Shiny Epi People
Shiny Epi People
Updates from Louisa Smith and Michelle Caunca!
Summer is nearly over, but I have two more updates of these episodes to put out! So we are going to keep calling them summer episodes! Today, you hear from two recent graduates and rising stars you first heard from in 2020: Louisa Smith, PhD, and Michelle Caunca, MD, PhD. Since her episode aired, Louisa has defended her dissertation, accepted a postdoc, participated in a triathlon, spent the summer in Switzerland, is on the dating apps, and more! Michelle updates me on her feelings of imposter syndrome in Medicine, the residency match process, how she is doing so far in her residency, moving from SoCal to NorCal, and of course her mom, the fittest mom in LA! Enjoy!
Lisa Bodnar:
I was lucky enough to show up to your defense, your zoom defense. I got to hear you. You were incredible.
Luisa Smith:
Thank you.
Lisa Bodnar:
I have to tell you, I was totally intimidated because your committee, everyone was on camera and it was like Sonya Hernandez Diaz, Miguel, Tyler VanderWeele. Who else was on your committee?
Luisa Smith:
Those three were my committee.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. And I was like, whoa, I don't, I feel weird being here because I'm just this person that met you through a podcast. And I remember I turned my camera on for one second. I was like, hello, goodbye.
Luisa Smith:
I did see that, I did see that.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Luisa Smith:
Oh my gosh. I mean, I took a tequila shot before my defense, So it's just like, I just need to not be nervous.
Lisa Bodnar:
Hello my friends, welcome back to shine people. I'm Lisa Bodner. Please look for other news and other content about the show on our Instagram and Twitter at Shiny Epi People and consider becoming a Patreon committing even a dollar a month helps me out. Thank you to the new Patreons that have joined, and you can join by going to www.patreon.com/ShinyEpiPeople. I'm still selling shiny hex stickers, which I told you about last week. And you've probably seen on social media. If you would like to get one, please email me. It's ShinyEpiPeople@gmail.com. These cost me about $2 each that includes postage and the cost of the sticker itself. And you can Venmo or PayPal me a donation in whatever amount you like. Most people send about $5, but whatever you feel comfortable with is okay with me. I do have some exciting news, Shiny Epi People t-shirts are going to be available to purchase online starting October 4th.
They have the logo on the front and the words, more heart less smart on the back. They'll be printed on a US made Navy short sleeve t-shirt that is made of rung spun cotton, that means it's very soft. The screen printing company is a small local business called Commonwealth Press. And all of their employees are unionized, which is quite rare to find around here. These are going to be on pre-sale, which means that from October 4th to the 20th, the online store will be open for your order. Then on the 20th, the store will close and the t-shirts will be printed and mailed out maybe around mid-November I'm doing a pre-sale because it saves me a lot of money on the front end. The shirts are going to sell for $24, I appreciate that this price point may be higher than you might expect.
Please keep in mind that this is an important source of income for me, and that income helps keep the show going. So keep an ear out here and on social media for more details, as we get closer to October 4th, a little real talk for me for a minute. The start of the semester, the start of the fall has been a little challenging, for me starting to teach and in person classes, I've had a couple of COVID scares with my kids. My daughter broke her foot, she'll be okay. And I have this woodpecker that I cannot get rid of. It is just pecking holes in my house. Of course, we all have these types of things and so if you are feeling some overwhelm or malaise as the fall sets in you aren't alone. This is why these update episodes have been so good for my soul.
You know, I started this podcast a year ago to build connections for me personally, and resultingly for you. And that connections are what I feel I need most right now, that and ice cream maybe. So today I am bringing you updates from two rising stars in epidemiology, Luisa Smith, who recently finished her PhD and Michelle Caunca who recently graduated from her MD PhD program. If you don't remember these stellar young women go back and listen to their 2020 episodes. Today, you'll hear from Luisa first followed by Michelle. One more update episode is coming your way next week and then season two starts, I'm very excited. I hope you enjoy these chats.
Hello?
Luisa Smith:
Hello.
Lisa Bodnar:
Can you hear me?
Luisa Smith:
I can.
Lisa Bodnar:
Tell me where you are right now in the world. Where in the world is Luisa?
Luisa Smith:
Lausanne, Switzerland. I am in my little studio apartment that I am renting for two months.
Lisa Bodnar:
So why are you there for two months?
Luisa Smith:
A colleague of mine asked me to come work on this project with him. I said, really I can leave my house and go work somewhere else. I was like, okay, I'm sold.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's incredible.
