother now he's in Norway, can't, I can't reach him, of course. But I need to talk with my partner because she loves she loves to play RPG games. Yeah, I played World of Warcraft when it came out in 2004. I've got a World of Warcraft character that's older than my kids. Yeah. Which one is it? Not a good role model. Well, it's a dwarf hunter. Yeah, but I think video games are very interesting. I've always, again, being a nerd. I grew up with video games. Yeah. I was playing video games on DOS Well, before DOS, Atari and stuff. Pong. I played Pong anyway. Sorry, you know, the Pong. Oh. Yes, I know, I know. Pong the dots. Yeah, Anyway, I know Pongs. I've literally grown up with all of this. What was my point? But video games and they teach you about failure, little failures and failure is part of the learning process. And you do get really frustrated and angry and annoyed. Many. Times or I was so fucking frustrated being of doing doing to win to win a 24 Le Mans race on the on on my desktop at the time was about 20 years ago when the Toca was in you, you know you have to toca Toca drivers. It was a big boom before Gran Turismo came in. My God I need to win this and so go so got so fed up and so they even I got slapped by my parents once when we wasn't normalized at the time I work. It's like when you get hit by a blue shell as you're about to go through the finish line in Mario Kart in first place. Who's that blue shell anyway? Yeah, but I, I am interested in. So the other thing about video games is, of course they're often very visuospatial and anatomy is also very visuospatial. So there's a, there's a tie in there. The reason I find anatomy easy is because it's probably very easy for me to build these three-dimensional spaces in my head. So I'm often interested in students, if they play video games, what type of games they play and how they get on and finding their way around the video game world or the real world, because often that ties into how easy it is for them to understand anatomy. But doesn't it? Yeah. Doesn't it? Doesn't the history of playing video games teach you how to deal with those little failures which feel oh so meaningful at the time because it's the last boss and you're dripping with sweat and your heart rate's like 160 BPM. You just sat in a chair. Do you know what I mean? If you, if you go through those safe virtual experiences, does that help you in real life? I don't know. I don't do psychology well. I wish I could do, but it was. It's not my cup of tea. I prefer ancient history and for for ancient history games, Assassin's Creed is. You're learning while you're playing, right you? Learn while you play. I've the first. The first one I got was Assassin's Creed 2 and I knew they were they had the the novels written by Oliver Boden. I don't know if Boden is a common surname here in Wales or just add some anyways, but I've learned a lot from AC2 and then Brotherhood, Revelations and so on. I never knew so much about Renaissance Florence when I had artistry lessons and see, oh, I need to if I need to do so there there was this time I need to. We were having Renaissance history, art history and the, the, the lecturer at the time was telling about the technology of the Cathedral of Florence because it was made in various tiers in various faces. So I was thinking about, OK, so what's the best time to check out these? I mean, I have the Internet, but I also have AC2. OK, let's, let's play it on my PlayStation and see how it goes. I was doing the missions, the, the, the parkour missions and like, oh, I need to get rich the top of the, of the Duomo or the, the big, the big fault of the of Florence, Florence's Cathedral. Oh, so this is how it's built because they have a, they have a snip, a brief information about the cathedral, who made this, the material, how the engineering worked at the time. And I was like, oh, OK, so they had, they had a model built with by they built with wood. It was like a blueprint for them. And I say, ah, now I get it. So, and that was, and then we had a group work and we had, we had a nice, a nice, great. I don't remember how which one was it, but I'm surely that AC 2 was was helpful. On that, it does all. It's all wider learning, wider reading, right? Are you now at the level where you're critiquing what you see in those games? You say that's not right and that is right and. So have you heard of Operation the the the anatomy game? Yeah, yeah. So would what would. You do if you if you. Just like have you have this lecture about about the human body in in any place? Would you invite your students to be competitive and then just take off the bones? What would you do? If you and what would you do if they would fail? Yeah, no, operation is not not so useful for learning accurate. It's a bit too vague. No, we competition can be very useful in getting groups of students to work together. And I we like that because if groups of students are working together, they're talking to each other. So they're debating what the right answer is. They're comparing their own knowledge, they're error checking each other, they're having little arguments and discussions. Man, that helps learning so much because anatomy is another language, right? So they're saying the language out loud. Yeah. So competition is