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Equality & the Executive Suite: The Menopause Penalty Revisited · Clearly Hormonal

• 0:01
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Welcome to Clearly Hormonal, the podcast where we stop googling our symptoms at midnight and actually start understanding what's going on in our bodies.
• 0:09
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I'm Dr.
• 0:10
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Komal Patil-Sisodia, an endocrinologist, internist, obesity medicine specialist, and a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner, which is really just a whole lot of words to say hormones are kind of my jam.
• 0:21
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I've spent 17 years watching women try to navigate their hormonal health without ever having been taught the language for what's happening in their own bodies, and then meeting clinicians who want nothing more than to help them figure it out, but are up against 10-minute appointments and a system that just wasn't built for it.
• 0:37
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: This podcast is my answer to that gap.
• 0:40
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: We'll cover menopause, metabolism, hormones, and everything in between with real evidence, not trends, and without the overwhelm.
• 0:48
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: A quick disclaimer.
• 0:49
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I'm a physician, but this is education, not personalized medical advice.
• 0:53
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Take what resonates and discuss it with your own healthcare team.
• 0:56
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Now, let's get into it and talk about what's clearly hormonal and what's not.
• 1:03
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Today is Women's Equality Day, a day that asks us to think about how far women have come and where equality still remains unfinished.
• 1:11
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And one of those places may be something we don't talk about enough.
• 1:15
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: What happens when women's biology intersects with structures we've built around work, leadership, and success?
• 1:21
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Women can lead hospitals, we can run companies, we can build careers that previous generations of women weren't even allowed to pursue.
• 1:30
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: But access to the executive suite doesn't necessarily mean the systems inside it were designed around women's lives or women's bodies.
• 1:37
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So for this special episode of Clearly Hormonal, I wanted to revisit an idea I first explored a few years ago, the menopause penalty.
• 1:46
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I hope you enjoy this episode.
• 1:48
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: When I first started my podcast, I put out an episode called"The Menopause Penalty," and it was the first time I'd ever said those words out loud.
• 1:57
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I laid out the numbers behind it.
• 1:59
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: We looked at relationship, career, financial, and health costs that fall disproportionately on women in midlife, and that data was really sobering.
• 2:08
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Women were losing income.
• 2:09
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: They were leaving leadership.
• 2:11
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: They were stepping away from careers that they had spent decades building.
• 2:14
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: But the data doesn't tell you what it feels like to be a woman sitting in the executive suite while your body is running its own parallel agenda.
• 2:22
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: What does it feel like to lead through sleep disruption, cognitive overload, hormonal shifts, relentless performance expectations while running hospitals, managing crises, and carrying responsibility for thousands of lives?
• 2:34
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Today's guest knows that really intimately.
• 2:36
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Dr.
• 2:37
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Brooke Buckley is a board-certified general surgeon, physician executive, former chief medical officer, and current system vice president of medical affairs for Henry Ford Health.
• 2:47
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: She holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins, has served in national leadership roles with the American Hospital Association and The Joint Commission, and has become an influential voice on physician wellness, trauma-informed leadership, and healthcare system transformation.
• 3:02
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: She has spent years inside healthcare's highest leadership structures during the exact life stage that we're discussing, midlife and hormonal change And so today we're asking a different question: What does the menopause penalty look like, and what does refusing it look like when you are one of the most powerful women in American healthcare?
• 3:22
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So Dr.
• 3:22
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Buckley, welcome to Clearly Hormonal.
• 3:24
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: How are you today?
• 3:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Komal, thank you so much for having me- My pleasure and for inviting me to tackle this topic.
• 3:31
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: We met, gosh, I want to say back in like 2017 when we did a coaching program together.
• 3:36
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And we've always run in parallel circles more so closely in the last few years, and I've just been a big admirer of your work.
• 3:43
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I know that you're board certified in lifestyle medicine as well, and, to me, that speaks volumes of the fact that you are very aware of what changes we need to be making for ourselves when we're taking on these really big roles, especially as, we're raising families.
• 3:58
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: We are, trying to take care of ourselves and our bodies, and then we're trying to do amazing things at work.
• 4:02
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So thank you so much for being here.
• 4:04
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Brooke, for listeners who didn't catch your bio when I introduced you, can you give a short version of how a general surgeon ends up becoming the system VP of medical affairs at Henry Ford, and, serves in a chief medical officer role, how you decided to get your MBA, and how you decided to become boarded in lifestyle medicine?
• 4:24
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: No, it doesn't, necessarily read like the, intentional script, but, looking back, I think everything makes sense, right?
