Building Powerful Habits with Mighty Mom MD | Archana Shrestha

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Welcome to The Happy Doc, the voice of fulfilled physicians. Sharing life stories from physicians, health professionals and entrepreneurs, so that you can live your happy life.

[00:01:18] Dr. Taylor Brana: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Happy Doc. Today, I’m with Archana Shrestha, MD. She is a physician. She has a website called Women in White Coats. I also saw Mighty Mom MD on there as well. I love the titles by the name, great names. I’m really excited to get to know Archana, thank you so much for being on today.

[00:01:38] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Hey Taylor, thanks so much for having me here today. I’m so happy to be talking with you and to all your listeners. 

[00:01:46] Dr. Taylor Brana: Amazing. Amazing. So, Archana, please tell us a little bit about your medical background and how you ended up starting to get into all these projects.

[00:01:55] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah. So I’m an emergency physician, and I have been in practice for a long time now, 12 years since I graduated residency. So, another four years before that was when I graduated med school. But I’ve been out practicing for a long time. And over the years have had a lot of different experiences.

I absolutely loved emergency medicine when I went into it. And, when I became a mom, I started to struggle with juggling being, you know, my busy career life, and then mom life, and trying to keep it all together. And I ended up going through some parental burnout as well as career burnout, at about the same time, when my kids were really little.

And so, as I was trying to work my way through that and control the things that I had control over, obviously I’m sure you know, about burnout being multifactorial, and it’s not just about, you know, self care, but it also can be at an institutional level. And there’s certain things that can happen at an organizational level that causes people to feel burnout.

But, I decided I was going to take back control over the things that I could control such as my self care, and I really dove deep into that, because what was happening was, once I became a mom, I was also, I was not only working on it hours in the emergency department. And, with us in the ER, we have like a variable schedule working days, nights, and evenings, weekends, holidays, all of that kind of stuff.

And I would say, come home to what I felt was a really busy life at home, sort of like a second job. What they call the, for women, like sort of the unpaid labor that we do at home. What we do out of love for our families. And so, I would come home never feeling like I had downtime, and I just started to feel so dissatisfied and everything, my career, as well as at home. And I was like, whoa, who is this person I’ve become? because I’d become really crabby. Very negative. Had a hard time really enjoying any part of my life and, probably mixed in there, a little bit of postpartum depression and it was like the perfect storm to just begin spiralling out of control.

[00:04:18] And, I was also out of shape, overweight. And so, I ended up finding somebody to help me with my, getting in shape again and fitness. And that actually ended up bringing me back to myself and I dove deep into self care. Making sure I was exercising regularly, getting, you know, good nutrition, making sure I was sleeping enough, drinking enough water, all of the things, and also just surrounding myself with a positive community.

And as I came back from that, and I was like, wow, I’m really feeling so much better. I felt like I was, I brought myself out of the burnout through that, basically by focusing on self care and surrounding myself with a positive community of people. And so, as I brought myself out of it and people started noticing changes in me and how happy I was, but also the physical changes – I had lost about 20 to 30 pounds. And I was just feeling better, my mood was better. People were commenting at work like, Wow, you just seem happier. It was like, by the way, what did you do to lose all that weight? And that’s kind of how Mighty Mom MD was born. It’s basically an online, my website where I do online nutrition and fitness coaching.

And so, I basically started to realize that there were other people who were having trouble, like I was, a lot of working moms in particular. And so I started really connecting with them, sharing my journey, and helping them along the way. You know, as we kind of went along. 

[00:05:51] Dr. Taylor Brana: Yeah. I mean, wow, there’s so much, there’s so much there to talk about. And, I loved, I loved the way you painted that picture. It sounds like, there’s a lot of difficulties in a journey. Especially as a physician, obviously, you know, the story, but as a physician, you’re dealing with so much, and then obviously as a woman, and a mom.

You’re not just balancing the crazy lifestyle position on top of that, an emergency physician, where, you said it: variable schedule night shifts, and also a stressful job. And then on top of that, you know, again, you’re dealing with traumas and all of those things, on top of that with the children, you know, that can create definitely a perfect storm once you’re trying to find that balance of the family life with the personal life, with the career life. And,  it sounds like you were out of balance for a while, which is really tough.

