--This was an enlightening and inspiring conversation with Dr. Lavannya Pandit, a Physician-Scientist at the Baylor College of Medicine. 
--Dr. Pandit is a clinician who also performs scientific research. She is a Pulmonary Critical Care physician on staff at the Michael E. DeBakey Veteran's Affairs Hospital in Houston. She is Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program there and serves as an Associate Professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.
--Her research centers on the physiologic and molecular mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease.
--Her mission is to advance understanding of vascular disease.

--In this episode, Dr. Pandit describes her work, which is focused on serving her patients, particularly the veterans who have fought for our country. As a scientist, she also spends time applying for competitive grant funding, mentoring, reviewing, and conducting research.
--An overview of physician-scientists has noted that their numbers in the United States are decreasing rapidly for several reasons. However, clinicians who are closely involved in understanding the challenges of a particular disease have important insights into research questions.

--In this episode, Dr. Pandit describes her path to becoming a physician-scientist and provides advice to medical students.

More on Dr. Lavannya Pandit

Published research by Dr. Pandit

Dr. Monica Huang is a Diagnostic Radiologist and researcher in the area of minimally invasive breast cancer treatment with cryoablation. This episode provides some great insights into crafting a career that connects deeply to your mission.   

Dr. Huang began her career as a faculty member at the Baylor College of Medicine, and later was in private practice for over a decade. She then returned to training to complete a fellowship in breast imaging at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.  

In speaking with her, it is clear that she has a deep commitment to developing minimally invasive treatments for breast cancer, and she is now the founder and Director of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Breast Imaging Breast Cryoablation Program. 

This episode also provides some great insights into how a physician can overcome burnout.  Although Dr. Huang was in a very successful private practice, she felt that she was getting burned out. This was not due to the amount of work, but rather because her goals had changed.  She found herself wanting to change the world a little bit, and specifically the world of breast imaging and breast cancer treatment.  She explains that working through that process has made her practice of medicine ultimately stronger. She worked to evaluate several areas: What were the sources of her discomfort? What brought her satisfaction? What could she change? Was there something new she could add?

This process ultimately led her to return to training and now, as a faculty member, she treats breast cancer patients with minimally invasive treatments while running clinical trials.

About Dr. Monica Huang

Dr. Abbey Vandersall is the Vice President of Quality and Clinical Services at AMSURG, an organization that maintains over 250 ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) across the United States. Her work encompasses patient safety and quality, as well as other areas that impact clinical care such as operations, strategy, policy, and government affairs. In this episode, she shares her journey from medical student to consultant to healthcare leader.
One of the things that struck me about our conversation was how energized she was about innovation, strategy, and making a positive impact on patient care. She has a lot of wisdom to share for medical students. 

· One of her points that really resonated with me was that your passions at age 18 or age 30 may not be the same as those at age 50, because your passions change, your experiences change, and the world around you changes. It's important to recognize that. 

· When you’re thinking about career decisions, she encourages students to think: “What problem do I want to solve?"

· She also recommends that students investigate areas that intrigue them. For herself, she was absolutely fascinated during a lecture on the business of healthcare in her third year of medical school, and she later explored a summer experience in consulting.

· One final piece of advice that she shared to medical students was to not be afraid to reach out to people that you don’t know. She says that people are often far more willing to help than we would realize.

AMSURG: https://amsurg.com/

Dr. Abbey Vandersall LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbey-vandersall-md

Dr. Andru Zeller is a primary care physician who is focused on fair trade medicine. He founded the Simply Salud Clinic in 2004 as a family-centered, fair trade, integrative medical practice for people of limited economic means.

Dr. Zeller completed a family practice residency, followed by a fellowship in rural health. He talks about the strength and power of medicine, but also some of the challenges, especially the cost of healthcare faced by patients of limited economic means. This inspired him to develop a practice focused on fair trade medicine. The clinic is a sustainable business, and continues to serve himself, his family, and his community.  In this episode, he speaks about his mission as well as the associated challenges. 

He has been very intentional about how he wants to make an impact in healthcare, and he has developed several innovations.

• The clinic provides primary care, women’s health, and mental health services.

• The clinic also provides integrative health services and complex pain assessment.

• Dr. Zeller initiated a volunteer health apprentice model, which helps provide direct patient care experience to pre-health students, as well as functioning to keep costs down so that the clinic can continue to function sustainably.