• 4:31
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I did my general surgery training in a community hospital in the Cleveland Clinic system.
• 4:36
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Graduated in 2007 and went to the eastern shore of Maryland to join a four-man group that had recently gone from private to, employed it was so busy.
• 4:46
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: We did all the chest tubes, all the central lines, all the things.
• 4:48
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And we absolutely burned ourselves out in the five years that I was there.
• 4:52
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It had, family disruption, it had physiologic disruption, it had, total rupture from the patients we were taking care of.
• 5:00
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I ended up being a surgical hospitalist.
• 5:02
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: In the process of being a surgical hospitalist, again, kept raising my hand.
• 5:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: "This doesn't look quite right." I'm a fixer and a joiner, maybe a, the toxic combination.
• 5:12
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so just kept fixing and working on things, and did not realize at the time, but now understand, that was giving me, operational awareness of the whole hospital.
• 5:22
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: At that time, an opportunity for chief medical officer position came up, and I had young children, and was realizing that working nights and trying to be home in the days to try to balance all the things, was probably not going to, lead to longevity in terms of my own survival.
• 5:38
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Somebody dared me, and so I, didn't- ever step back from a dare.
• 5:41
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So I applied, and I was fortunate enough, to get that role.
• 5:45
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I will put a little side note there that my very first CEO was also then CEO of this new hospital that I was applying to, and so that thread of sponsorship, of people who are willing to take a chance on you, like that's, I believe in that wholly, and how you find it is different than knowing that you need it.
• 6:02
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But I was given this opportunity as a CMO.
• 6:04
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I drove an hour and a half every day to get to the hospital.
• 6:07
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And for 18 months I was there, but I was tapped on the shoulder to apply to Henry Ford by a colleague, who said they had a great opportunity and I should try.
• 6:15
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so in that, conversion, I moved to Detroit in June of 2020.
• 6:21
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I interviewed- in February of 2020.
• 6:24
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Oh,
• 6:24
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So yeah spectacular time to move your family halfway across the country and start a new role in a big system.
• 6:31
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But that is my journey.
• 6:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I should note that, part of my negotiation for my first CMO job was to get an MBA.
• 6:38
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I wanted to have that additional credibility, and so had started at Hopkins, which is where I did my undergrad, and went from a hybrid to a fully online degree in that conversion.
• 6:49
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It took me four years to get, so another story along, timing and patience tolerance for things.
• 6:54
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But then have been in the Henry Ford system now for six years, and it's been an absolutely wonderful and incredible adventure.
• 7:00
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: We, went from five hospitals to 13, and so I converted from a CMO of a single hospital to doing all of the medical staff governance through, VPMA for the system.
• 7:10
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:11
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And you've written a lot, of really great articles that I've been able to read, and I really enjoyed the ones where you talk about, your past and how it shapes the way you lead.
• 7:21
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: What in your earlier life was contributing to this executive you became?
• 7:27
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Because you talk a lot about your clinical practice, but clinical practice isn't the only thing that shapes us,
• 7:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: we all have so many stories, but I think the thing that truly, changed things for me, participating in the State Medical Society.
• 7:39
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So I was someone, a joiner.
• 7:40
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Joined the AMA very first day that I got my medical school acceptance, right?
• 7:44
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: The first thing I did.
• 7:45
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so I participated with the AMA throughout and, there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions about organized medicine, and it is the strongest voice on behalf of doctors, in any state, in our country.
• 7:56
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I've stuck with it because it's the right thing to do to advocate for our profession from my lens.
• 8:03
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So anyway, I ended up getting elected as the president of the State Medical Society in Maryland- Yeah.
• 8:08
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Congratulations
• 8:08
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: so 38, and with one child twins on the way, I was the youngest person ever by over a decade.
• 8:15
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I was the third female in 250-some years, and the only mom to be the president of this organization.
• 8:22
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So through that lens, I watched, As the president, you go around to all the different hospitals and surrounding states, and the thing that was so remarkable about that journey was two things.
• 8:33
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: One is going to all these other hospitals and watching, a group of doctors that you can so deeply relate to complain about all the same things, but not have any personalization of their context or their community.
• 8:45
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It felt like a freight train oh my gosh, guys, the OB unit is already closed.
• 8:50
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: This is happening.
• 8:51
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: We've a Radical acceptance of reality, right?
• 8:53
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Doctors live in this place where we want it to be the way it should be or the way that it was, and this allowed me this depersonalization where I could see what was really happening, and it was heartbreaking, crushing, right?
