What does it take to compete on the world's biggest stage and then pivot to one of the most demanding training paths in professional life? Today's guest, Samantha "Sammy" Kolowrat, has done both, and the former Olympian has some fascinating insights on the connections between elite sports and practicing medicine on this episode of Raise the Line with host Lindsey Smith.
What does it take to compete on the world's biggest stage and then pivot to one of the most demanding training paths in professional life? Today's guest, Samantha "Sammy" Kolowrat, has done both, and she has some fascinating insights into the commonalities of those two worlds on this episode of Raise the Line. “Something that really drew me to medicine is the team atmosphere that’s there as you work towards a common goal, and there's this level of intensity that’s very reminiscent of the experiences I had as a professional athlete.”
Originally from Prague, Kolowrat represented Czechia at six IIHF Women's World Championships and the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and also captained the Division I women's hockey team at the University of Vermont while earning degrees in biology and pharmacology.
As she starts an anesthesiology residency at Vanderbilt University, she credits her athletic career with shaping how she handles pressure, feedback, and teamwork in medicine. "The more I improve, the more knowledge I acquire, the more skills I hone, the better care my patients get," she tells host Lindsey Smith, describing what drew her to a field that rewards the same relentless fine-tuning as elite sports.
This engaging conversation also explores:
Mentioned in this episode:
Vanderbilt University Anesthesiology Residency Program
Lindsey Smith
Hi, I'm Lindsey Smith, welcoming you to Raise the Line from Elsevier, an ongoing exploration about how to improve health and healthcare.
What does it take to compete on the world's biggest stage and then pivot to one of the most demanding training paths in professional life? Today's guest has done both, and she has some thoughts on what those two worlds have in common.
Samantha “Sammy” Kolowrat is a first year anesthesiology resident at Vanderbilt University. Originally from Prague, she competed for the Czech national ice hockey team representing Czechia at six IIHF Women's World Championships and at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. She also captained the Division I women's hockey team at the University of Vermont while earning a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's in pharmacology.
Today we'll explore the parallels between elite sports and medicine and how hockey has prepared her to excel in other dimensions of her life. Thank you so much for joining us today, Sam.
Sammy Kolowrat
Thank you so much for having me.
Lindsey Smith
So let's start by learning more about you and your very interesting personal background and story.
Sammy Kolowrat
Yeah, so it's definitely a little bit of a convoluted story. I try and give people like the shortened MTV version...but I was born and raised in Prague, Czech Republic. Both of my parents originally are from the United States. So I grew up there sort of as an in between citizen. Ended up coming over to the United States to go play Division I college hockey and pursue a pre-med degree of some sort before kind of bouncing back and forth between the Czech Republic and the United States playing for the Czech women's national hockey team.
So that was kind of the beginning segment of my life, and I didn't really know where medicine was gonna take me. But thankfully, you know, after the two gap years I took after college, we eventually made it to medical school, which was kind of the ultimate goal. So it's definitely been a little bit of a convoluted path to get there, but we made it.
Lindsey Smith
You definitely did make it. And I think what stands out the most when we hear about your story is I think you're pursuing something that most people only ever dream about. So you've captained a Division I hockey team, you competed in six world championships, and you made it to the Olympic Games, and you're kind of just getting started now with your medical career. I'd love to hear what stands out the most to you from your experience as an elite athlete.
Sammy Kolowrat
I mean, there were definitely many, many lessons learned. I think elite sports or just sports in general really shaped the type of person I have become and just the key parts of my character. But really, I think I look back on my professional athletic career and I think about all the amazing people I met and all the things I learned from them. I think there's a special kind of camaraderie that you share with people when you're going through all of this like physical, mental, emotional hardship to reach an end goal as a collective that is so special and so unique.
I think that was also something that really drew me to medicine: that team sort of atmosphere and collective mindset is still there, and you're still working towards a common goal, and there's this level of intensity that is also very reminiscent of a lot of the experiences I had as a professional athlete.
So, really, it's the people that I met along the way that always stands out. I just have such fond memories of all the times that I had with, that I shared with, so many of my teams.
Lindsey Smith
Absolutely. And I love that you mentioned that community piece, because I think that's so important...that locker room, those lifelong teammates. Now you're kind of shifting gears and moving into a new team with your medicine career that you're entering. So tell me when you first got interested in medicine and how did that interest kind of develop alongside your athletic career?