Before we get, I would love to talk about that balance kind of aspect, but before we get to that, one question I often like to ask is, was emergency medicine a calling for you? Did you have an aha moment? Did you have a story? What got you excited about emergency? 

[00:07:01] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Definitely, it was my calling. The thing is I went into medical school, not really knowing for sure what field of medicine I wanted to go into, but I kinda thought maybe pediatrics I liked kids a lot, but then when I did my pediatrics rotation, I was like, I don’t like sick kids. I don’t like to be hurting kids. You know, I don’t like when they see me and they start crying. I like kids when they’re happy and playful and I don’t want them to be afraid of me. And then when I did OB/GYN, I was like, oh my God, I love catching babies. I love delivering babies. You know, I thought that that was really fun. And then I did other rotations that I pretty much liked a little bit of everything, but not everything about it. You know, like with OB/GYN, I was like, I don’t know if I can handle the lifestyle, you know? And then with pediatrics, it was like, I didn’t want to always be taking care of sick kids and kids who were injured or ill, you know?

But the thing was, I went through medical school, liking a little bit of everything. And so when I finally ended up – actually for part of my pediatrics rotation, we rotated in the pediatric ER, and I was like, wow, I really like what’s going on here. It just seems so exciting. There’s a variety.

So I ended up doing, towards the end of my third year, emergency medicine elective. And I was like, this is it. This is the perfect blend of everything. I’m someone who likes variety. I actually have a journalism background, so, I like to be on the go, you know, like I like things changing. I like interacting with different people. I like to see and do different things. So, it just felt like the right fit for me. But what was interesting was when, and I got to my emergency medicine rotation, my clerkship director was like, at the end of it, he’s like, so, you know, what do you think? You know, how’d you like your rotation? What’s your career plans?

I was like, yeah. I want to go into emergency medicine. And he just looked at my test scores and he’s like, yeah, I don’t think you’re going to make it. He’s like, yeah, you’re not going to get into emergency medicine. I’m like, okay. And so I’m really actually happy that they changed that – I don’t know if you know about that Taylor, how they changed it so they don’t give out USMLE scores anymore for step one. It’s pass/fail now. 

[00:09:20] Dr. Taylor Brana: Okay. Yeah. 

[00:09:20] Dr. Archana Shrestha: And so, I think that that’s going to be really wonderful because, you know, I think. I obviously went into it, I got into emergency medicine and in fact, I got into my number one spot, my number one choice. And, in a way, as much as I thought it was so awful, what that attending said to me, and I hope he never said that to anybody else, because he discouraged me from going into emergency medicine, even though I was like, I absolutely love, this is totally what I want to do. I’m kind of glad they changed that into pass/fail, because now it’s not just about your test scores. Because I obviously made it as an emergency physician. I’ve obviously done it for 12 years and I’ve been successful at it. So, whatever my USMLE step one score was doesn’t really matter. It’s pretty irrelevant. So, I think that going to pass/fail is so huge because it can allow people to go into whatever field they want. Because, I think even for the competitive fields, people who don’t have high scores, don’t even try because they’re like, well, I can’t get in. At least that’s how it was probably for us when we were going through that whole process. 

[00:10:22] Dr. Taylor Brana: Absolutely. Look, just after doing more clinical medicine at the end of the day, you do want to have a good knowledge base. But, as you know, you learn so much through the practice of medicine, that if you have the right attitude, the right energy, the passion for it, you’re gonna learn the knowledge, you know, but if you just see the score and obviously within reason, right, you still need to be able to have a certain base of knowledge, which is why pass/fail. You have to have that standard. But, just to clearly look at you and say, you weren’t going to be good enough. And now here, 12 years later, right, as an attending, I mean, you’ve done it. And so, I mean, look, that’s, I mean,I love naysayers now that I’ve gone through a process. I love, you know, funny for me, but I love when people tell me I can’t do something, because it’s just more fire for me. So, I don’t know if it’s the same for you at all, but I’m like, okay, fine. I’ll show you. 

[00:11:20] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah, it was totally like that for me, I was like, well, you don’t think I can do it? Watch me. And so, I went out there, I did some away rotations, I ended up doing a toxicology rotation and got to work very closely with the then residency director of emergency medicine at my institution.