• 9:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: watching my colleagues in so much pain and knowing that I did the exact same thing when I go home, right?
• 9:11
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I complain about all the things that I knew truly in my brain had already passed, but in my heart, thought if we just complain enough, maybe.
• 9:19
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and then the second piece was truly remarkable, is if you've ever been to these medical meetings, they do memorial resolutions.
• 9:27
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so we stand up and we remember physicians who have passed and have given service, and it's beautiful, and it is striking how it is so often a little old lady and a bunch of children who talk about being in the nurse's station as kids, talk about how nice the people were, that we know their parent better than they do, and that so many of them were physician adjacent, so physical therapists, respiratory therapists- nurse anesthetists, but not doctors.
• 9:55
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I just thought-
• 9:56
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Oh
• 9:57
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I don't want this life.
• 9:58
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I don't want- No this to be how people remember me, and this is our trajectory, right?
• 10:04
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: This is who we're growing up, this is who we've been groomed to become.
• 10:08
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and it just was so profoundly sad.
• 10:09
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So those kind of things made me search for, I like to laugh a little bit and say it's like how my memoir will either be, like, how to outrun pain or this couldn't have all been for nothing.
• 10:21
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Those are my- Yeah two...
• 10:22
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Maybe it's just two sequels.
• 10:23
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I don't know.
• 10:24
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think those would be two great books that I would definitely read.
• 10:28
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: but you touch on something so important.
• 10:30
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And you describe that so beautifully and sadly that you're at a memorial and there are people who are the family that are like,"Glad you knew him better than I did," right?
• 10:41
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And that to me is really sad because what are we doing this all for?
• 10:45
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: There has to be some type of balance.
• 10:47
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So I'm so glad that you had that observation and that you bring that perspective to the groups that you lead because I think it, that's leading with a lot of compassion and understanding the craziness that we have to go through to get to where we're actually able to practice.
• 11:03
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: There's not a lot of people who have that insight into what we do who are in leadership, and that's why I'm such a big fan of physicians in leadership.
• 11:11
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: That's really remarkable and I am so glad to hear about your journey and see a female physician, who is able to do all of those things, right?
• 11:19
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: it was interesting the statistics in healthcare are that, healthcare is made up of 80% women, but only 20% of the leaders are women, which I think is mind-boggling to me.
• 11:30
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And, as we go through these things or as we hit that point in our lives where we're ready to take on these, responsibilities or these leadership roles, there's a lot of friction that's happening, in our bodies and our world.
• 11:44
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Did you ever feel friction around, all of these different things that are happening around you?
• 11:49
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It's funny because the, life changes, the hormonal conversation around midlife and women, is something that I've spent a lot of time trying to consider.
• 12:01
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: because, I'm not necessarily someone who immediately, aligns with, that those hormonal changes are an issue or a problem.
• 12:09
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: a decade ago, I was somebody who was asked to give a talk about being a female leader or a female surgeon, and it took me weeks to actually identify as a female leader in a way that meant something- right?
• 12:23
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: That was- Yeah that had significance.
• 12:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and part of the reason that I was really excited to be able to join this conversation with you today is what I've really come to understand is, that while we might want to apply judgment to those types of connections, if we aren't exploring and able to tell our stories around what those experiences feel like, then the things that happened to us that were, negative or less than ideal, I might have made different decisions, the people coming after us have no a- ability to make different decisions, if we haven't ever even shared what that felt like.
• 13:00
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: for me, as a female who ended up being the breadwinner, who had a very long infertility journey, and, had fetal loss, I went through a lot of things that are uniquely, the female journey, I was the only, categorical female in my general surgery residency of 15 people, and so I didn't really have a battle buddy, anybody to compare with.
• 13:26
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: There were various, interns that would come and go that would go off into anesthesia, radiology, other things that were females.
• 13:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: but I've been relying on myself for a long time.
• 13:35
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and so hadn't really had the opportunity to ask some of these questions.
• 13:38
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so I think that, the things that have been really instrumental in navigating those spaces is, I tend to be someone who shares easily, right?
• 13:48
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So I tend to be someone who finds somebody that I trust, and whether that's a formal relationship around a therapist or it's an informal relationship around a friend or family, Or even for me, I've journaled since I was in sixth grade.
• 13:59
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I've always spoken to someone.
• 14:01
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I've always processed.
• 14:03
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I didn't know that's what I was doing, right?
• 14:05
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But that has been instrumental in sense-making around what is happening, why is it happening, and what is my role in it, and what can I change and what can't I change, right?
• 14:15
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and I think that I, in retrospect, those are the things that have, given me the opportunity to keep going, right?
