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Patient with Stephanie Moss · Lean Out Podcast

• 0:01
  Welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:04
  Don baker.
• 0:05
  Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance?
• 0:10
  You've come to the right.
• 0:11
  Place.
• 0:11
  For inspiration.
• 0:12
  information.
• 0:13
  and a community.
• 0:14
  community.
• 0:14
  of like-minded.
• 0:15
  Professionals.
• 0:16
  Let's get to the show.
• 0:22
  Hello?
• 0:22
  Hello.
• 0:23
  Thanks for being here.
• 0:25
  After a short break for a focused period of clinical work, I'm back with an interview episode for you today.
• 0:31
  My guest is Dr.
• 0:32
  Stephanie Moss and she's the first physician in training that I've had on the show.
• 0:37
  In fact, Stephanie is a fresh brand new psychiatry intern, but she's also got some interesting things going on as a fierce patient advocate and champion for authenticity and humanness in medicine, she has started a podcast called life as a patient doctor.
• 0:54
  Which I will be featured on later this fall.
• 0:56
  She's juggling the podcast and writing for her website with the demands of psychiatry residency, plus living life with an invisible disability.
• 1:07
  Talking with Stephanie really brought back some memories of my own experience during training, both positive and negative.
• 1:13
  She's had her share of hurdles, but she has learned a great deal about herself in the process.
• 1:18
  And isn't that the way that it should be.
• 1:20
  I hope you enjoy this conversation with Stephanie Moss.
• 1:25
  SM-Dawn1: Stephanie Moss, welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 1:28
  SM-Dawn1: Can you introduce yourself for the listeners, please?
• 1:32
  SM-Dawn1: All
• 1:33
  SM-Steph: Yes, thank you so much for having me Dr.
• 1:35
  SM-Steph: Baker.
• 1:36
  SM-Steph: my name is Stephanie Moss.
• 1:37
  SM-Steph: I am an incoming, psychiatry resident in North Chicago.
• 1:42
  SM-Steph: And I went to medical school in, in Chicago, and let's see what else.
• 1:48
  SM-Steph: I originally am from Colorado.
• 1:49
  SM-Steph: I moved to Chicago for medical school and my husband and I are both residents.
• 1:53
  SM-Steph: So we plan on continuing our next couple years and hopefully a little bit longer here in Chicago.
• 2:01
  SM-Dawn1: So tell me before we really talk about why you're here on the podcast, what made you decide to do psychiatry?
• 2:10
  SM-Steph: So It was actually a relatively recent transition.
• 2:13
  SM-Steph: I went into medicine to medical school thinking I was going to do emergency medicine Maybe family medicine just because I really enjoyed working in an environment where I could See patients and diagnose quickly then more when I started doing family medicine.
• 2:30
  SM-Steph: I really liked the being with People in the sense of really taking their whole person, their, their family, their work environment, really understanding the broad depth and really the humanistic side of not just looking at.
• 2:49
  SM-Steph: The health condition they were presenting with, but understanding how their community, their life was impacting their health condition.
• 2:58
  SM-Steph: And as I started kind of getting close to applying to residency, I really took a deep look within myself and tried to figure out what really was I passionate about in regards to every single patient?
• 3:13
  SM-Steph: What did I enjoy?
• 3:14
  SM-Steph: And I recognized that it was the sitting and listening.
• 3:18
  SM-Steph: And seeing them as a person and a human.
• 3:22
  SM-Steph: And I think that psychiatry really emphasizes that.
• 3:28
  SM-Steph: And it's interesting because I actually studied psychology in my undergraduate.
• 3:33
  SM-Steph: So it really kind of went back to my own personal route of education.
• 3:38
  SM-Steph: And then by adding in the.
• 3:40
  SM-Steph: Health and the medicine component brought it full circle on something that I can really support individuals from all different environments, all different, um, populations.
• 3:54
  SM-Steph: That's really where I'm most passionate is taking care of people who are marginalized and a lot of people who have mental illnesses are one of the most marginalized, um, I believe.
• 4:08
  SM-Dawn1: Okay, thank you.