And so I wowed him, and he wrote me a great letter and I was like, I’m going to interview really well for whatever interviews I get. And I did that. And it was kind of like, watch me, I’m going to get in. And I was so excited on match day and I opened up my envelope and I’m like [gasps] I couldn’t even believe that I got into, you know, not only emergency medicine, but to my number one, the place I had ranked number one. And I was like, God, I want to just go up to this clerkship director and be like, look at this! you know, maybe should write him a letter, all these years later. 

[00:12:11] Dr. Taylor Brana: Yeah. But you know, even if, even if you don’t write, it feels so good. Like, internally you’re like, Oh, whatever, I don’t even need you. 

[00:12:19] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah. It’s actually been a really, big source of pride my whole life. You know, like whenever you prove people wrong. It’s actually a really huge confidence boost. And it kind of carries you throughout your life I think, you know, 

[00:12:34] Dr. Taylor Brana: A hundred percent and I mean, like, look, you can be discouraged. I was discouraged multiple times. I was told I was never going to get into medical school. Then I was in medical school. I was told I was never going to get into the residency I wanted. So I’m, I’m a hundred, a hundred percent with you on this, for sure.

So I want to switch gears for a little, a little bit in terms of the topic. I know there’s, again, so much we could talk about. One thing you brought up earlier was the importance of fitness, nutrition, good habits, all those things and that part of your journey, brought you out of burnout.

What are, what are some tips for physicians, for moms, for individuals who feel really stuck, especially now with COVID and everything. Everyone’s very stuck. What are some tips or things that you like to do, what are some basic things or what do you like to offer to people when it comes to all of that, that part of the lifestyle?

[00:13:28] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah, I think there’s so much to say on that, but I guess like the first thing is – I think especially speaking to the moms out there, the women out there who’ve got family and kids. But you know, the biggest thing is like, we feel guilty for taking care of ourselves, you know? And I used to kind of feel that way too, because I was like, ah, I was away at work. My husband was taking care of the kids all weekend. And, so now I need to make up for it and just take care of the kids the whole time while I’m home and like I shouldn’t go work out. You know, all that kind of stuff, kind of like feeling guilty. But then I came to a point where I realized that no, you know what?

This is really important stuff because it makes me happier. I show up better for my family, I’m a happier mom to my kids, I’m a happier wife to my husband, I’m a happier doctor at work, when I take the time for myself. And so I was like, this is really important. I need to prioritize this and not feel guilty for it.

You know, like we should never feel guilty for self care because, you know, as the saying goes, you know, you can’t pour from an empty cup, you should be pouring and giving it to others from the overflow of what you have. So you have to fill yourself up so much that there’s overflow to give to others, because otherwise you just keep depleting and depleting and depleting yourself.

So, I think the number one thing is just having that mindset shift of like, this is really important, you know, because I mean, as we already know, it’s so important just for your health, right. To be eating well, to have a healthy weight, to be getting enough sleep, for everything, you know, it’s so important on every level. And like for me, I love, I really got, You know, I think it can be hard a lot of times for people to start working out. But what I always tell people is just do five minutes, tell yourself you’re going to work out for five minutes. And then, if after five minutes you want to stop, then stop. But, normally what happens is they’ll start for five minutes and then they’re like, awesome, I’m getting into it, right? And then they’ll just keep going for 30 minutes or however long it may be. And then what happens is after you get it into that routine, you get, I always call it, you get bit by the fitness bug, and then it starts really becoming a habit. Like for me, at this point in my life, like, I feel weird when I don’t exercise. Like, it feels bad to me not to exercise. I feel like just really blah. And I started just getting addicted to that feeling at the end of exercising, you know, like I feel really good. And like the whole day goes better, and I’m more productive, I’m happier and more creative. Like, I just noticed a huge difference in how I feel, and I even carry myself more confidently. And, feel better in my clothes, just like everything is so much better when I do take that time. You know? So, those are a couple of the things that I can just sort of think of off the top of my head, but I think number one is just really prioritizing it, realizing it really does matter. It’s going to make a huge difference in your life. And, you know, just taking that time, scheduling it, you know, the other huge thing, I really recommend it. And if you’ve ever read it, Taylor, is this book called The Miracle Morning? Have you read that one? 

[00:16:41] Dr. Taylor Brana: I haven’t read it, but I know the routine in the miracle morning. 