• 14:21
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And to keep growing.
• 14:23
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I tend to be a very logical person, and so I'm always trying to, look for the answer the reason.
• 14:28
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Like, why is this happening and what might we do differently?
• 14:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I'm not sure if I got to all of your question there, but
• 14:34
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think that makes sense, right?
• 14:35
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Because everybody's journey is different., We're going through all of these changes, but if we take that time to understand what's happening to us mentally, physically, emotionally, it doesn't hold us back from doing things, right?
• 14:49
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: But unfortunately, we've never been given the opportunity to do that, right?
• 14:53
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: You are- an anomaly, which is why I think having you talk to the listeners that are out there who may be struggling or coming up against these friction points where they know that they need to make a change for themselves- And need to figure out a way to work through it.
• 15:08
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: You have done that through your career, and I find that really admirable.
• 15:12
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So yes, you did answer it.
• 15:13
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yeah.
• 15:13
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I love that if I can,'cause,
• 15:15
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Yeah
• 15:15
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I think that piece, as women especially, and women who have either been caretakers of, older adults or have raised children or have, been keepers of the home, those kinds of things, as you said, our reality keeps evolving.
• 15:31
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: there rarely is a buffer for women, to keep their reality.
• 15:37
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: We don't have support staff behind us- most of the time.
• 15:40
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so whether we can articulate it or recognize it or not, and I guess this is the invitation to try to recognize these things, get words and language.
• 15:49
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I always still laugh, I'd be like,"Use your words," right?
• 15:50
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: but language around all the pivots we've already made to be where we are, it starts to give you your list of strengths, right?
• 15:58
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Your list of superpowers, like, to get through X, Y, or Z, And whether it's I didn't match where I wanted to match, whether it's I didn't get into the school I wanted to get into, whether it's coupling didn't happen when I thought it might, or, family planning didn't work the way I wanted it to, we have all these invitations in our life to really gain skills, for evolving.
• 16:19
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: interestingly, one other piece on one of my really incredible mentors, here in Detroit, we were talking about going for different roles there was a comment around you're a mom, and so we're, going to treat you- more gently, right?
• 16:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: a wholehearted acknowledgement that, I'm a single mom with three children I carry a lot, right?
• 16:37
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: it was a loving acknowledgement by a colleague, that we're gonna give this role to somebody else." the advice that was given to me is that any woman who has arrived at any of these places that any of us are sitting understands their boundaries and what they can and can't accomplish by virtue of the fact that they showed up today.
• 16:55
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yeah.
• 16:55
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I think that's just a really incredible- if you've got lunches packed and water bottles filled and people out the door and the dog fed, and all the things, and the lights are still on'cause you paid the bills you know what you can do.
• 17:05
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: you know where functional boundaries are, and really embracing that and owning that, and understanding it is a superpower.
• 17:12
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Yeah.
• 17:13
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I agree, right?
• 17:13
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And I think the hard thing is when you look at societal expectations for what a woman's role should be, quote-unquote, right?
• 17:21
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: That is where it gets really hard, right?
• 17:23
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: That's where women who are not given that autonomy, who are not given that permission, to go explore those things, a lot of women that I see in my office feel very trapped by the structures that are around them, right?
• 17:36
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Instead of having that ability to be able to go evolve and change things about themselves.
• 17:41
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And so I love that you have found a way to work through that despite significant challenges, right?
• 17:47
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And you and I both know that the road to medicine is challenging.
• 17:50
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I also had, an infertility journey of my own.
• 17:53
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think as women physicians, we put off having kids till later, right?
• 17:56
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: and that can have some profound effects.
• 17:58
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So I really love that you have made that a core of who you are and how you navigate the world and your work-life balance and everything.
• 18:07
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And, one of the things that I would love to hear about is, you became a CMO at the start of the pandemic.
• 18:13
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: What did that reveal to you about, yourself as a leader, about your capacity, about your boundaries that you already had in place?
• 18:22
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I had been a CMO in a single hospital for about 18 months before I moved.
• 18:28
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I, started the job immediately post first wave.
• 18:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So what I carried with me entering this role is that I'm a young female mom coming to be a CMO in an academic institution from a small private institution.
• 18:44
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I'm young and wondering, what do I really have to offer these people that just went through the first wave as I'm busy packing my house and moving.
• 18:53
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Literally my first wave experience was home with three children too young to read, trying to manage nine Zoom calls a day, wondering if I shouldn't be trying to figure out how to get back into Clinical medicine because I was between jobs.
