Arena Labs has spent years bringing experts from high-pressure, high-stakes fields to teach on the frontlines of healthcare. Now, we're capturing the best insights and tools from those experts and making them available beyond the hospitals where we work.
Treating Clinicians Like Athletes with Mark Kovacs
Mark Kovacs, PhD in Physiology and Human Performance Strategist, presents a framework for treating healthcare professionals as elite performers, drawing from work with professional athletes, NASCAR drivers, and executives. Background Collegiate tennis champion turned performance scientist after a misdiagnosed shoulder injury redirected him into physiology and biomechanics.Career focused on prevention, making individuals more resilient rather than rehabilitating the injured.Hydration as a Perf...
5 Feb 2026
Bridging Elite Sports and Healthcare: Lessons in High Performance for Creating a Successful Culture
Carrie Taylor, Vice President of Soccer Operations at USL Spokane and a pioneering female coach in men's professional soccer, presents frameworks from elite athletics that are relevant to healthcare. Key Career Insights Transitioned from University of Michigan soccer and a pre-medical academic track to a pioneering coaching career.Determined that effective coaching prioritizes understanding individual team members rather than focusing solely on technical strategies.Identified a critical disti...
11 Dec 2025
When Burnout Becomes Biology: Understanding the Science and Solutions Behind Healthcare Worker Exhaustion
In this episode, we sit down with Diane Malaspina, Performance Coach Manager at Arena Labs, psychologist, and yoga and mindfulness teacher, who spent years working directly with healthcare providers navigating unprecedented stress during COVID-19. Her unique integration of psychology, mind-body practices, and frontline coaching experience reveals the hidden patterns that lead talented clinicians to struggle and what actually works to help them recover. Diane walks us through the window of tol...
3 Dec 2025
Pressure in Pediatric Surgery with Dr. Danielle Gottlieb Sen
When Technical Mastery Meets Human Connection: What It Really Takes to Operate on Children's Hearts In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Danielle Gottlieb Sen, a pediatric cardiac surgeon whose unconventional path to the operating room reveals as much about resilience and self-determination as it does about technical excellence. From Sub-Saharan Africa to Harvard training programs, she shares how a drive to serve, combined with incremental decisions and relentless endurance, led her to one o...
13 Nov 2025
From Olympics to Healthcare with Naya Tapper, OLY
What Can Elite Athletes Teach Us About Building Stronger Medical Teams? More Than You’d Think. In this episode, we sit down with a two-time Olympian, World Cup competitor, and former co-captain of the U.S. Women’s Rugby Sevens team to explore what high-performance sport can teach medicine about culture, resilience, and sustaining excellence under pressure. From her unlikely entry into rugby to winning an Olympic bronze medal in Paris, she shares how elite teams build identity, maintain standa...
24 Jul 2025
Fail, Reflect, Master: A Seal's Guide for Clinicians w/ Matt Cumbee
What if your worst professional failure became your greatest clinical asset? In this episode, Matt Cumbee—former Navy SEAL and Arena Labs performance coach—joins us to unpack how “catastrophic” failures forge the grit and capacity every healthcare worker needs. Drawing on his time as a SEAL and years spent helping physicians, nurses, and surgeons translate elite tactics into everyday care, Matt reveals why embracing missteps is the fastest path to true mastery in high-stakes environments. H...
10 Jul 2025
What Makes a Leader Last w/ Mike Mears
What can the CIA teach us about building better hospitals? More than you’d expect. In this episode, Mike Mears—former CIA Chief of Human Capital and the founder of the CIA Leadership Academy—joins us to explore what medicine can learn from intelligence operations and high-stakes organizational design. After decades in the clandestine world, Mike has spent the past 20 years decoding what makes great leaders tick and how elite teams sustain performance under pressure. We dig into the origins of...
26 Jun 2025
Performing Under Pressure in the ICU with Jessica B. Williams
Jessica B. Williams shares her experiences as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the CVICU, revealing the physical and emotional demands of ICU medicine and her strategies for performing under pressure in an interview.
15 Jun 2025
FBI Lessons for Frontline Medicine with Sarah Draper
Sarah Draper, former FBI Special Agent, discusses applying lessons from national security and law enforcement to improve leadership and sustainability in high-pressure medical environments in an interview.
14 Jun 2025
Coaching the Frontlines of Medicine with Jackie Pen
Jackie Pen discusses translating elite performance strategies from athletics and special operations to improve clinician performance in demanding healthcare settings in an interview on frontline medicine.
Who has been a guest on Peak Protocols: An Arena Labs Series
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Jessica B Williams
Sarah Draper
Jackie Pen
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Podcast Authority Score: 35 / 100
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