really helpful in that respect. But even in that competition, you've already got collaboration. You've got one group fighting against another, particularly if you've got new students who don't really know each other very well yet. And you can get them doing this and they start to relax, They start to know each other and talk. And yeah, it's nice, isn't it? As a learner in a group of other people that you don't know, to then know them all a bit better, it all feels a bit easier, yeah. Wow. And then once it gig hit the exams, I do remember as well that you said on the on the on this last vlog you've made that they had an exam to do. Yeah, wasn't it? But it was a simulation then. Yeah, yeah. So we just, the anatomy sponsor exam is a very strange exam. We have physical objects, we put pins in things and we ask them questions about it's recognition and recall. What's the name of that thing? What, what, what nerve innovates that thing. Yeah. So we like to give them a dress rehearsal so they know what's coming up. Oh OK, so it's more of a spoiler alert for them. Yeah, I'd show them the real level we are marking them. We'll give them their marks back and the marks don't mean anything to us. It's just for them, it's mostly showing them this is exactly what's expected of you, how to prepare. So when we do the summative exam, this is what you'll get. And that type of exam is different again because we're not spreading the students out like first 2122. We're set in a bar and said if you know a bit about everything, you'll get over this bar. So the past Mark's about 50%. Most students should be scoring about 7075%. And I know the students do battle to try to get 100% because it's entirely doable. Usually students have done some anatomy before, so easy to make a mistake that I reckon I probably would get 100%, go around my own exam because it's hard. I just make a silly little mistake somewhere, you know? Yeah. Oh. My well, as you said, it's, it's the competition, but then how they see themselves in a, in a, in a real world scenario then? Yeah, When they're working in medicine, they're not going to be competing. When they're working, they're going to be collaborating. They're part of a team and they're part of other teams. So medicine is there's a lot of learning to be a a loan worker and very much being a team player. Communication is a huge part of this. So there's a lot of hidden curriculum stuff, but anatomy, there's a lot of communication skills that we develop, you know? Problem solving as well. Yeah, I guess it it hit, it hits all across all areas, no matter. Yeah, we've been teaching like modern anatomy for about 400 years. We've kind of got the hang up. Not me personally, yeah, but you know, in from Italy. Yeah, the first anatomy lecture theatres, the first universities there, you know, pretty much. Yeah, just over 400 years ago and we haven't really changed that much. We've added to our knowledge of anatomy, but we still do small group teaching with a body or with other objects. Practical stuff. Plus the oil on canvas of the anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt. You've probably heard of it. Nicholas Toupe. Nicholas. Toupe, The anatomy lesson of Nicholas Toupe. Yes. Is that it? No, so the probably it is, but I was, I was recalling to an oil on canvas anatomy lesson of of a physician dissecting the this area of the forearm. So he's well, he's from, from Rembrandt. He's famous for his bigger, bigger canvases. Yeah, the anatomy lesson is there's a body that's very grey and there's a small group of bearded gentlemen and then a teacher at the front and some interesting use of light and colour. And it is my classic example of hey, look, small group teaching. Hey look small group teaching what have we changed they're. All paying attention of how this how the radio, Yeah, if it's the metatarsus and the radio, how, how, how do I dissect it? How do I dissect it? Yeah, I mean, there are fewer ruffs and beards now. Otherwise, you know, it's yeah. And we, we do have new things like YouTube and podcasts and the Internet and stuff, but it's, it's not really changing much the body. No, I think it's just the less the there are transportable skills throughout the centuries, just proper lessons were made as you said, 400 years ago. Even going back further, he historically we had we had the Arabs who basically knew about medicine. Hence the word medicine comes from a physician called even Cena and many of them I I'd risk to say that most of the people are uninformed about it and they think oh everything was a creation from the western world which in to an extent it developed wildly, yes, but originally came from the Islamic world during the the the peak of the caliphate era. Yeah. And that's exactly how we think about it. That's where the knowledge was for a long period of time when there wasn't some knowledge in Europe. And and see what life goes on sitting here sitting down with a proper anatomist. You said also because we were talking about YouTube and your teaching experience, you said you also have a podcast as well. Yeah, is this. Around the same concept. Yeah, it's again, it's another teaching thing. So it's the Dissectable Me podcast. It's limited to 5 minutes. Dissectable me. Dissectable me Yeah. We teach physician associates