[00:16:45] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah. That’s some, that’s a book that I read. I’ve read it a couple of times. I love it because it’s all about starting your day off on the right foot. And in that book, they even talk about like, I think it’s like a six minute routine you could do in a day to start your day off with like meditation, a little bit of journaling, a little bit of some type of physical activity. So, if you’re super busy, like most doctors are, you can still find six minutes a day to start your day off right. But for me, I actually have like an hour to hour and a half morning routine where I get up early before the kids, usually at like five in the morning, and I’m doing my meditation, I’m doing some prayers and doing some gratitude journaling. And then I get my workout in, and my day – if I get that done before the kids wake up – my day goes awesome. And the days are still get that in. I’m like, ah, I didn’t do it. You know? Like it’s just, things just don’t flow as well for me. 

[00:17:43] Dr. Taylor Brana: Yeah. I mean the morning routine is a real, real big thing. I mean, Tony Robbins talks about, I don’t know if you’ve heard the State Story Strategy, which I definitely believe in. But the state part is what you’re talking about with the morning routine and the exercise and the meditation and the gratitude. You get yourself in a positive state and your, your state and your physiology, you know, is more activated. You’re more energized. And so when you go throughout the day, the stories you tell yourself, the thoughts you’re having in your head and the actions you’re taking just flow.

And I mean, there’s so much truth to it. I mean, I’ve personally had that. I’m also the crazy person who takes freezing cold showers in the morning and I do Wim Hof breathing. When I say this, by the way, I’m not telling you that, do it, if you’re listening [or reading], I’m just saying there’s techniques you can use that definitely energize you and having a great morning routine is absolutely gonna get you to the next level, for sure. 

[00:18:38] Dr. Archana Shrestha: I feel like if I win the morning, I win my day, you know, like it’s just such, it starts me off on the right foot. Now, I’m going to be practical too, because there’s certain days where I’m literally at work at 6:00 AM, start a 6:00 AM shift and like, then I don’t, and I might schedule my workout later in the day. I mean, some days I am ambitious and I get up at 4:30AM to get that workout in. But other days I’m like, okay, now I’m going to schedule this later in the day, but it really comes down to scheduling it on your calendar and realizing that, even though it sometimes seems like you don’t have that time, you can create that time.

And I think, especially, you know, you were asking for tips for it, especially for women or moms that morning is the best time, because your kids are not up yet. They don’t need you. I found that generally, if I wait till the afternoon or evening, I mean, pre COVID, my kids were busy with their activities, and stuff would come up, and I was not motivated. Like, I would just lose – As the day goes on my motivation for working out for doing all those things for myself, it starts to wear down and then other people’s priorities start coming in. That’s my time for myself that I can dedicate to myself each day.

And, I think the key is just waking up before everyone else, which means going to sleep on time too. I pretty much go to sleep at the same time my kids do, but that allows me to wake up. So they go to sleep around nine, and that’s generally when I go to sleep, maybe half an hour, an hour later than them. But then that allows me to wake up really early in the morning at like five o’clock in the morning.

[00:20:12] Dr. Taylor Brana: I mean, what you said earlier is so true. It’s like willpower is finite, and you have to take care of those important things early. Otherwise, like you said, things take the wayside and then you’re tired and you’re like, ugh, I don’t know.

Another thing I would add is, I’m listening to a book – I listen to several, so sometimes I forget where I’m getting it from – but one of the entrepreneurial books I’m listening to, one of the guys talked about when he wanted to get into shape. What he started to do is say, I’m just gonna do one pushup a day. So, I’m telling my mind, I’m going to do one pushup a day.

I don’t care how lazy I feel, how terrible I feel. I’m going to get this pushup in. And like you were saying, it’s kind of like the five minute concept. As soon as you say, I’m going to do one minute of meditation. One minute of gratitude. One minute of an exercise that one minute actually becomes five or 10 because you get into the flow or the rhythm, but just start with one something, it doesn’t matter. And then you can start to create that routine, but you have to make it easy enough for your brain to buy in, to let your body do it. So, I love what you’re saying. It’s so true.

[00:21:19] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah, totally. I was just reading this book, I’m not sure if this is the one you’re talking about, called Tiny Habits. Is that the one? 