• 19:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: interestingly, my mom has been an incredible source of strength and, reflection, and we all need a good mirror.
• 19:13
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And at the time she said to me, are you trying so hard to kill yourself?
• 19:17
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: You have three children, and the universe put you in a place where you could take care of them during the scariest time in the world.
• 19:23
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Please just take care of yourself and your family." And I- fortunately, I did, but then, jumped in June Full steam ahead.
• 19:30
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and what was really incredible thing to sit with, right?
• 19:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Do we always have to go to the fire?
• 19:34
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I'm a doctor, I belong in the fire.
• 19:35
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Maybe the universe hasn't picked us for every single battle.
• 19:38
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: those are personal choices, but they're worth wrestling.
• 19:40
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: so when I showed up, what was really truly remarkable, from my perspective, they were really challenging times, but I had a certain level of resilience because I hadn't clinically been through the first wave.
• 19:53
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I had done a lot of personal reflection in terms of who I was going to show up as, but the previous 10 years of my career, informed by this memorial conversation and other things and all that I'd been through, I'd been searching and seeking this why is this so hard and why is this our reality?
• 20:10
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So whether it was burnout, whether it was personal, resilience and balance any of those sort of topics around wellbeing I had largely become a huge student of.
• 20:20
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and so I arrived with resiliency and tools to support my staff who were beyond burned out, right?
• 20:26
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So far- down the barrel of distress, and was able to be there to join the doctors and the nurses in a different, hold a different space for them.
• 20:34
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And that really became, the foundation of my ability to jump quickly into this medical staff and engage on things because I had a little bit of a different kind of, the whole universe was grieving at the same time, but I was like a step behind them because I hadn't been there yet.
• 20:50
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So it gave me a little bit of, additional space to do incredible things with the people I was working with.
• 20:57
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: That's really wonderful, and I love that you brought your mom up in the discussion as well.
• 21:01
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think our need for community as women is really important.
• 21:05
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Sometimes we find it at work, but as you progress through leadership, that community dwindles.
• 21:11
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Because you're now overseeing a bunch of people, but having that core group of people that you can run things by I think it really emphasizes the importance of the relationships that we hold, and how those can shift as we progress through leadership, as we progress through, different eras of our lives as women.
• 21:29
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Can you talk a little bit about that, about like your support structure outside of this that has helped you get to where you are?
• 21:38
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So I've been, fortunate and, maybe intentional, but it's- part of my orientation around cultivating really close friends.
• 21:47
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So I am somebody who pings people, who reaches out regularly, who goes through contact list and,"Oh, I haven't talked to this person in a while.
• 21:53
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Hey, how are you doing?" Checking in, right?
• 21:55
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so that is a natural behavior to me, but it's something that has created community for me in various, whether it's the family community or the professional community or the leadership community.
• 22:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and I can't emphasize enough how, incredible that's been and even, in today's world, I have several little, pods or buckets of people on text lists that, for different, pick-me-ups, right?
• 22:19
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: If you look at the wellness wheel, I've got my health people.
• 22:22
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I've got my food people.
• 22:23
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I've got my spiritual people, the mom people, and check in on those different axes at any given time.
• 22:29
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and that's been a really incredible support.
• 22:31
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But I will say that, in my first, CMO role, I was, required to have a coach, and I had not used a therapist or a coach or anybody prior to any of that.
• 22:43
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I am a huge fan of working with somebody professionally, because the, burden that you put on friends and colleagues around being present for you while people are really happy to do that, there isn't that simultaneous if I'm paying this person or in a specific relationship with them, then I'm accountable to what we've talked about.
• 23:05
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And coaching puts you in this more accountability position, where you can say all the things, but then you actually need to do something.
• 23:11
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I've actually done a health coaching certificate like circa 2016'cause I was a mess.
• 23:16
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so I did a health coach certificate'cause I didn't wanna actually have a coach, right?
• 23:20
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I thought I could get around it by training myself to be a coach.
• 23:23
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But you had to actually do four sessions to graduate.
• 23:27
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: so they kinda caught me in the end, but it was funny.
• 23:28
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So the first coaching session I had, some random person I don't know on the phone.
• 23:33
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And, so I'm thinking, I'm very guarded, I'm not gonna tell her anything, right?
• 23:36
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: She says,"Well-" do you wanna work on?" So I say I, I wanna get in shape'cause that feels universally not- scary, right?
• 23:42
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Not personal.
• 23:43
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Exactly.
• 23:44
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So her next question, I guess she said, what are you doing?" I was like,"Sitting on the couch," right?