Sammy Kolowrat
Yeah, so I never was dead set on being a physician. I think it was an interest that sort of grew over time, and as I learned a little bit more about what the role of the physician was in a team and the responsibilities, I think it drew me in. But the original inspiration, or I'd like to think of it as the spark to the flame, was my grandfather. He was a plastic surgeon. He originally was from South Korea and immigrated to the United States to complete his residency. His story, not only as an immigrant, but also as a physician, had always inspired me.
I remember always visiting him at his office and seeing the way that he would interact with patients and how much they respected him and loved him. I think that was always the initial interest that drew me in, I think, as a child. I always really was drawn to science and so when I got to college, it kind of seemed like, why don't I investigate what this whole medicine thing is about. As I did research and began patient care, I realized that this was something I really saw myself doing.
There were a lot of, like I said before, parallels between my life in sport and in kind of the science world or the medicine world that I thought, you know, they kind of went hand in hand. So it was definitely a challenge to navigate both those goals at the same time -- both my goal of trying to get into medical school and also trying to compete at the highest level as I could athletically -- so they were definitely not made to coexist with each other. There was definitely a little bit of struggle to try and make them work together. But you know, I think when there's a will, there's a way. You can always find a way to make it happen.
Lindsey Smith
That's amazing. I always think it's so interesting to hear why people end up getting into medicine. You mentioned the parallels between sports and medicine. When you think about what elite sport actually develops in a person, what qualities do you see that are the most transferable in medical training?
Sammy Kolowrat
There really are so many, and I've talked about it in numerous personal statements, because I mean, I could just talk about it endlessly. But the things that I really think about, or that I really have found to have been beneficial in my experience as a medical student, have been this idea of being receptive to feedback and not being satisfied with what you have. I mean that in a positive way. I think that obviously that can be taken to the extreme, but just the desire to constantly improve.
For me, on the ice, you know, I could say that I could hit a slap shot this way, but then I wouldn't be as good from this angle, so there was always something that I was looking for and pushing to kind of fine-tune. I think the thing that was so exciting to me about medicine is the more that I improve, or the more knowledge I acquire, or the more skill that I hone, the better care my patients get. That was something that was just so exciting to me about a career in medicine. Just being able to take that skill of making an adjustment based on somebody's feedback or finding something that you want to fine-tune in your game, that transferred over to medicine, whether it was learning how to suture a certain way or learning a specific biochemical pathway. I think that drive to improve was always kind of a big part of both journeys.
The second thing I would say is, just generally speaking, is resilience. We hear about how difficult it is to not only get into medical school but be in medical school. And the same thing in sport. You're not always gonna win the game. You're not always gonna play the position or play the amount of time that you want. And being able to say, you know, I'm faced with this hardship but I'm gonna figure it out and I can trust in myself that I'm gonna figure it out, is a really helpful skill that I definitely have utilized in both worlds.
Lindsey Smith
Sports teach you so much, I think, about life in general, and you mentioned feedback, seeking constant improvement, resilience, and becoming better in general on the ice or in medicine. One thing that you didn't mention was high stakes or high pressure moments, which I'm sure both of these fields have. Do you think your experience as a competitive athlete changed how you respond to that kind of pressure? And if so, how?
Sammy Kolowrat
Yeah, I think it fundamentally altered the way that I respond to pressure situations. I’ve told the story before, but when I started playing Division I college hockey, I realized very quickly that I had very bad performance anxiety, to the point where I was non-functional on the ice. And as an eighteen-year-old, you know, finally reaching my dream of being a recruited Division I athlete, it was so tragic to me. I was so disappointed because I just did not know how to cope with this pressure that I put on myself or, you know, external pressure, whatever it may be.
It took most of my professional career as an athlete to really work on those skills and learning how to manage those moments. If games didn't go my way, how to adjust in the moment, things like that. So I think really those skills that I honed over ten to fifteen years have really come in handy in medicine, because those are the same skills that I use when I'm nervous in the operating room or nervous on the first day of a rotation or nervous presenting a patient -- it's all the same sort of skills that I originally learned when I was dealing with some of the performance anxiety when it came to playing a game.
Lindsey Smith
Thank you for sharing that so openly with us. I think you gave us a really great overview of how those two worlds can really talk to each other and how that pressure does feel familiar. I know athletes talk a lot about recovery, physical, mental, emotional. Has that framework shaped how you think about managing yourself through the marathon of medical school?