• 4:10
  SM-Dawn1: And you are a trainee, but you already have your finger on the pulse of a holistic way of being, of carving your own unique work life balance, and I know that because you have your own podcast called Life as a Patient Doctor, and we met through me interviewing for that podcast, so tell me a little bit about the you are a patient doctor yourself.
• 4:37
  SM-Steph: So, yeah, between my second and third year of medical school, I was struggling a lot with my health.
• 4:45
  SM-Steph: And I was diagnosed in the middle of medical school with endometriosis, which is a women's health condition that I had unknowingly lived with for many years, but it wasn't until I had the privilege of being a medical student, of having really good health insurance and really good specialists, that I was finally able to Learn that I had this health condition.
• 5:10
  SM-Steph: And through that experience, I also ended up learning that I had infertility.
• 5:15
  SM-Steph: So I went through, an IVF cycle to end up freezing my eggs.
• 5:20
  SM-Steph: Um, cause my husband and I were both in medicine.
• 5:22
  SM-Steph: We weren't planning on having kids until a lot after residency.
• 5:26
  SM-Steph: So we had to think about that.
• 5:28
  SM-Steph: And then during that struggle, I also learned I had other mental health conditions.
• 5:33
  SM-Steph: So.
• 5:34
  SM-Steph: Really, throughout my medical school journey, as I tried to do this balance of being a medical student while also dealing with my physical and mental health conditions, I started to see a very unique viewpoint that how an individual when they've been through the medical system themselves and had health conditions themselves can really connect with patients and in another way can bring that empathy can really form that bond of trust, um, in a very new way.
• 6:13
  SM-Steph: So I, I created my podcast to.
• 6:16
  SM-Steph: One, share my own experience, but also to let other people know they are not alone, because only through talking to other students, other health providers that also were struggling with health conditions, did I realize that my experience was not unique.
• 6:38
  SM-Steph: But in a positive way, I was able to find mentorship and find support.
• 6:44
  SM-Steph: And so that's really where I, I hope to kind of bridge that gap a little bit, because especially in medicine, we don't like to share our own individual struggles, whether that is failure on exam, whether that is dealing with health, we really seem to have this, idea that we're super human to some extent that we're robots that we can't be human and that's just not the case.
• 7:13
  SM-Steph: And so really I strive to through sharing my own vulnerabilities and experience help to strive to change that culture just a little bit so we can help each other out and be better humans and doctors ourselves.
• 7:31
  SM-Dawn1: Yeah, I, think it's wonderful how you're looking at it from the standpoint of internally changing the culture of invulnerability, that hidden curriculum of like, we are above whatever humans are suffering from, you know, which we all know is, is not the case, in healthcare, but then also from the patient side, I assume that you have the viewpoint that if you bring your experiences as a vulnerable human to your patient care, that it can make you a better physician as well.
• 8:07
  SM-Dawn1: I mean, some people are very anti sharing, their own personal problems with patients.
• 8:13
  SM-Dawn1: And there is a time and a place, I do get that.
• 8:15
  SM-Dawn1: But, there are articles about how it's unprofessional to divulge too much information.
• 8:20
  SM-Dawn1: And then there's arguments of the latter.
• 8:22
  SM-Dawn1: So what's your viewpoint on that?
• 8:24
  SM-Steph: Oh, I'm so glad you asked, because it's also something that I've been trying to uncover, too, because I think that there is this, image that we have in medicine that the doctor is an all knowing individual, and they will only serve one purpose and that is provide medical recommendations and the thing is Medical recommendations don't just come in a book in something that we can read It's a lot of the times from lived experience whether it's that that's lived Experience from them being in the wards and them learning from other patients Or it can be even their own individual experience.
• 9:13
  SM-Steph: And so, why in medicine do we value Students and residents seeing patients in the hospital and bringing those experiences to other patients, but not our own experience.
• 9:27
  SM-Steph: Something that they talk a lot a lot.
• 9:30
  SM-Steph: They talk a lot in psychology is the purpose and being very aware of what purpose is my disclosure doing is it to help myself feel better and feel more connected.
• 9:45
  SM-Steph: Is it to help the patient know they're not alone?
• 9:48
  SM-Steph: Is it a specific story or lesson.
• 9:54
  SM-Steph: And then also the concept of what is need to know.
• 9:58
  SM-Steph: Do I need to disclose the 12 years that I went without finding a doctor?