• 23:49
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I'm sitting here, Eating Twinkies and, thinking about it, right?
• 23:52
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so then she said, basically she was like, what do you want to do?" I was like,"Maybe walk or jog." She's like,"Do you have decent shoes?" I'm like, I've got my running shoes from college.
• 23:59
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: No, I don't." And it ended with all I want you to do is just get a pair of shoes." And so I went to go, get shoes.
• 24:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I went to a running store, right?
• 24:07
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I drive in all confident.
• 24:09
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I get in there and there's all these, skinny little people in tights, and, I turned around and, booked it back out of there, and I was like,"I don't belong here.
• 24:15
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Then I had my family actually drive me to the running store, and I was like,"Do not let me back in the car until I have a pair of shoes." so the same, panic of the skinny people in tights.
• 24:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yeah.
• 24:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But then had a wonderful conversation, ended up with shoes.
• 24:28
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It ultimately turned into, me and then a bunch of girls that would walk every morning one to two miles before school.
• 24:34
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Those smallest vulnerabilities where you feel like you have to be accountable to someone, and oftentimes that's somebody professional who, It's hard to love somebody enough to hold them accountable, right?
• 24:45
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It's hard to be in a loving relationship and follow through all the time.
• 24:48
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and it's a big, weight to put on a relationship, whether it's, family or spouses or whatever.
• 24:54
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: So anyway big fan of also taking that journey with someone else.
• 24:58
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And it's interesting, right?
• 25:00
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Here you are, this woman who, is not afraid to cut people open, leads, major hospital systems, does all these things, and, buying the sneakers was, the scariest thing, right?
• 25:09
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And it's funny'cause we...
• 25:10
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think we all have those moments of vulnerability.
• 25:13
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Even people that, are doing amazing things in certain areas of their lives, to your point, like other things can seem very scary.
• 25:22
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And having that accountability built in, And to your point, community is hard because you want to have a different type of relationship with that.
• 25:30
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: the idea of having a coach or somebody that you work with to help you through those and hold you accountable to yourself, such an important concept.
• 25:37
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And I think honestly, most everybody can benefit from a coach and/or a therapist.
• 25:42
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: No, definitely.
• 25:44
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I will say too, like related, so my first CMO job I had to have a coach, like a executive coach, a leadership, not a I'm playing games with my health coaching certificate, but I'm actually like, I can't run away from this one.
• 25:57
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And it was funny because, oh my gosh, I was so tachycardic and so just, like I couldn't breathe.
• 26:02
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yeah.
• 26:02
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I was all clammy when I went in to talk to this person.
• 26:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and I genuinely, I had nightmares the night before the first session.
• 26:10
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I was genuinely convinced that in talking to them, that he would uncover the thing- Yeah that would make, invalidate my entire career, right?
• 26:19
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: true imposter syndrome, right?
• 26:21
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Like somehow he's gonna touch the thing that all of a sudden I'm no longer the breadwinner.
• 26:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I'm not the successful mom.
• 26:26
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Like I'm gonna lose my career.
• 26:27
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I was fresh in this- administrative role, which is a huge pivot from a clinical role.
• 26:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I was afraid I wouldn't be able to go back to clinical, like...
• 26:35
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so anyway, we did the session.
• 26:37
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I totally remember the room and the sun coming through the window behind him, and he sat there with his arms crossed, leaned back in his chair and he goes,"Does everyone experience you this way?" I hope not," right?
• 26:47
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It was, so fast and just freaked out.
• 26:50
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and he and I, a decade later still communicate.
• 26:52
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: it was this incredible transition realizing that everything that you've achieved so far is real, right?
• 26:59
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It doesn't mean it's perfect.
• 27:00
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It doesn't mean that you were the very best at whatever the thing was.
• 27:04
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and maybe you can't articulate how it happened, and I think that's the journey is coming up with what was that thing that happened.
• 27:12
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: but nobody can take your accomplishments away from you.
• 27:14
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: They are yours, even if they feel, if that imposter piece of it is chasing you around.
• 27:21
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And I think the ability to recognize what we're carrying brings us to another area of your work that I really wanted to talk about.
• 27:28
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: You have spoken and written a lot about trauma-informed leadership, and I would love to hear your thoughts on that, the reason I bring this up is that a lot of women are starting to view midlife in general as a survival experience, And I don't think it has to be if we teach them the importance of, finding language and community and figuring out accountability for themselves, whether that is through their coaches or doctors or therapists or whatever it is.
• 27:54
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: But how do you take what you've experienced and channel that into your leadership and help the people that are around you?
• 28:01
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: there's so much here, right?