[00:21:28] Dr. Taylor Brana: No, that’s not the, not the one I’ve read. 

[00:21:32] Dr. Archana Shrestha: It’s exactly about that. If you want to change your habit, you gotta start with something that’s super easy to do. So it doesn’t take a lot of motivation cause you can’t always rely on willpower and it’s not really just about low power motivation. It’s really about lowering the bar, so it’s super easy. And then you start gaining momentum and you can kind of grow on it, you know, and progress with it. 

[00:21:56] Dr. Taylor Brana: Absolutely. Well, so I would just say rounding this part out, you know, whatever habit you want to change when it comes to being burned out and exhausted, you know, one step at a time.

Increasing water intake. Good sleep. Good exercise. Also, I always add, of course, you know this as well: support, reaching out to people you love, having that network. Sometimes when you’re burnt out, you feel lost and exhausted, but you can get out. You and I both are examples of that. And coming off, you know, another end where you’re more excited, happy, energized. And along those things, you’ve started, like we talked about before, several projects, there’s the Women in White Coats as well. And I would like to know, what’s your audience, obviously, you know, it’s in the name, but how did you develop this audience? How did you develop this idea? What are you doing with that?

[00:22:45] Dr. Archana Shrestha: So, we’ve got a blog called Women in White Coats and it’s more than a blog. It’s really a lifestyle, a community, blog, we’ve got courses. We have so much that we offer, but, we’re all about uplifting and supporting women doctors throughout their life and career, through the ups and downs.

And so it actually all started, With a book called the Chronicles of Women in White Coats, which launched about two years ago. And that book was mastermind of Dr. Amber Robins, she is the publisher managing editor of that book. So she came up with this idea where, you know how there’s all those Facebook groups, Taylor, where, you know, doctors, write. So there’s a lot of women doctor Facebook groups, where we’re all talking about what’s going on, the ups and downs, the difficulties, the things we’re facing, commiserating, right? And she was like, well, why are we keeping all this stuff so private in these groups? Like everybody, the world needs to know about what we’re going through and you know what it’s like to be a doctor and especially women who are considering going into this field, they should really know what it’s like. And so she said, let’s write a book. And she, you know, she gathered up 20 of us, 20 women doctors who are in all different fields, all different stages of our career. A variety of different ethnicities, backgrounds, nationalities, races, et cetera.

And so we all came together, we wrote our stories about what it’s like to train. I wrote about, actually some of this story that I shared with you about my clerkship director telling me I was never going to match into emergency medicine. I also wrote about what it was like to be pregnant working in the ER.

And, some different things. We all kind of just shared our stories. And we realized that in our books launch, as we were talking about it or taking questions from the audience, we’re like, wow, this is more than just a book. This is a movement, you know, we, and it’s not just like a moment, this is really a movement of women.

You know, as Me Too was coming up, women’s empowerment was really taking off and we’re like, we need to get these stories out. We do talk about some Me Too things in there. We do talk about physician suicide in the book. We talk about a lot of different things. And so, we’re like, these stories need to keep going.

And as we wrote the book, so many other women doctors came to us and said, well, I want to be in the next book. When’s the next book coming out? And we said, you know what? We don’t need to wait for another book to come out, let’s start sharing these stories. And so, we started the Women in White Coats blog. I’m the cofounder along with Amber Robins.

And so, we just started sharing the perspectives and the stories on the website, in the form of blogs. And we had a lot of different people submitting their stories and sharing their stories. And so, we really just started to create a community as well. And one of the things that really kept coming up was burnout. And, so many women doctors, you know, and so, you know, there’s the recent Medscape survey that was published. Well, some of the data – the research was done in 2019, but they published it this year. And, for women, the women doctors, like nearly 50% reported feeling burnout. Whereas the men, I think it was like closer to 40%.

So a lot of women doctors are feeling burnt out, like what I had gone through. And we even write about that in the book, a couple of people wrote about that in the book. And so we decided to put together a wellness retreat and really discuss ways to come out of burnout. And like, what are some of the things we’re facing between gender bias and juggling it all, sometimes not having leadership opportunities.

So we really put this together, a conference and a wellness retreat, to really help women doctors and support and uplift them. And so from there, it’s just really grown into more and more offerings and like, we just keep finding that women doctors need support in different ways. And so we’ve just really grown from one thing to the next.