• He is also developing Pain Scan, which is a technology-assisted pain evaluation system. He saw the need for such a system, as he treats many low-income, hard-working people. 

• He became interested in integrative medicine during residency, and incorporates this into pain management.

To learn more about Dr. Zeller and the Pain Scan System, please see these links:

Simply Salud
painscansystem.com

Dr. Pooja Varshney is a Pediatric Allergist and Immunologist at the Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin Texas. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas Austin, and is Director of the Dell Children’s Food Allergy Center, a clinical research center of distinction. She is the principal investigator on clinical trials that are studying the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of food allergy.

Dr. Varshney has a busy clinical practice, along with teaching and research responsibilities. She conducts clinical research and also teaches students and residents at the bedside and with didactic lectures.

One of the things that struck me about our conversation is that when it comes to her field, she “sometimes feels so lucky – I love everything about it“. She specifically highlights the long-term relationships with her patients, and the ability to follow them throughout their childhood. In her particular field, she also finds the scientific aspects to be fascinating, with an explosion of knowledge in the basic science and clinical aspects of food allergy.

When I asked her how she handled such a busy practice, she highlighted several important strategies. 

• One is knowing your priorities, and making sure that you protect time for those priorities. 
• Her research days are protected time, meaning that she can focus completely on her clinical research patients during that time. 
• She also highlighted that if you are employed, you need to set these goals in your job description.
• She also described “earning your autonomy“, meaning that performing at a high level over the years means that with time, you can work your way to a place where you can structure your job duties around your goals.
• It’s important to have agency to be able to design the job that you want.
• Her entrance into clinical research was really helped by having a mentor in her fellowship, going to professional meetings, presenting her work, and collaborating and networking and committees

Dr. Stephanie Cotell is a dermatologist in private practice in Columbus, Ohio.
She has been in practice for over 25 years, and as she says, “I love my job."
This episode provides a great overview of what it is like to practice general dermatology. Dr. Cotell practices mainly medical dermatology, with some procedural dermatology and cosmetic dermatology.
In this episode, she highlights several aspects of dermatology practice that she particularly enjoys. 

• This includes the depth and breath of the types of conditions that she sees, as well as the chance to do many small procedures throughout the day. 
• She also highlights how much she enjoys learning about new medications and advances in the field, as well as the collegiality that she enjoys with her colleagues. 
• She also discusses the “second learning curve“ in private practice, which is continuous quality improvement to make sure that she is providing effective and efficient patient care. 
• Dr. Cotell is employed in a physician-owned private practice, and she highlights the autonomy she enjoys in this practice setting. 

As reports continue to be released about physicians who are seeking non-clinical careers, I was so glad to highlight the experience of a physician who has been a happily practicing clinician for years.

I was very glad to have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Srihari Gopal, who is a physician in the pharmaceutical industry and current Global Head at Regeneron.  His work has encompassed multiple areas within drug development, from study design and research to regulatory filings to leading drug development teams. I have fielded a number of questions from students and early career physicians about the pharmaceutical industry, and as Dr. Gopal described his career, there were several aspects of his work that he highlighted as particularly meaningful and energizing.
-He has really enjoyed learning and advancing the science of drug development, and has approximately 200 publications and 30 patents to his name.
-He talked about the ability to make an impact on a wider scale with the work that he does, and how that is an aspect of his work that he finds very meaningful.-He is also on the cutting edge of medicine. The drugs that he is currently working on are those that we will be seeing in the clinic 10 years from now. 
In this episode, he provides some great advice for medical students and physicians who are interested in learning more about working in the pharmaceutical industry

This conversation with Dr. Brett Perkison highlighted several interesting aspects of both Occupational Medicine and career development.

First, many medical students are simply not exposed to Occupational Medicine as a specialty choice. Learning about the different career choices within this specialty is interesting. Residents receive a Masters of Public Health during their training, and bring a preventive medicine and public health focus to their work. 

One of the themes I see in physicians who are energized at work is that they maintain a lifelong commitment to learning and development. As Dr. Perkison‘s career has developed, he has continued to nurture his interest in clinical care, leadership, and research. He currently serves as the Residency Program Director of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine residency at the University of Texas Houston. He also continues his research studies, including projects focused on the health of disaster response workers and diabetes prevention. 

About Dr. William “Brett” Perkison, M.D., MPH, FACOEM:

Dr. Perkison is an Assistant Professor on faculty at the University of Texas School of Public Health, where he is the program director for the UT Occupational and Environmental Medicine residency. Prior to joining the UT faculty, he has had extensive experience managing occupational health services in both the energy and health care industries. During his career he has also been involved in leading disaster response efforts in the Houston area for numerous flooding events, including for Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, and Harvey.