• 10:04
  SM-Steph: Maybe not necessarily, but maybe I can say I have a chronic pain condition too.
• 10:10
  SM-Steph: That's it.
• 10:10
  SM-Steph: Or I have a disability too, or I've been in the hospital too, or I've had a surgery too.
• 10:17
  SM-Steph: That small sentence can do wonders of just bringing the connection of I'm working with a human and my doctor's a human too.
• 10:28
  SM-Steph: So I don't know if that really answered your question because I don't, I don't believe it is a yes or a no.
• 10:36
  SM-Steph: It is all of how you're disclosing and what are you disclosing.
• 10:42
  SM-Dawn1: You know, one thing that I wanted to challenge you on is this idea that you're going into training.
• 10:48
  SM-Dawn1: This is the most intense period of your medical training right now that you're about to be in, at least from my experiencing from a lot of other people's experience.
• 10:57
  SM-Dawn1: And you have this podcast that has gotten pretty popular, and I know you have a big backload of episodes.
• 11:04
  SM-Dawn1: So what's your plan to, Take care of yourself during this time period to continue doing the work that you're doing that you have this passion for in the life as a patient doctor podcast and anything else that might be going on in your life.
• 11:21
  SM-Steph: Right?
• 11:21
  SM-Steph: No, that's a really great question.
• 11:23
  SM-Steph: And trust me, you're not the only one asking.
• 11:25
  SM-Steph: My therapist asked me on a weekly basis the exact same question.
• 11:30
  SM-Steph: My husband asked me, my program director asked me.
• 11:33
  SM-Steph: So you're
• 11:34
  SM-Dawn1: You have people that are caring about you.
• 11:36
  SM-Dawn1: That's good.
• 11:37
  SM-Steph: So I've been thinking about that and I have it.
• 11:40
  SM-Steph: So my whole, the whole reasoning right now was to do all the recording beforehand, because it's very unique to medicine that between fourth year of medical school and residency, we have this chunk of open time.
• 11:53
  SM-Steph: Now, there are other medical students that have spent this time vacationing, getting married, doing things that they have, they have every right to do.
• 12:04
  SM-Steph: I, on the other hand, my husband is in residency working 80 hour weeks.
• 12:09
  SM-Steph: So the times that he was working in 80 hour weeks, I was recording and editing episodes and that is something that we learned a long time ago, because we've been together all through college.
• 12:21
  SM-Steph: Gap years and med school.
• 12:22
  SM-Steph: We've learned very much how to manage our schedule to make sure that we are prioritizing our own health.
• 12:31
  SM-Steph: Our relationship and our work and or academics.
• 12:37
  SM-Steph: And so I'm looking now to the future of residency.
• 12:41
  SM-Steph: I've made sure I have right now.
• 12:43
  SM-Steph: I have 60 different interviews that I have done and I have structured them all out with the opportunity to schedule them.
• 12:56
  SM-Steph: throughout my next couple years.
• 12:57
  SM-Steph: And before I would have put that pressure on myself to say I need to get this done every week and I would have scheduled it out and I would have been very upset and had a lot of self hatred if I didn't reach that goal.
• 13:14
  SM-Steph: And I'm not perfect at it, I can still be upset at myself, but I'm really striving to allow myself the pr the ability to be like, Yeah, I would, I would like to publish an episode this week, or this month, but I didn't, and that's okay.
• 13:31
  SM-Steph: Because my publishing, my production, what I create, it's not a reflection of who I am as an individual.
• 13:42
  SM-Steph: And I think that was a big thing that I learned over the past couple of years is I used to be very focused on, and we are taught in medicine of how you perform is who you are.
• 13:57
  SM-Steph: And I think it happened a lot when I failed a big board exam, the step one That, that image of who I was.
• 14:09
  SM-Steph: As a medical student and future doctor really crumbled when I failed that exam and it took a lot of time to realize that I myself am not the score.
• 14:21
  SM-Steph: I am not a failure.
• 14:24
  SM-Steph: Once that image of me kind of shattered and I could rebuild it and start to recognize.
• 14:30
  SM-Steph: Oh, I am.
• 14:32
  SM-Steph: I am more of that, that one challenge, two challenges, three challenges.