and when we do, I do a Kahoot quiz at the end of every session. And they came up with great pseudonyms. Really, really ingenious pseudonyms. So when we were thinking about starting a podcast, we said what should we call our podcast? And that's they came up with that name. So we picked that it's again, it's the topic of. So Chris Summers and I were doing it regularly. Chris fell by the wayside. So it's me doing 1 every week. He says he's gonna come back next year. We'll see, but it's 5 minutes on whatever topic we're interested in and that five minute, so it's giving choice again with the e-learning, right? You can go out and read something before the teaching. You can watch some YouTube videos before the teaching, list some podcasts. We're not expecting you to use it all. We're giving you choice. You pick whatever works for you. So if you haven't got much time, 5 minute podcast is going to introduce you to the terms, introduce you to the subject and warm you up and it and it takes 5 minutes. And for me as a teacher, because I can talk for hours about most things, right? University lectures are terrible for that. If I've only got 5 minutes. OK, wow. What do they really need to know what is really clinically relevant? And that's a great exercise, especially when you've been teaching a long time, because it distills down what you do know to what you. Should to what? You should to prop to what exactly they want to know. What they need to know, what they need to This is what you need to know about. Yeah. Wow. Which takes out a lot of Faf. Any any upcoming sessions? I'll make it up as I go. As you. As you go every week I'll just make it up whatever topic. So we'll be on the same day that when a YouTube video is launched. No so Monday I'm teaching all day. Gem Tuesday I find to do find time to do a short and literally it takes me 5 minutes of work to do a short. Just have an idea and go to the lab grab a light. I use the meta ray band glasses because they got the camera in the thing so I can use both my hands. I just get a big light and usually record it in one go. Wednesday I try to record a video when the labs have finished being used, so Thursday's editing, I'll do a vlog at some point during the week, often on the weekend. Fridays when I do a podcast. And again, because it's a 5 minute thing and I should know about it, it shouldn't take much time to research and it should only take me 5 or 6 minutes to record. So it's all about efficiency. It's like what's most useful for somebody else and how can I maximize the probability that I will complete this task every week? So if you've already got a topic in your head, that makes it easier for you to record that topic, right, Because you've already done the research. If I'm, if I'm already teaching something on the Wednesday, because we teach on Wednesdays, we're going to teach on Tuesdays, you know, if I've already talked about something that week. And often if you're teaching, if you're, you're teaching a lesson and you've done some research, you'll often come across this really interesting things like, I didn't know that really interesting thing. Now I've got to tell everybody about it. So that's a short or that's a podcast, right? Wow. And I think with all this information, I think I just got a brief knowledge of doing a bit about anatomy from your, from your teaching experience. And I think this is a good way of wrapping up the the session because we could, we could stay here all day long with just tackling time and talking about more about anatomy in the teaching experience. And also other topics as well as you like, unless you have something to share before before wrapping up. No, not in particular. Any advice for whoever wants to take a PhD specifically in this area, or in general as well? Just in general, APHD is harder than you think it's going to be. And because it's hard, you're going to struggle and you're going to have failures, and that's fine. It's worth it in the end. It's. Yeah. So I I think before I did a PhD, the title was important to me. And after I did a PhD, don't care. Nobody ever calls me Doctor Webster, not even the people I work with. Yeah. No, It was all. It was all about the experience. And yeah, I think it was a really important part of my life. I can't recommend it heart heartily enough, but you've got to be up for it. And I think this is an excellent way of finishing up the session. Thank you for having me. So thank you so much, Sam and your channel, Sam Webster, your podcast, The Dissect. Dissectable. Dissectable Me So students and graduates, make sure to pop up on the show notes and look out for For Sam's YouTube channel. Also his academic profile if you're interested and. Not much of a profile. You say you also have a LinkedIn as well with your same name as. Well, it exists. I don't use it much, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm quite searchable I think. So just crack on that. And Sam Webster, thank you so much for having and thank you for the time to, to, to come. Thank you, that was fun. Nice to be back trying to PhD students again. We can also talk afterwards. Yeah. So for you students and graduates. So thank you for tuning in again. Make sure to follow Sam Webster's podcast and YouTube channel. And As for me, it's been a pleasure.