• 28:02
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I think, I landed on trauma-informed, because year over year constantly seeking the right language, right?
• 28:10
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: We know in our bodies what we've been through, what we've experienced, like we're all trying to express it in different ways.
• 28:16
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and most recently trauma-informed felt like the right language.
• 28:21
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and really for me what it distills down into is that our physiology changes, right?
• 28:27
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And we're doctors and scientists like the, the way our body works changes as it relates to what we've experienced.
• 28:35
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And when we have had traumatic experiences, it's not a competition.
• 28:40
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: there's no Olympics for suffering.
• 28:42
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: anything that we've experienced is the worst thing that we've ever experienced, and it may not be the worst that somebody else did, but our body doesn't know the difference.
• 28:51
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and so the chemicals are the same, the experiences, the thoughts are the same because it's driven by physiology.
• 28:57
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so then when you start to recognize that everybody's been through something that some people have tried to process it and some people don't even know that they could try to process it.
• 29:07
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: some people are still way in the mix, and that we're all at different stages of grief over the life that we thought we were going to have at different times.
• 29:16
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: the uniqueness of the pandemic is everybody's synced up in their grief cycle.
• 29:19
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: there was nobody that had any bandwidth for anything.
• 29:22
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: in general, we're all in different places of joy and sorrow.
• 29:26
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so the real thing about trauma-informed leadership for me is recognizing that people are people, giving people safety to be a human, but also giving teams tools to recognize that.
• 29:39
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: The, emotional first aid, the stoplight.
• 29:41
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Are you a red, yellow, or green today?
• 29:43
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: If you're a red- I'm gonna put extra resources your direction.
• 29:46
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And if you are, like, having the best day of your life, I may ask you to help, to just give them a little bit of relief.
• 29:52
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And even that acknowledgement being seen is so important.
• 29:56
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: it starts to open doors.
• 29:57
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And the other thing that I, have really done with this is encouraged people and myself to ask awkward questions.
• 30:03
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Get used to saying,"I don't really know how to ask you this, but I'm noticing that you look sad," or,"I'm noticing that, it feels like something's going on in your life.
• 30:13
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: are you comfortable sharing?" or,"I don't have the right language for, some of the things that I'm seeing around your culture or the way you express yourself," or"Can you help me understand?" And I think that humility and that acknowledgement, that, we're people, it's like as weird as that sounds is gigantic.
• 30:29
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And, really exploring right now, but this piece that all of our training, we have so many colleagues that are in this space, but I know Sasha Silcott will say, if the world was elementary school girls would win, right?
• 30:43
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Because it's about, the gold stars for sitting still and doing your work and being on time, right?
• 30:47
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and the world is a much messier place than that.
• 30:52
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yeah and as we move through those pieces, you need different skill sets to navigate.
• 30:56
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But medicine rewards us to be perfect, to be in control.
• 31:02
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and Alan Novitsky's been talking about all these stress types and how we respond in these extreme experiences.
• 31:07
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And as a hospital administrator, budgets, finance, regulatory, legal, malpractice, it all needs things to land in a very narrow bandwidth for, accurate results and zero harm.
• 31:19
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: We are incentivized to, leave ourselves and become this perfect robot.
• 31:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and when your body is no longer- functioning the way it was five years ago, 10 years ago, if your family's not functioning the way it was, all right?
• 31:32
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And then throw in some world crises, our chemicals change.
• 31:37
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and whether it's age or it's stress, the way our body responds changes over time.
• 31:42
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And I think the more we can give ourselves grace, the more we can support each other in that space.
• 31:47
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And then truly, honestly the challenge of our time is what are the right tools to move forward?
• 31:52
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: 'Cause we can't just all go home and take a nap.
• 31:53
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I'd love that.
• 31:54
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: But we are in an extremely, resource-tight world, if we wanna be a global community, we've always been in a resource-restricted world, we just haven't really always necessarily looked through that lens.
• 32:04
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so then what does that look like for us?
• 32:07
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Just last thing,'cause I'm really excited about this, is, I think, that the computing power that currently exists, while totally terrifying, we have been rewarded, to come up with answers faster and faster, right?
• 32:20
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: If you are the smartest and the best and know the most, you will get rewarded with leadership.
• 32:25
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And so part of the challenge of midlife physiology is that you're not as fast as you were, maybe'cause you're exhausted- Yeah'cause you're just trying to keep everything together, but maybe because your body is actually truly having chemical changes that you can measure.
• 32:37
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: but if we could partner with AI and partner with computing and those resources in a way that it gave us back some time And we actually used that time as leaders led to that time for self-care for that your physiology is not negotiable.