Luisa Smith:
It's amazing.
Lisa Bodnar:
What other stuff do you have planned on this trip?
Luisa Smith:
Mostly hiking. Just because there's so much of it. It's something that is really easy to do here. You can just take a train and end up in this mountain town and then just hike up and then take another train back down. It just makes things so easy. I think I'm going to go to Italy, I've never been to Italy before.
Lisa Bodnar:
Neither have I.
Luisa Smith:
But of course that's right next door. And so I was just going to go to Milan because that's really close, like two and a half hours away but then it was suggested to me that I go to Venice. It would be a really great time to go to Venice because of the lack of tourists compared to most years, also it would be a good time to go to Venice before it sinks. So.
Lisa Bodnar:
Is that, do you have to show a vaccination card anywhere?
Luisa Smith:
I did have to show a vaccination card to get into the country.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay.
Luisa Smith:
They do have a system now in Switzerland though not in high use yet. That involves a vaccination certificate and with a QR code that you can show to at certain places, I've not wanted to enter one of those places because I do not have such a fancy certificate and they, I wrote to them about it and they said very clearly to me in French, we do not accept the CDC card, that [inaudible 00:06:32].
Lisa Bodnar:
What does that mean?
Luisa Smith:
That is not good enough for them. They need something that's signed and has a stamp on it. And I was like, I got my vaccine at a fire station. They do not, they do not sign anything. And they're like, oh, go back to your vaccination clinic. I'm like, no, if I go to this fire station, they're going to be like, oh, what are you kidding me?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. I got mine in like an abandoned grocery store. So literally like they turned it into this vaccine center.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
When you and I talked, you're doing your dissertation, you were feeling in good health. There's a lot of stuff that happened between now and then.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah. So I feel like at that point, I didn't quite believe that I was ever going to graduate like endless hurdles to go through. And so I defended in May, graduated. And talking with of a lot of people, I talked with some folks at Northeastern University in Boston and heard about a postdoc that they had that was actually going to be linked up with this Institute in Portland, Maine, which is my hometown. So I was super excited to hear about this. And it sounded really up my alley doing methods development for observational health data. And I would get to live in Maine if I wanted to. I decided that I really couldn't turn that down, that opportunity. And then they're like, oh, it's okay if you postpone to go to Switzerland. So, when they said that I was like, okay, this is the right thing for me.
Lisa Bodnar:
What are you excited about, why did you choose it?
Luisa Smith:
I'm excited about honestly not moving to a totally new place, right now. I think before COVID that would've probably been a different thing. I love going to new places, I love meeting new people, but given our current circumstances and kind of what I foresaw, even though I didn't foresee it becoming this bad again, just like, I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm in a city where I don't know anyone and I'm working from home and what's that life going to be like?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. You know no one and you have no opportunities to know anyone.
Luisa Smith:
Exactly. I knew that by living in Maine or, and spending a lot of time in Boston, I would get to be around friends and family and also just living in a good environment where people like to trust public health, which is nice. I'm also really excited about being somewhere that's new and growing and working with totally different people that I've never worked with. And we don't even have the exact same research interests. We're just kind of like, cool, let's see what we do together.
After five years of my PhD was definitely really excited about seeing how other people work and seeing how other people think and see how other people [inaudible 00:09:56] team, I will bring a lot of new things to the table that they don't necessarily have expertise in. And at the same time I will learn totally new things that are totally different from the training that I've gotten so far. So that's not necessarily something that I was expecting to go onto a postdoc to do. I thought I would be working and I was looking for people who I share a lot of research [inaudible 00:10:21] and I've really familiar with their work. And I really like them, whether I've seen them talk or met them at conferences. And so this is a blank or slate for me, which I'm actually really excited about.
Lisa Bodnar:
So you did not let at an NCAA basketball game make this decision for you?
Luisa Smith:
No.
Lisa Bodnar:
As you did for your PhD.
Luisa Smith:
This one was my own. I'm trying to think if there was any like superstition or anything that played a role in it. I don't think so.
Lisa Bodnar:
How is your health, how are you feeling?
Luisa Smith:
Yeah, feeling great. I went on a mile hike this morning before going into work for the afternoon. So that was fun. Just trying to stay really active, which is important for my physical and mental health.
Lisa Bodnar:
Are you tracking any of your data as you did before any of your own personal?
Luisa Smith:
So.