• 14:36
  SM-Steph: I'm more than my failures and my struggles.
• 14:39
  SM-Steph: I am me.
• 14:40
  SM-Steph: And these are just additional things, a part of my own individual journey.
• 14:46
  SM-Steph: So going back to planning for residency, In order to set myself up for failure, there's the one taking my responsibility off, but then also reaching out for support, for help.
• 15:01
  SM-Steph: Another thing I learned during medical school that I struggled with before, I wanted to be the one doing it because I wanted to be the leader.
• 15:09
  SM-Steph: Me stepping back and I have now right now today.
• 15:12
  SM-Steph: I even got a third I have a I have three medical students that are going to be helping me edit that um Also believe in this mission of sharing humanity sharing struggles sharing vulnerabilities and stigma That are going to be helping me, edit these podcasts.
• 15:29
  SM-Steph: So it's again reaching out And that is for anything and will be the same throughout my residency, the being willing to ask for help when different challenges arise.
• 15:43
  SM-Dawn1: Those are really great lessons.
• 15:44
  SM-Dawn1: I love it.
• 15:45
  SM-Dawn1: So just As a summary, what I'm hearing is that you have self compassion to know that you don't need to stick to a rigid schedule of putting out a podcast in order to be doing the podcast.
• 15:59
  SM-Dawn1: It doesn't have to be perfect, and that you don't have to be the only one that's working on it in a vacuum, and that you're going to have help from these wonderful medical students.
• 16:08
  SM-Dawn1: And what a great idea To task some medical students with doing that and then give them some experience that will be helpful in another way to them.
• 16:17
  SM-Dawn1: I love it.
• 16:18
  SM-Dawn1: So that's great.
• 16:20
  SM-Dawn1: I'm
• 16:20
  SM-Steph: add to their CV for residency.
• 16:23
  SM-Dawn1: I'm glad you've thought about this.
• 16:25
  SM-Steph: Thank
• 16:25
  SM-Dawn1: Um, let's talk more about the kind of struggles that you had when you were a medical student as a patient.
• 16:35
  SM-Dawn1: You talked about getting some diagnoses and alluded to the fact that you had some academic struggles.
• 16:44
  SM-Dawn1: Was it difficult in the culture of your medical school to be who you were at that time?
• 16:51
  SM-Steph: Oh, yes.
• 16:52
  SM-Steph: I, I'm not going to sugar coat it.
• 16:55
  SM-Steph: I actually just spoke with a medical student this morning who I was mentoring.
• 16:59
  SM-Steph: And I told her it's not going to be easy.
• 17:01
  SM-Steph: I am not a person that's going to lie to you and say, Oh, it'll be fine.
• 17:05
  SM-Steph: You'll get through it.
• 17:05
  SM-Steph: No, it sucked being in my eyes, the only one who was struggling.
• 17:11
  SM-Steph: It really was painful to.
• 17:15
  SM-Steph: To to grab a chair and sit down during standing rounds and have the attending and residents kind of side eyed me and in silently and not so silently sometimes judging me for sitting down during our four hours standing rounds that that wasn't fun, but the reality is.
• 17:37
  SM-Steph: I was able to learn to stand up for myself and advocate for myself.
• 17:42
  SM-Steph: And that was just a small little example, but being able to recognize that, yeah, I am different than what they want me to be.
• 17:54
  SM-Steph: The medical system wants us to.
• 17:56
  SM-Steph: To be clones like in star wars if I don't know if that is too old of a reference But the reality is Medicine is not made of people who are all the same skin tone they don't all speak the same language Similarly, just like our patients are very diverse and have different backgrounds and challenges and means.
• 18:20
  SM-Steph: So do the people that care for them
• 18:22
  SM-Dawn1: How did you deal with uncertainties in both of those arenas, either like, am I going to pass this and finish this?
• 18:31
  SM-Dawn1: Or like, am I going to be healthy?
• 18:33
  SM-Dawn1: Am I going to be able to be a mom someday?
• 18:35
  SM-Dawn1: You know, those kinds of things.
• 18:37
  SM-Dawn1: What kind of tools do you use to deal with uncertainty?
• 18:41
  SM-Steph: Hmm.