Sammy Kolowrat
Yeah, I think medicine has really altered my perception on recovery. Medicine and sports can both be very, very intense fields. You give everything that you have to both of those for a common goal. I think as an athlete, I certainly wasn't the best at recovering, if I say that. I think you're always trying to push it to the limit , With medicine in mind as my long-term career, I learned very quickly that in medical school, or just in general in medicine, you have to find ways to offset some of the stress that you experience, and that ultimately your performance is at its best when you are at your best, when you're rested, when you've taken time for yourself. Finding that balance certainly has been a challenge.
In the first two years of medical school, I really had to put in a conscious effort to improve. But I think more than ever, there's definitely a movement in medicine towards focusing on well-being, and focusing on, you know, you can't care for your patients if you're not caring for yourself, and that our patients ultimately deserve the best version of yourself.
So I think that, although as an athlete perhaps it wasn't my strong suit, medicine has certainly made me shift my focus towards incorporating recovery and being mindful of burnout and things like that.
Lindsey Smith
Such an important point that you mentioned, because I think recovery isn't always something that people associate with medicine, but it's essential to sustain that performance over time. So let's talk about teamwork. How does what you learned about teamwork as an athlete show up as a member of a clinical team?
Sammy Kolowrat
I think it translates really well, regardless of the type of clinical care. Being on a team in sports definitely taught me the importance of everybody having a role, playing that role, you know, open communication, the open sharing of ideas. And you know, those things all translate very well, at least in my opinion, from sports into medicine.
I think medicine is the ultimate team in that you get to work together to help an individual. It’s more than we're winning a game together. It's how are we going to pull out the best versions of ourselves to help this person. I think especially as a physician, having that leadership role was something that I was always really drawn to. The most exciting part of that, again, is that is the idea that as a physician, you're helping to delegate responsibility and establish roles, but as a good leader , you’re trying to bring out the best in everybody.
I think that's something that's so exciting about medicine. Part of the reason why I was drawn to an operating room atmosphere is because that is prime teamwork in my opinion. Just a well-oiled machine. I just think that it's just an exciting place to be.
Lindsey Smith
I love what you said there and that connection, because I think you're exactly right, in both those settings you're relying on that trust, that communication, you know, that clear understanding of roles, often in really high pressure moments. But the goal changes from a game to improving outcomes and people's lives, which I think is really interesting there.
Let's talk about mentorship. This is an important topic to you, I believe, in particular, and you've developed a real interest in mentorship during medical school. I'm curious about what drove that interest.
Sammy Kolowrat
Yeah, that's a great question. I was thinking about this the other day and I was like, what was the spark? I think a big part of it was -- at least through ice hockey and eventually into medicine -- there was never really anybody that I could talk to or follow or look up to that had kinda gone down the same path that I was hoping to go down. And so a lot of it -- whether it was ice hockey or applying to medical school or going through medical school -- I just kind of felt like I was improvising the whole time and just trying my best and hoping to have a good outcome.
Thankfully, a lot of the hard work I did has paid off. But it really inspired me to want to try and be that person for other people that I didn't necessarily have. You know, whether it's just a question that somebody can DM me on Instagram or helping people with study tips or whatnot, you know, if it helps somebody else feel a little bit less alone in that process, then that's something that's been really fulfilling for me. I just want other people to feel like they have somebody they can look to for advice or to help them through that process, because I definitely felt like I was just kind of winging it sometimes, if I'm honest.
Lindsey Smith
I like the idea of paying it forward and that you're so willing to mentor students, so that is amazing. So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about where you are in your medical education journey. You are heading into anesthesiology residency. Why did you end up choosing that specialty?
Sammy Kolowrat
Yeah, anesthesia was something I had kind of always thought about in the back of my mind. A couple of my family members were saying, you should consider anesthesia. It's a great lifestyle, it's really interesting. But I had never really known much about it, and it wasn't until my third-year rotation that I really started to understand what the role of the anesthesiologist was in a clinical care team.
There's so many different things about it, but I think the first thing is just my interest in pharmacology. I did do a master's in pharmacology, and that's always been something that's been an interest of mine. And so, you know, the utilization of drugs obviously is kind of a mainstay of the specialty, so that was one piece of the puzzle. I loved the idea of being in the OR. I loved that team atmosphere and the idea that I got to take care of one singular patient at a time.