Lisa Bodnar:
I thought we were going to be like, no, no, Lisa that's silly. And you're like well,
Luisa Smith:
Okay. So I've kind of changed in what I'm tracking. My dad and I have been doing all sorts of hikes in Maine and New Hampshire. And in particular, we've been trying to hike the 48 New Hampshire 4,000 foot mountains. I think together we did 12 in the winter season. We've done a couple more since then we have a spreadsheet and.
Lisa Bodnar:
Of course you do.
Luisa Smith:
My watch keeps track of moving time and total time, laps time, lunch time, [crosstalk 00:12:01] have all these little, I don't actually track lunch time. And so we keep track of all of that and then I have to make little graphs about, are we getting faster as we go or are we climbing getting more elevation gain? Are we choosing harder mountains basically, which we have to, because we've kind of done all the easy ones. Are we doing more elevation gain per mile, things like that.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm glad that you are graphing it because, just if you're going to put it all in a spreadsheet, why are we not visualizing this data?
Luisa Smith:
Exactly.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. Good. I'm glad you're tracking something in your life, this is a happy thing to be tracking. So that's really awesome and cool that you're doing it with your dad, how neat.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah. That's really fun. My other friend, her family has a house on lake Michigan up in Michigan, which is so much fun. I mean, mostly it's just relaxing, but for the past two years, which have been unfortunately both virtual, I've been racing in this triathlon, which is an all women's triathlon to raise money for the main cancer foundation.
Lisa Bodnar:
How do you do a triathlon virtually?
Luisa Smith:
So what that really means is just you have like a month to do it and you do it on your own time and then you input into their form. I ran this many miles, I bike this many miles. You don't even have to put in your times. The virtual option is not competitive, but I mean, I had friends and family donate money and I needed to make this a really, really.
Lisa Bodnar:
But you needed to make it competitive.
Luisa Smith:
I needed to make it competitive. So I kept training for it. I also just, I liked to bike and run and stuff.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Luisa Smith:
But it was really fun because my friend's family whom I was staying with got really into helping me. Her mom is also a breast cancer survivor and has also raced in this race when it was in person.
Lisa Bodnar:
Cool.
Luisa Smith:
Before. So I did the swim with two people on paddle boards, one on a kayak, one in a sailboat, two people on shore, all cheering me on. It's really beautiful. There really beautiful biking roads, just really quiet roads. So I had mapped out, my friend and I had mapped out this route that I was going to take. And as I did this bike, they like drove around and cheered for me at different corners.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh I love that.
Luisa Smith:
And then that my friend and her brother's girlfriend who was also with us did the run, it was just like a 5k run at the end. It was a fun little event to have on your vacation.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, I love that.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Some people may know I got to meet a lot of you guys, the Boston guests, and we had this wonderful dinner and I got to see you live and in person. And it was so good.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah that was really fun. It was really cool to just have this group of people all in epidemiology, even though we all lived in Boston, we didn't all know each other and we probably wouldn't have met without you. So that was really cool, talking to Ken Rothman about online dating was.
Lisa Bodnar:
I was going to bring that up if you didn't. It was priceless to see a 75 year old, incredibly wise man. Ask us about online dating.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah, it was interesting because we got to hear about his relationship. You know how somebody who's obviously well older than me and has been married for longer to think what, they think about online dating or more like what are their curiosities about it because he had a lot of questions.
Lisa Bodnar:
The whole process was so baffling to him, which it was baffling to me when I first started too, just like hold on a second. Are we seriously shopping for people online? This is what it's, this is the only way I can meet people is through my phone. Matt Fox was on my left and he was fascinated with this whole thing too. So what was Ken asking us?
Luisa Smith:
So, I mean, I think he wanted to know what kind of guys were out there. So I kind of told him about the Boston stereotype, which is like a frat guy holding a fish. So that's fun, we were talking about ghosting people.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh right.
Luisa Smith:
We thought [inaudible 00:16:36] ghosting was.
Lisa Bodnar:
Did you also have a ghosting experience or was that just me?
Luisa Smith:
I think that was mostly your experience.
Lisa Bodnar:
Just me. Because Ken met the ghoster before the ghosting happened.
Luisa Smith:
Oh yeah, yeah. That was.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah and Matt was just like, he wanted to swipe for me, just swipe through all the people.
Luisa Smith:
He was doing a lot of swiping. I don't know if you heard from any of those people that he swiped, but.
Lisa Bodnar:
It was, it was very funny to show this to people who had no experience with it and be like, and just like teach them the rules, not just rules.