• 18:43
  SM-Steph: Good question.
• 18:45
  SM-Steph: I think, going through health conditions made me more aware of the, the little amount of control we actually have in medicine.
• 18:57
  SM-Steph: We like, sometimes we like to think like, that we, we know all the diseases that we, and we know all the, the medicines that are going to be able to save and like treat someone.
• 19:10
  SM-Steph: But every single person's disease is different and is expressed in a different way.
• 19:16
  SM-Steph: Like, for me in my own health condition, I never know when I will wake up in a body flare.
• 19:23
  SM-Steph: I actually woke up in a body flare today.
• 19:25
  SM-Steph: There's nothing I could have done to prevent.
• 19:31
  SM-Steph: Or, like, or, or plant, well, of course I could plant for it, but like, I didn't know it was going to happen.
• 19:39
  SM-Steph: And so all I can do is prepare for the unexpected.
• 19:44
  SM-Steph: Well, how can I prepare myself for the worst to happen?
• 19:49
  SM-Steph: Now it's not the worst.
• 19:50
  SM-Steph: I'm not in the hospital.
• 19:51
  SM-Steph: I guess my full body hurts and I can't get out of bed.
• 19:54
  SM-Steph: So I prepare my toolbox.
• 19:57
  SM-Steph: In that sense, I prepared my pain meds.
• 19:59
  SM-Steph: I prepared my heating pad.
• 20:00
  SM-Steph: I prepare, I have an email prepared that I will send out to my residency program director when I wake up in day flares.
• 20:09
  SM-Steph: He knows that that happens, and we've already spoken multiple times of what will I do, how will my patients be still taken care of, how will I not be a burden to my co residents, all these conversations have been already had.
• 20:27
  SM-Steph: Before I started now, that wasn't an overnight like idea that came to me This is over two and three years of having health conditions And waking up in flares and getting in trouble for calling out sick Of relearning, okay, this needs to be a disability accommodation that I need to be protected by federal law.
• 20:49
  SM-Steph: Okay, this is how I need to communicate with my team and the people in charge of me, so they don't just see me as an illness or faking getting out.
• 20:59
  SM-Steph: So everything is through lessons, but I think in summary, in order to prepare for the unexpected and the uncertainty is To look at what's happened in the past.
• 21:10
  SM-Steph: And create a list in a toolbox with resources that I can use if that happens.
• 21:18
  SM-Steph: And it's something that I also recommend to my fellow patients.
• 21:22
  SM-Steph: We were just talking about, um, how to prepare patients for when they get very, very sad and start having suicide ideation.
• 21:31
  SM-Steph: We prepare a plan for them.
• 21:33
  SM-Steph: We have lists of people that they will call, individuals, and we have them write it down.
• 21:38
  SM-Steph: They have their their phone number and name of the best friend family member They have we then okay.
• 21:47
  SM-Steph: What are the things that make you happy and full?
• 21:50
  SM-Steph: Okay, we get those out whether if that is a cozy blanket whether if that is a pet like so having that tools and resources because Especially being an individual with chronic pain, when you're in that mode of pain or, or any type of pain in general, physically or emotionally, our frontal cortex doesn't always think.
• 22:15
  SM-Steph: And so by having a list and something prepared beforehand, it's easier to then use that resource.
• 22:23
  SM-Dawn1: You know, I know that was a hard question, but that was seriously one of the best answers I've ever had people give me because There are so many aspects to what you just said, I want to highlight, which is number one, recognizing that we really have little control over things.
• 22:40
  SM-Dawn1: And you talked about in medicine, we have little control over when certain things happen.
• 22:45
  SM-Dawn1: Like, you don't know when you're going to have a flare, but what you do have control over is the preparation.
• 22:50
  SM-Dawn1: And I love how you pointed out that.
• 22:53
  SM-Dawn1: When you're going to have something that has that aspect of the uncertainty and the fear in it, that's when your logic part of your brain turns off.
• 23:03
  SM-Dawn1: And so you have to have something in place that will help you, a go to, like you said, a toolkit.
• 23:09
  SM-Dawn1: Um, and it applies to so many things.
• 23:12
  SM-Dawn1: To many different situations.
• 23:14
  SM-Dawn1: So thank you so much for that.