• 32:54
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Yes.
• 32:54
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and we actually trained the next generation you don't have to be so smart and so fast.
• 32:58
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Be smart with a computer friend, right?
• 33:00
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And then take care of your body because ultimately that's all that really matters.
• 33:05
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Your family doesn't care about your computing power.
• 33:07
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Your family cares about your body, and your mind and your heart.
• 33:10
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And, so anyway, that's how I translate all of it.
• 33:13
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think that's phenomenal, and I think that, for women in leadership, it's great that you are able to be a mentor in that space.
• 33:22
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think any female physician or executive that works with you is going to have somebody who understands.
• 33:28
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And I think that's half of the battle is We earned our place and are currently operating in a system that was not built for our gender entirely.
• 33:38
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: All of the different things that we manage- all of the different balls that we are continuously juggling.
• 33:43
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And the more women we have like you who are making space, who are looking for solutions, who are trying to help, coach and navigate people through this, I think we'll see, more capability for women.
• 33:55
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: It's just really interesting to me we're at this juncture where we have a choice to make.
• 33:59
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: How are we going to utilize these things to support our bodies, and our physiology so that we can continue to have great lives and be able to solve a lot of the problems that are coming up in the world and in the workplace, for the whole of society.
• 34:13
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think women sit at a very interesting juncture because we've always had to pivot.
• 34:17
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: We've always had to navigate something slightly different.
• 34:20
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: We've always had to create community and pay attention to how all of these changes are affecting our relationships.
• 34:26
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So I just, I wanna say thank you for the work that you do and the perspective that you bring, and just for being an incredible inspiration to a lot of women out there.
• 34:35
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: Sometimes we watch people that have really incredible, careers and opportunities.
• 34:41
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and the assumption is that they have it all.
• 34:44
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: That they've figured it all out.
• 34:45
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: And, whether it's the conversations around boundaries, whether it's the conversations around, choosing and picking the things that want and the things that you can't have or whatever, all of this also comes with making, important choices and understanding what matters to you and what you want things to look like in the future.
• 35:05
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: as an example, I haven't been in the operating room since I started my life as a CMO.
• 35:10
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I needed to make a change to be able to show up better for myself and my health.
• 35:15
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I see patients in the wound care center, but I have not been in the operating room.
• 35:20
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: on one hand, I can say I got these opportunities as a CMO, and I got to do all these other things that look bright and shiny," and I made a really hard decision to pivot away from part of what I'd always done and evolve my identity to something different.
• 35:34
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: and so it's just, it's a both/and, right?
• 35:36
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: there's amazing opportunity and amazing evolution, and it may not look the way it looked if you had envisioned it 10 years ago, but it doesn't mean that it's not accessible, and I think that has been part of what's really allowed me to continue to appear on the outside like I have all these, opportunities because I've been very thoughtful around what's important to me, and how does this align.
• 35:58
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I've been very lucky as well, but I've also been really thoughtful and made hard decisions.
• 36:02
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: You have put a lot of incredibly hard work in...
• 36:05
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: not into just building your career but also into the introspection and being in touch with your body and understanding what you can and cannot handle.
• 36:14
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I think if there's anything that I want our listeners to take away from this episode is that you have choices in you show up in your relationships.
• 36:23
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: You have choices to slow things down if you need to take better care of your body, and none of those things are failures.
• 36:30
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: They're actually just pivots to get you to the new version of yourself.
• 36:35
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I'm just so grateful that you took the time with us today.
• 36:38
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: Brooke, where can people find you online, your writing, just your professional space?
• 36:43
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: I would love for people to be able to, take a look at the extensive amazing work that you've done.
• 36:49
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: thank you so much.
• 36:50
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: I am mostly active on Facebook and Instagram, less on LinkedIn.
• 36:55
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: playyourstory with underscore between the two words is my Instagram handle.
• 36:59
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: It's about, finding joy and, happiness in the small moments because that is a choice, even when the world is tough.
• 37:06
  Dr. Brooke Buckley: would love to see people there and just really grateful for the opportunity to speak with you today.
• 37:12
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And to all of our listeners, I hope that, you get a chance to go back and listen to episode nine.
• 37:19
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: But then also come back to this conversation for the example of a woman who has navigated all of those things and is still living with joy and, accomplishment and accountability to herself and her choices.
• 37:32
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: So thank you all, for joining us on Clearly Hormonal today.
• 37:35
  Dr. Komal Patil-Sisodia: And I will see you all on the next episode.