But truly, I think after I had decided on the specialty after my third year, it was really solidified during my fourth year when I got to experience the depth and the breadth of the specialty and interact with so many different providers. Everybody I interacted with, whether it was an attending or a resident, I just thought, like, wow, I wanna be like this person when I grow to be an attending or have my own independent practice. So I think that was kind of a big draw, and so I'm so, so excited for what the future holds, and I'm very excited about my decision.
Lindsey Smith
That makes a lot of sense and feels really aligned with your background. So a lot has changed in medical education in recent years, from how students learn to how they're assessed to how schools support them. As someone who's been on the receiving end of that, what do you think medical education gets right? And where do you see room to improve?
Sammy Kolowrat
That's a great question. I personally think it really will depend on an individual's medical school experience. In my personal experience, I thought that my medical school did a really great job of incorporating the clinical skills aspect of medicine in addition to, you know, the hands-on aspect in anatomy and lab combined with lectures as well. So it was really kind of this multimodal atmosphere where you had a little bit of independent study, you have small group learning, you have hands-on skills, and I think that really gives you a great overall sort of well-rounded education.
I do think that generally speaking, where there's improvement just all around, I think is in this idea of wellness. I think we're still working out how to incorporate wellness, how to educate on wellness in medical school and in residency as well. I think there's still this belief that we can provide a wellness week that has wellness lectures, but really the best thing you can do for wellness for students sometimes is to give them some free coffee and a day off. And so I think we're still trying to find ways to, you know, teach medical students about wellness and balance. I think that's something that, like I mentioned before, is evolving in medical education but in medicine in general, and so I'm very excited to see where that goes, because it's certainly an area that needs to be developed.
Lindsey Smith
That really resonates. And let's go ahead and stay on the topic of medical students for a minute. In our audience, we have many students and early career health professionals. What's your advice to them about meeting the challenges of the moment and building a career in medicine?
Sammy Kolowrat
That's a good one. I get asked a lot of questions: what choice do I make? What extracurriculars do I do? What volunteering experiences should I have? How long should I take to study for this exam? A lot of the times my answer is kind of the same, and that is, anything that you're doing that's guided by or is led by your passion or your enjoyment or your excitement by something, that's never gonna be the wrong choice. Especially when it comes to sort of curating a CV or a resume, if your resume is a reflection of all the things that you care about, it's never going to be something that's a bad thing. If you can talk about something passionately because it's something you care about and it's something you've dedicated a lot of time to, I think it's never gonna be the wrong choice.
I think we tend to worry about making the right choices -- the right medical school, the right activities to do -- and I think that there really is no such thing as the right answer. It's just the answer that excites you, and that's never gonna lead you astray.
Lindsey Smith
There's a lot of great advice in what you just said there, but to play that back, everything should be guided by your passion and excitement. So Elsevier is an education company, and we're always looking to fill knowledge gaps. Is there a topic that you think we should make a video about, something in healthcare that you feel deserves more attention?
Sammy Kolowrat
Yes. It should. I think this is something that's more of a personal interest. I always love hearing about different stories of women in medicine...their experiences having children, having a family in medicine. I think that's something that's still a little bit challenging to talk about, or is still, I don't want to say controversial, but you know it's something that many physicians have to deal with. Many female physicians have slightly different things that they need to consider perhaps than some of their male counterparts. And so for me, I'm always interested to hear about the stories of other women and their unique experiences, and so that kind of content always makes me very interested and excited.
Lindsey Smith
That's really helpful. Women in medicine is a great topic. We'll certainly share that with our content team moving forward. With that, I want to thank you so much for joining us today, Sam. It has been a true pleasure.
Sammy Kolowrat
Thank you so much for having me.
Lindsey Smith
And that's a wrap on today's episode. It's not often you get to talk with someone who's competed at the very top of one sport and then willingly started over at the bottom of another demanding climb, medical school. It's even less often to hear that journey shared with this kind of clarity. I know a lot of our listeners, whether they're lacing up skates or stepping into clinical rotations, are going to take something meaningful away from this conversation.
To everyone listening, thank you for being here with us. If this conversation resonated, share it with someone in your life who's working towards something challenging. I'm Lindsey Smith. Remember to do your part to raise the line and strengthen the healthcare system. We're all in this together.