Luisa Smith:
The norms, like what?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes. The norms, the unwritten rules about like, do you see this code word in the profile? That's a no for me, Matt wanted to swipe right on all the people I was like, no, no, we're not doing that. It was very fun. It was really, really fun.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah. It's fun to see people out of context.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. And you know, that night it was so special to me to get everyone together. And I knew that most people didn't know each other or knew each other very little. I was so happy that you could come. It was really.
Luisa Smith:
So fun, thanks for organizing.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. Yeah. It was such an important night for me. So thank you, are we still doing the online dating? Are you doing it?
Luisa Smith:
Well, yes, I will do that. When I get back to Maine, I did actually really log on here and look on just to see if I could have somebody-
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes.
Luisa Smith:
...take me up for a drink or tell me what kind of hikes they like or something like that.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah just some companionship.
Luisa Smith:
Yeah. Just like, oh what's, introduce me to social circle, are there people here that I can hang out with? I have to say the pickings here though were very nice. It's a very, university council draws a lot of and Switzerland draws a lot of international people, so. Plus everybody here also speaks multiple languages. So they're all like oh, I speak all of these, just different languages. Like very active, very attractive and very educated young ones but we'll see if I actually meet any of them.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. You may end up finding a perfect match and then you're like, I need to find a post in Switzerland.
Luisa Smith:
Some of friends have this whole little soap opera written already about me and doing that.
Lisa Bodnar:
You might meet a man in Venice. Who's like.
Luisa Smith:
Ooh, one of those Gondola drivers, yeah. I don't know why that would be my perfect match, but.
Lisa Bodnar:
You never know.
Luisa Smith:
I don't speak Italian, which is going to be a little bit of a problem, but.
Lisa Bodnar:
No, that's fine. That's secondary, true love.
Luisa Smith:
Needs no words. No.
Lisa Bodnar:
With an Italian. Thanks Louisa.
Luisa Smith:
Thank you.
Lisa Bodnar:
Great to see you.
Luisa Smith:
You too.
Lisa Bodnar:
What's up.
Speaker 3:
Hello? Can you hear me?
Lisa Bodnar:
I can.
Speaker 3:
Okay, great. Oh my gosh, your hair looks amazing.
Lisa Bodnar:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
I really want a purple streak, but I don't think I can get away with it in the hospital to be honest.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah are there rules about that.
Speaker 3:
I don't know. I'm sure there are.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Maybe when I'm in attending, I'll just be like, I'm the boss, I can do whatever I want now.
Lisa Bodnar:
That is what you're going to do.
Speaker 3:
That's like in a million years, approximately.
Lisa Bodnar:
Approximately how many, seven.
Speaker 3:
Oh wow, that's so sad. I don't count, you know? I just go where the wind takes me.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Except we know that it's going to be something like seven.
Speaker 3:
I know seriously. Wait, let me see. So there's four total for neuro and then depends on what fellowship I do. And then I have to do, I have to get a K eventually Lisa, okay. I need a K award.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. All right.
Speaker 3:
Help me.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Where is that coming from?
Speaker 3:
Where is that coming from?
Lisa Bodnar:
You're in your first year of residency and you're worried about getting a K already?
Speaker 3:
No, no. I'm just thinking in the future, that's where my future needs to go. What I'm told.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. So take me back. You finished your MD, congratulations.
Speaker 3:
Oh yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
You're officially an MD PhD, how about that?
Speaker 3:
Yes. Yes. That's true. I got my diploma, it's real. I put those letters after my name. It's on my badge. So I guess it's real.
Lisa Bodnar:
I think it's real. You graduated and then you took a bunch of time off.
Speaker 3:
It was very nice. Yeah. We drove across the country from South Florida to Southern California.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. I followed it all along on Instagram.
Speaker 3:
It looked better on Instagram as everything does, actually it wasn't that bad, it wasn't that bad. It was just a long time. And my little dog used to be very car sick and she has grown out of that now since we forced her to be in the car for like a week.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
So that's good.
Lisa Bodnar:
Hey, that's a win. Tell me about the matching. How the match went for your residency. Remind people how the match works and then what your feelings were about, like on match day and then after you found out your match.
Speaker 3:
Oh, oh my gosh. This is so nice to think about match day is a day where it really doesn't make sense in the context of real life, but we find out where we go to residency and it's called a match because there's this black box algorithm that decides the programs rank, who they interviewed. We rank where we want to go, math magic happens. And then we find out it's so weird. And it was truly just an email that showed me where I was going to go. And I think I was very distracted and actually my husband, Cameron noticed that the email came in and then we found out that it was going to be at UCSF. It was very thrilled, it was awesome to find out.