Occupational Medicine College Web Site: https://acoem.org/

American Board of Preventive Medicine: https://www.theabpm.org/

UT Occupational and Environmental Medicine residency website:

https://sph.uth.edu/research/centers/swcoeh/occupational-environmental-medicine/

Link to Dr. Perkison's publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1pa0ucD38iwAs/bibliography/public/

This conversation with Dr. Terri-Ann Samuels highlights the field of urogynecology/female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery. It was an interesting overview of the field, and Dr. Samuels also had some great advice for medical students, including an emphasis on lifelong learning. 

• With all of the advances in surgery and surgical techniques, and especially the acceleration of technology in the last five years, she highlighted this as a key skill. 
• She also emphasized the importance of mentors, and how important that had been in her own career. 
• She advised that when you’re working with your mentors, really try to focus in on those whose work life and lifestyle, inside and outside of work, aligns with what you envision for yourself. And ask questions, like what time do they get home from the hospital.
• She also discussed the role of autonomy, and how being able to start her own practice and control her schedule has really helped her live her values, including her medical mission work in fistula repair in other countries.

Dr. Samuels is a board-certified urogynecologist/female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgeon. She founded her private practice Essentially You with a focus on surgical and non-invasive treatments for pelvic medicine conditions. She completed her residency in Obstetrics Gynecology and then a fellowship in Urogynecology.  She is active in speaking on women’s health issues, and has been involved in international medical and surgical missions for many years, including fistula mission work in Kenya and Liberia.

More about Dr. Samuels and her practice

Information from the American Urogynecologic Society on the field

Dr. Munish Chawla is a Diagnostic Radiologist who later became a board-certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician due to his deep passion for the field.  In speaking with him, I was really struck by the fulfillment he finds in this new field.  He told me that reading a CT scan and making a diagnosis is gratifying, but the feeling of seeing a patient succeed with lifestyle changes was incredibly fulfilling.
Another thing that struck me about his career arc was that he didn’t set out to change careers. He found himself interested in lifestyle medicine, and was initially just following his curiosity to learn more about it. Through the process, he also became very interested in behavior change. As he put it, he thought that once he shared information about the benefits of lifestyle change, that people would go out and make changes. Recognizing the importance of behavior change, he started studying coaching, Western psychology, and Buddhist psychology, in addition to mindfulness meditation.
Dr. Chawla, with his wife, Internist Dr. Bandana Chawla, is also a founder of the non-profit Peaceful Planet Foundation.  I attended their conference last year, and came away very inspired.
For medical students and practicing physicians, his career arc provides some insightful lessons, while his experience as a practicing Lifestyle Medicine physician will be very helpful to those considering this as a career.

Contact

+1 713-592-8900

[email protected]

https://embeelifestyledocs.com/

Specialties

Available for Lectures

Lifestyle Medicine

Radiology

How do you build a career on the cutting edge of medicine? For Dr. Caitlin Sutton, Division Chief of Maternal-Fetal Anesthesiology at Texas Children's Hospital, it involves pursuing your professional passions-- even when you receive unsolicited negative feedback from colleagues. Our conversation was a good reminder for me that working on the cutting edge of medicine means that very few people have done what you have done. And that means that others may not be able to envision it--and may even discourage your chosen career path. 
Texas Children's Hospital is one of the pioneers in fetal surgeries (in which surgery is performed on a fetus while in utero), and Dr. Sutton administers anesthesia during these procedures for both the fetus and the mother. She is one of a very small group of anesthesiologists across the country who can do so, having completed fellowships in both obstetric anesthesiology and pediatric anesthesiology.  For medical students, Dr. Sutton provides a great overview of what it is like to work as an anesthesiologist. Her passion for her work comes through when she talks about how fulfilling it is to make patients feel safe and comfortable during life-defining moments.There are also some great career insights in this episode. As she says, “it takes a village to pursue any medical career." Although she faced negative feedback about her career choices early on, now she can’t imagine a better job for herself, and she advises students to go for what they want. Dr. Sutton is also a clinical ethicist, a field that we touch upon here and that we plan to delve into more deeply in a later episode.Dr. Caitlin Sutton, Division Chief of Maternal-Fetal Anesthesiology at Texas Children's Hospital