And, it’s really an amazing experience whenever we do get together, all of us and who I consider to be part of the Women in White Coats tribe. Because we really, the big thing that everyone always says when they come to one of our events, whether it’s in person or virtual is like, wow, I felt so alone in my career in medicine, but now I realize like I’m not alone. And I have other people, other women doctors who are going through exactly the same things as me. 

[00:27:14] Dr. Taylor Brana: Yeah. And that, that was something I was going to say, because with burnout and depression and anxiety and exhaustion, you know, all of those kinds of things like come together, people tend to feel really isolated and they tend to feel like they’re the only ones that feel like that, they tend to feel like they can’t open up. And to have that home base, you know, especially for female physicians, to know that they can go to a place where they can read stories. How often do you guys have retreats?

[00:27:41] Dr. Archana Shrestha: We are doing a once a year, annual retreat right now. So, we did it for the first year in 2019, and we are set to do it in 2020 in April. And so because of COVID and everything, we switched it, we had to switch it to a virtual, so we did it as a virtual one. And, so yeah, we have it once a year. Right now we have some other things in the pipeline. So, hopefully we might have it more than once a year or other events throughout the year. 

[00:28:13] Dr. Taylor Brana: The community aspect is so huge. I’ve personally gone on a couple of retreats myself as well. And, that was one of the solutions from my personal burnout was just to be around other people who are in similar situations.

Being able to have that face to face experience, feeling open enough to be able to talk about that stuff, because again, and a lot of people don’t want to talk about their feelings of deep personalization, derealization, exhaustion. No one wants to talk about that. So to have that space, you know, to have that weekend or that week, or whatever you block out to go somewhere nice. To make new friends, to build those connections. And then, obviously, the website and what you guys are doing, I think is just a really, really great way.

Another thing too, is the challenges for females are different. You know, and luckily for me, I’ve had the pleasure of talking to other female physicians and, you know, things that I wouldn’t even think about. Childbearing and going through residency or being an attending after having kids. Balancing, you know, the caregiving aspect, with being a physician, if you’re a single mom, you know, dealing with dating, taking care of children and having a career and finances, the financial portion is also even crazier there. Right. So, and then obviously discrimination and so many issues to think about. So I think it’s, it’s just really great that, you know, that you have that community. How big is the, like how many people are coming onto the website or what’s, what’s your following like? 

[00:29:53] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah, we have, so on Instagram we have close to like 12,000 followers and in our Facebook group, we’re close to 2000 members and we have had over 250,000 views on our website. So there’s definitely a huge need, you know, and, tt’s just, you know, as you mentioned, there’s just so many, the different things that women doctors are going through, you know, from gender pay inequity to some sexism and, I sometimes even get that from patients, you know, Patients call you baby or something inappropriate, or trying to ask you out on a date.

I mean, there’s so many things from every angle, lack of leadership opportunities, you know, we are still, you know, when you look at the numbers of women, doctors who are out there practicing it, we’re still about 35-40%. Luckily med schools, you know, are now 50 to 51% women coming in. So the numbers will start to kind of balance out. But yeah, you know, just even sometimes, you’re not even recognized as being the physician. I’m in the room seeing a patient, and the male nurse walks in, and they think he’s the doctor, and I’m the nurse, even though I’m wearing my white coat. I’ve definitely had a few instances where I’ll go see a patient, and then come out of the room and then the patient says the nurse, and then the nurse tells me, the patient’s said that nobody’s seen them yet. I’m like, I was in the room? And she’s like, I know I told him that the woman in the white coat was your doctor. That is your doctor. Sometimes people don’t recognize, most of the time it’s like older people, older generations, who have this stereotypical view of a doctor being a man.

So, there’s all those things that, you know, you’re like already feeling imposter syndrome as a woman and then people don’t even recognize you as a doctor sometimes. So it’s kind of, it all adds up over time. And especially when you’re feeling it from so many different angles, so that’s why I really think, and it’s like, our mission really is about supporting and uplifting women doctors. Cause there’s so many different things that we’re going through. That, you know, it’s nice to have some support and guidance and mentorship or even some coaching from other women who’ve been through it. 