• 23:17
  SM-Steph: Welcome, I hope, I hope it helps.
• 23:19
  SM-Dawn1: We talked about.
• 23:21
  SM-Dawn1: Before we even started recording today and in email going back and forth, the idea that listening to your body is so important.
• 23:30
  SM-Dawn1: And I know that as someone who had a diagnosis that was unrecognized for a long time.
• 23:36
  SM-Dawn1: Um, like you did a diagnosis that was put off.
• 23:39
  SM-Dawn1: And I want to know if there's anything, you know, now that you wish you knew, you know, when when you were addicted to achievement and you weren't really listening to your body.
• 23:51
  SM-Steph: Something that helped me was recognizing emotions first, because in this sense of achievement, it's all about something external, not internal.
• 24:08
  SM-Steph: And I think that Recognizing my own emotion was one of my first steps in being able to say, okay, what am I feeling right now, and then kind of go backwards until it goes more internally.
• 24:26
  SM-Steph: So, for example, um, this is actually a perfect example because I was stressed of starting residency.
• 24:35
  SM-Steph: It's a new job.
• 24:36
  SM-Steph: It's a new responsibility.
• 24:38
  SM-Steph: And so what do I do in my external achieving self?
• 24:44
  SM-Steph: I start making workbooks.
• 24:45
  SM-Steph: I start, publishing podcasts and blog posts.
• 24:48
  SM-Steph: It started with noticing the emotional anxiety.
• 24:51
  SM-Steph: Once I noticed that I was anxious, then I took a next step.
• 24:55
  SM-Steph: Okay, well, what other emotions am I feeling?
• 24:58
  SM-Steph: And that's where I started saying like, Oh, I'm scared.
• 25:02
  SM-Steph: Oh, I am, worried.
• 25:05
  SM-Steph: Oh, I am excited.
• 25:07
  SM-Steph: But all these different things.
• 25:09
  SM-Steph: And then I started from that.
• 25:11
  SM-Steph: Now I'm starting to look more internally and then see my own body.
• 25:16
  SM-Steph: Where do I feel that emotion?
• 25:18
  SM-Steph: Oh, I'm feeling that really in my chest.
• 25:21
  SM-Steph: I'm not really taking deep breaths.
• 25:24
  SM-Steph: I feel that my jaw is clenched.
• 25:26
  SM-Steph: I feel that my shoulders are clenched.
• 25:29
  SM-Steph: And then so starting to be so little by little, I started to go more internal internal to recognize.
• 25:38
  SM-Steph: I'm starting to have more body flares and pain flares, and starting to correlate, okay, well, this is how I'm reacting to this stress, maybe from, maybe this is not the healthiest way right now, what can I do, you know, pulling out that tool bus, okay, what can I do instead to make me feel better?
• 25:56
  SM-Steph: I need to take the dogs on a walk They've already been to the bathroom, but let's just do it for fun Even though I want to stay home and achieve and work and produce something But what does my body need my body needs to walk my body needs to breathe fresh air My body needs that vitamin d and sunshine drink water like all these different toolkits and things that I had planned before That My body was asking for it and it wasn't until I turned to it that I was actually able to Give my body what it needed
• 26:32
  SM-Dawn1: Yeah.
• 26:33
  SM-Dawn1: That's a great example, because I think a lot of us who are listening can identify with the idea that we buffer emotions by doing more work or by achieving more.
• 26:46
  SM-Dawn1: For some people, they shop more, some people eat more, some people drink more, and there might be people listening to do those things too, but definitely all of us can identify with the idea of wanting to achieve more and do more and turn out more work.
• 27:02
  SM-Dawn1: So we're coming to a close, and I would love it if you would tell us the name of your website, where people can find you, and again, the name of your podcast.
• 27:16
  SM-Steph: Of course and thank you dr baker for having me it is really Great to talk about the struggles that I am Actively in the past couple weeks still dealing with because it still shows that i'm not perfect I'm learning and will continue to learn.
• 27:35
  SM-Steph: And if you want to keep watching how I learn and how I am navigating myself to improve that, um, I, I share in the moment of how I'm, I'm going through my lessons.
• 27:50
  SM-Steph: I learned both on, so my website is med psych Moss, which is M E T P S Y C M O S S.
