What Happens When a Doctor Designs a Board Game? with Dr. Lakshman Swamy

Knock Knock, Hi! with the Glaucomfleckens

When your job is literally life and death, how do you explain what that feels like to patients, to families, to anyone outside the ICU? This week on Knock Knock Hi, Kristin and I talk with Dr. Lakshman Swamy, a critical care and pulmonary doc who decided the answer might be… a board game. We get into burnout, the broken systems of ICU care, and how a game called helps players understand the impossible choices clinicians face every day. Also: moral injury, insurance nightmares, what it's like to feel powerless as a physician, and why play might be one of the best tools for healing we've got.

Takeaways:

• Hear how Dr. Swamy turned years of ICU trauma into a brutally honest board game.

• Explore the emotional toll of moral injury—and why it's reshaping the physician burnout conversation.

• Learn how Cost of Life recreates the pressure, compromise, and heartbreak of critical care.

• Why healthcare reform might start with storytelling—and maybe even game night.

• Discover what surprised Dr. Swamy most when he watched players take on the role of ICU doctor.

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Want more Dr. Lakshman Swamy?

Website: criticalcaregame.com

@critcaregame on socials

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