Lisa Bodnar:
Did you know that this is where you're going to match?
Speaker 3:
I mean, I think I was very hopeful that it was where, it was my number one choice. So super, super hopeful for everyone involved. My husband had a job line up at Stanford. So we're like, we got to make this happen people. We got to make this happen. But yeah, no, I mean I think I was really hopeful just because I had such a good experience interviewing. Yeah, I was really excited.
Lisa Bodnar:
So before you started the residency, you got yourself to California. You spent a good bit of time with your family, right?
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3:
It was really nice. We stayed with my parents, which was so nice. Especially being far for so long.
Lisa Bodnar:
How's Mylene.
Speaker 3:
Mylene is great. She's good, she got into lifting, which is very, so impressive.
Lisa Bodnar:
You just, you only told us about rowing before your mother on the rowing machine.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. She got one for her house and then she post these videos of herself lifting. I don't know if she's done it recently, but she was doing the, do you know the ropes? Like those heavy ropes and stuff?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes, where you take them and woosh them?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. And then I think for mother's day she asked for some kettle bells. So we bought them for her, she's very, she's very fit. And I'm in residency, eating a lot of carbs and this is my day off and I'm just sitting here doing nothing.
Lisa Bodnar:
I think you get a pass always during your residency, right?
Speaker 3:
I guess so.
Lisa Bodnar:
You're just going to absorb all the brain things and carbohydrates will get you through.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. You need carbs.
Lisa Bodnar:
Heck yeah.
Speaker 3:
I'm not a dietician, but I think that's true.
Lisa Bodnar:
I am. And I will tell you, you need carbohydrates.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah. Dr. Lisa Bodnar the dietitian and epidemiology. Yeah see okay. Okay, I'm glad that, I've been saying that and I didn't know if it was true.
Lisa Bodnar:
Of course.
Speaker 3:
Okay. I just went to the, my favorite bakery and bought a ton of croissants, so.
Lisa Bodnar:
Croissants yeah.
Speaker 3:
Croissant from Arizmendi Bakery on 9th in San Francisco, shameless plug. I'm not sponsored obviously, I wish.
Lisa Bodnar:
I need you to really say shout out because that's what you said in your episode, like a hundred times. Shout out Kitchen Aid shout out Trader Joe.
Speaker 3:
I like to credit people, Lisa, but huge shout out to Arizmendi. Thank you for supporting me emotionally through this time with your amazing sourdough croissants and pecan rolls.
Lisa Bodnar:
That sounds great.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. So quickly back to your mother. Did she listen to your episode?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, she re-listens to it too. It's very cute.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's so cute.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. She likes it. I mean, I think that's like typical parent stuff, they love it.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's so cute. You were on your break before you started residency. You and I talked. Is there anything you want to share about that, that you feel like would be helpful for other people to hear?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. I mean, I think physicians are probably just super ,by selection right, anxious people preparing or the anticipation going into residency is very anxiety provoking for a lot of people, myself included. I did what everyone else advised me to do. My friends who had been through it, which is just to please enjoy the time you have off because it's not really worth studying to prepare or doing anything like that. I think, I don't know. I think some people are still going through it in the beginning of residency, but just there is a transition when you get to residency in terms of your perspective in my humble opinion. I personally think you have to treat it like a job.
Lisa Bodnar:
What do you mean versus what?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. Versus just something like, I think in school, you go home, it's all encompassing and it's really easy. I think to, I mean, this, I think applies to even a scientific career. You could do a 24/7, if you really wanted, you could do that. I mean, and I have done that and burned out, but I think especially for residency, there's so many hours you spend in the hospital and there's so much like emotional stuff that goes into it in terms of seeing people who are really sick and then also trying to catch up and learn everything that I think it's healthier to just treat it like, have good healthy boundaries, like okay, I'm off. I'm not going to chart check at home because everything's available to you on your laptop.
I'll spend some time reading about something I learned today, but I can't spend like all my free time studying because it's just not, it's not feasible. Intern year is just hard because you're really kind of the point person for everybody, your consultants, your patients, their families. And so having good boundaries I think is helpful just so that you don't burn out.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
I'm still learning that. I haven't really figured out how to do it, but.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, I would imagine there's a learning curve and you screw up and you got to learn again.
Speaker 3:
Totally. Rinse and repeat.