• 28:02
  SM-Steph: com.
• 28:02
  SM-Steph: So med psych Moss, which talks about the combination of medicine, Psychology and psychiatry and mosque, my own lived experience.
• 28:11
  SM-Steph: So really combining those three to really share both.
• 28:16
  SM-Steph: For people in the medicine field, but then also, um, and everyone else that, has their similar medical conditions or mental health conditions, hopefully can receive something on it.
• 28:29
  SM-Steph: All I have linked to their, my podcast, which is life as a patient doctor, where not just sharing my own stories, but I interview, students, trainees, people who are working professionals, so doctors, but everyone is in the health profession field to really show the humanity in medicine, showing that they're not just caring for others, but they have their own stories and own journeys themselves.
• 28:58
  SM-Steph: And that is a positive thing that they can contribute to their schooling and work.
• 29:05
  SM-Dawn1: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for what you do, and I know that I'm speaking for everyone when I say good luck with your residency.
• 29:13
  SM-Dawn1: It's an amazing journey.
• 29:15
  SM-Dawn1: It will be full of ups and downs, but it's also an amazing learning time, so good luck with that.
• 29:22
  SM-Steph: Thank you, and I appreciate you having me on the podcast.
• 29:25
  SM-Steph: I love sharing my story today with everyone.
• 29:30
  It was so interesting talking with Stephanie and getting your perspective from someone who's in the thick of her training.
• 29:36
  It's been over 13 years since I finished all of my medical training and I cannot believe how much I've changed on this journey.
• 29:44
  I know Stephanie will realize this later for herself too.
• 29:47
  She's already got a lot of self-awareness to help her along the way.
• 29:51
  Here are my takeaways from our conversation.
• 29:54
  Number one, you are not your accomplishments, grades, scores, et cetera.
• 30:00
  So many of us who find ourselves on the treadmill of achievement are there because we identify with those things.
• 30:06
  Stephanie was there herself until she began to separate herself from the metrics after she failed a board exam.
• 30:13
  Would you still be an amazing person with things to contribute to this world?
• 30:17
  If you failed an exam or didn't get a certain certification?
• 30:21
  What if you couldn't practice medicine or your chosen profession?
• 30:25
  What if some other part of your identity were stripped away from you?
• 30:29
  Who would you be?
• 30:31
  Well, you would be you a worthy human being separate from all of those labels.
• 30:36
  Realizing, this is a very important key to happiness in my opinion.
• 30:41
  I first came across this concept when reading Eckhart Tully's work.
• 30:45
  And I will link his impactful books, the power of now, and a new earth in the show notes.
• 30:50
  If you have not checked these out, or if you're curious, learning about who you are at your essence, I highly recommend reading these books.
• 31:00
  Number two.
• 31:01
  Don't be afraid to be yourself.
• 31:03
  If you don't buy into being a clone, you're going to stand out.
• 31:07
  And that may cause some difficulties for you.
• 31:10
  If you're showing up with integrity, however, that is what matters most.
• 31:14
  This is what leaning out is all about gaining the confidence to do things differently than the status quo and being okay with yourself.
• 31:21
  When you do.
• 31:22
  But remember you are not alone.
• 31:24
  That's why we have this podcast.
• 31:26
  As a reminder, that there are other people going through similar things to you.
• 31:31
  Number three.
• 31:32
  Be prepared for difficult times of self care.
• 31:36
  Have a toolkit or a plan as Stephanie discussed.
• 31:39
  Whether it's go-to habits you can fall back on when things are tough.
• 31:44
  People you will call or a protocol for self care that you will implement.
• 31:48
  This works for physical illnesses and disability, but also other situations involving mental health or even the need to take care of someone else's wellbeing.
• 31:58
  You must think about this when you're not in crisis mode.
• 32:01
  So spending some time gathering information now and learning more about yourself and what works for you so that you can have this plan in place is very important.
• 32:10
  When you need to go back to the basics.
• 32:13
  My question for you today is can you identify a set of tools to turn to for support when life gets hard?
• 32:22
  Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
• 32:25
  If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier.
• 32:37
  If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services.
• 32:54
  You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker.
• 33:06
  Have a great day and we'll