[00:32:16] Dr. Taylor Brana: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m going to open up to you for a second here. Is there any, you know, resounding message or something you’d like to give to a female physicians? Of course, physicians in general, but because of Women in White Coats, is there anything that you want to impart as a message? 

[00:32:36] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah, especially the women who are coming up through medicine, you know, I just want them to realize they’re not alone. There are people you can reach out to. I’ve heard some stories of, I was actually interviewing for our website and our podcast, a female neurosurgeon. And, it was such a great conversation because she was talking about how she didn’t see – she was actually actually discouraged much like I was from going into emergency medicine – she was discouraged from going into neurosurgery. And, it was because her counselors in her med school would kind of say, well, it’s a surgical field, that’s not gotta be family friendly, you know, you probably won’t get in, things like that. You know, furthermore, she looked around and she didn’t see any female neurosurgeons.

And so, she ended up doing an away rotation somewhere else. And she did meet some female neurosurgeons there and she realized like, Hey, you know what, there are female neurosurgeons. She talked to them, she’s like, Oh, they have families. They have kids, you know, she started to realize, Oh, this is all possible.

You know? And so I think, talking about diversity and inclusion, we need to see, sometimes we need to see it, right? To believe it, we need to see other people being that example for us. So I think like, you know, I just want that, that’s why we’re so passionate about what we do here at Women in White Coats.

We have even set up a mentorship program for people where they can go to our website and try to find them a mentor through us, where we kind of match up students and residents with an attending, because we want them to have someone they can go to. And, whatever field it may be that they want to go into, hopefully we can find a match, but if not, you know, somebody who can kind of guide them.

And so, I think that women, a lot of times, are discouraged from certain things, but if it’s what you want to do, go out there and seek mentors, find the people, do the away rotation. There’s gotta be someone like you who’s done it, hopefully. And if not, if it’s really what you want to do, just go out there and do it and you will be the first. And then make sure you go back and help the people who are coming up behind you, the new med students, the new residents who might want to do what you’re doing and go out there and be a mentor to them.

So, yeah I just think that – I really want to make sure that women doctors know that they’re not alone, that there’s a community out there. We’d love to have you guys be a part of our community. And, you know, even for the guys, like, you know, a couple of people, a couple of guys asked, can we come to your Women in White Coats conference? And we’re like, yeah! cause we need men standing up for women too. Right? So he or she. The more men that advocate for women and stand up for them, the better. There’s so many dual family couples, you know, dual physician couples out there. So you know where it’s a man and a woman, who are a husband and wife, who are both doctors. Right. And so, a lot of the men are like, I don’t want my wife to be paid less simply because she’s a woman. Yeah. So I think that there’s so much recognition out there that this is not right. They don’t want their wives to be harassed at work or spoken to inappropriately by anybody, whether it’s a patient or staff or anything like that. So I think the more we have men standing up for women too, the more movement we’re going to see on all of these issues. So, I’d love for the guys to also check out our website, and you’re also welcome to come to our retreats too, and learn too. 

[00:36:12] Dr. Taylor Brana: Absolutely. I might have to take you up on that myself.

So, how will any of our listeners today find you and reach out to you? What websites? I know podcasts and you have a book coming out, drop the knowledge for us. 

[00:36:27] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah. So you can head on over to womeninwhitecoats.com to learn more about Women in White Coats and my personal brand, my personal website is called mightymommd.com. So, you can head on over there and I’d love to keep in touch. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. 

[00:36:44] Dr. Taylor Brana: Amazing. Well Archana, that was, that was really fun. I would love to have you back sometime. 

[00:36:49] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Yeah. Thank you, Taylor. It was amazing. I’d love to be back too and chat some more. Thanks so much for the opportunity.

[00:36:56] Dr. Taylor Brana: Well, thanks for being on The Happy Doc. That was great. 

[00:36:58] Dr. Archana Shrestha: Alright, take care. Have a great rest of your day. 

[00:37:00] Dr. Taylor Brana: And that’s the episode for today. I want to thank you so much for listening to the Happy Doc Podcast. Again, this is a podcast that is going to inspire you as a physician, as a health professional, as an individual to be fulfilled in your life, so please look out for the other episodes in The Happy Doc. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a five star review on the podcasting application of your choice. You can also reach out to us by emailing the happydoc1@gmail.com. I’ll see you on the next episode.