Lisa Bodnar:
Right. When we talked, one of the things that I remember us discussing was about feeling some imposter syndrome about starting this residency where I have this MD, I have this PhD. I kind of know nothing. That was, I'm sorry, I'm probably putting words in your mouth.
Speaker 3:
Oh, it's true still.
Lisa Bodnar:
OK. OK.
Speaker 3:
No, I'm just agreeing with you.
Lisa Bodnar:
So would you talk a little bit about that and then whatever you're willing to share?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. I mean, it's still true. I felt that way before and we talked about that. I still feel that way now. Honestly. I mean, first I think imposter syndrome is something that is really structural, especially for people of color and women and disabled folks in medicine and my LGBTQ colleagues. Like it's the system really reminds you that, I don't know the picture of what a doctor should be is not you. I mean, I do need to work on self-esteem and confidence, but if that's not the solution to this problem, I think it is important to recognize that it's structural. I mean it's all that stuff, like the microaggression stuff too. I mean, it's hard to be confident, quote unquote when stuff like that happens every day. But I will say that I think I've had really good people, like peer mentors so far and also attending physicians that have really spoken to that and have helped me gain at least some clinical confidence, which is really good and what this year is all about and what I should be focusing on.
Like I had a really wonderful attending during my last rotation who I really, really admired. She was a woman of color and I feel like she was able to model a lot of the stuff that I want to hopefully achieve. Like she really showed up as her full self in medicine while also being a really, being in an intense field. She's actually a COVID Dr. [inaudible 00:31:04] Santo, shout out, love you the most. And she knows how I, she knows, I feel that way. She's a pulmonologist and critical care doctor and she works in the ICU. So she has, I mean, that's an intense field and medicine still male dominated, but she showed up as her full self and was very, very clinically just so excellent. But then also really cared about our, and was explicit about caring about our physical and mental health over and over again.
She would say that we needed to prioritize that debriefed with us about difficult things. And then also gave me really good feedback. You know, I think she gave me feedback. Like you have a PhD in epidemiology, I would empower you to share your expertise. For example, instead of just being like, be more confident, you're an MD PhD.
Lisa Bodnar:
When you said that she shows up as her full self, what does that look like in a physician?
Speaker 3:
I just really appreciated that she didn't shy away from being also very emotionally available for us, was super available to talk about the more difficult things in medicine that we don't get taught in med school, like how to have difficult conversations, how to deal with difficult situations, like emotionally difficult situations. It kind of goes back to the professionalism issue where, I think a lot of sometimes feedback that people of color get in medicine are really just about, that are cloaked in like professionalism are really just ways that people want us to look like the typical doctor. And I feel like she was just herself, whatever that means without, and then without giving, and then gave feedback about objective things we could all improve on.
I live in the part of San Francisco that's perpetually foggy. I do miss SoCal. I had a dream that I was in the sun and it was like at the beach in SoCal. So it's, I mean, just getting used to a new city is always interesting. Now we're officially jumping on the San Francisco Giants bandwagon, which I officially announced on Instagram.
Lisa Bodnar:
I saw it. I saw it. I liked it. I did. I gave you a like.
Speaker 3:
That meant a lot to me. Thank you for your support. Hopefully they'll do good this year. They started doing better when we arrived so I mean.
Lisa Bodnar:
All right.
Speaker 3:
Correlation is not causation, but I don't know. I miss Epi Twitter.
Lisa Bodnar:
Do you? It's become a shit show.
Speaker 3:
Oh.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm never on anymore.
Speaker 3:
I guess I should say I miss my Epi colleagues.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. We miss old Epi Twitter.
Speaker 3:
I know it's stressful right now. Yeah, I think.
Lisa Bodnar:
It is.
Speaker 3:
But I think I miss doing science, it is a different vibe. So hopefully I get to do it and people, please don't forget about me because just give me some time. I got to learn this thing real quick and then I'll be back.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm so happy that you would jump on with me when I know that you are so, so busy. I remember I reached out to you, I don't know six weeks ago or something. And I was like, would you come and do an episode? And you were like, would love to, can not pull that off right now.
Speaker 3:
Oh my God. That was during a bad month. Ugh. It was so horrible. I was like, Ugh, this is all I want to do. But now I have to do this other thing, but I'm glad we got to.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm really grateful that you would spend part of your free day with me.
Speaker 3:
Oh my gosh. I feel so excited that I got to do it, thank you for having me.
I hope you're well, I feel like I talked a lot about me, but well.
Lisa Bodnar:
You're supposed to that's the whole thing with the show.
