Ep #343: Welcoming All Women Physicians

[00:00:08] Welcome to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast. I’m your host, master Certified life and weight loss coach, Katrina Ubell, M.D. This is the podcast where busy doctors like you come to learn how to lose weight for the last time by harnessing the power of your mind. If you’re looking to overcome your stress, eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you’re in the right place. Well, hello there, my friend. Welcome to today’s episode. I’m so glad you’re here. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, I mean, if you’ve listened to some of the early episodes, you might know that I sometimes share like a little bit more about my life and what was going on, and I just sort of felt like, Oh my gosh, it’s like the old times.

I have to tell you something, in case you are a fan of musical theater like I am, [00:01:00] I was just over this past weekend in New York City for the weekend, the days before that weekend and after I was taking my rising high school senior son around to some college tours. And so there’s no college tours on the weekends. So we spent the weekend in the city and saw a couple Broadway shows and they were incredible. I hadn’t been to New York to see shows since before Covid, and we go and see the Broadway Across America, shows like when they come through Milwaukee here and they’re great, you know, we have no problem with them at all.

[00:01:33] But wow, you go to Broadway and you realize, okay, things just got real. These are the true, true professionals. I mean, so good. We saw Josh Groban in Sweeney Todd and Think her name is Annaleigh Ashford plays Mrs. Lovett. And I didn’t know her as a performer, but she is super accomplished and did such a good job. I mean, incredible. The only other time I’d seen Sweeney Todd [00:02:00] was a college production when I was in college, so I’d never really seen it professionally done. It was so well done, so good. Oh, so good. And then we also saw Parade, which stars Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond and it was incredible.

So well done. Just the every like each performer better than the next. I mean, just. Oh, so, so, so good. So it was a really fun opportunity. A little mother son weekend. And I was even thinking, you know, how many more of these will be left in my life? I don’t know. This will be the last one. I don’t know. The other thing we did, which I hadn’t actually done before, is we went to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, which if you ever find yourself in New York City, I highly recommend. I had actually avoided it in the past. Just kind of just feeling like, I don’t know, like I don’t know if that’s something that I really like. How is it going to make me feel? Well, I feel super depressed after, like what’s going to happen.

[00:02:55] And I was just really feeling like, you know what? This is a good opportunity for me to take my [00:03:00] son, who obviously knows what happened, but kind of really sharing my personal experience with it and seeing what other people went through and really learning more about it. So we went and I cannot even tell you how happy I was for the people who organized that, who put that together. It is the most incredible experience. It is so well done. They are so thoughtful in the way they take you through everything and sort of like get you sort of mentally and emotionally prepared to go through the exhibit where they go through like what really happened on the days of those attacks.

And so thoughtful, too, about really having like several exits that you can take. Like, if ever you feel like emotionally overwhelmed, it becomes too much. Like they just really took such good care of each visitor. I just thought it was so good. There was so much amazing art in there. And also even kind of a dedication to the Twin Towers. And they were really these amazing feats of construction and design back [00:04:00] in their day. And like express elevators were created for them, like first time ever and things like that, which is just really interesting and really neat. And it was a cool opportunity to share some things with my son, just talking about some of it and everything.

[00:04:16] And it really was like it was emotional, but I left feeling like, okay, like I’m all right, you know? Like I’m not like, oh my gosh, feeling super, super heavy. And obviously different people are going to have different experiences. But what I also thought was really cool was that there were a lot of non-American tourists there, which I felt like just so almost like flattered, if that makes sense. Like, I kind of felt like people were like like that’s that’s so generous of them to take their time in New York City to come to this. And I know I know that this tragedy affected the whole world and everything, but I still just felt like that, like really means a lot, you know, that they would come and pay tribute and honor the people who died.

I think there were was like 92 [00:05:00] or 93 countries represented in the people who died. It was it was incredible. Anyway, so good weekend. If you haven’t made it to New York City in a while or ever, you might want to plan a trip there. It’s awesome. I also have to say, you know, I read the paper and they would say things about New York and after Covid and this and that, I was walking through there, I’m like. I can’t tell a difference. It seems just as great as it always did to me. So. So I feel a lot more comfortable. If my son decided to go to college there, then I was a little bit before I was a little bit nervous about it, thinking like, how have things changed? But they really haven’t.

[00:05:32] It’s just as amazing of a city as it ever was. I super duper love it there. So take advantage if you can for sure. Okay. So what I want to talk to you about today is like a fun little announcement that I have for you. But I also just wanted to kind of share a little bit about just what we learn as we live, you know, like how things can kind of change and how the way we think about things can change and how we [00:06:00] can think we know something and make decisions based on that and then get more information and data.

And then we have the opportunity to make a shift and think about things in a different way and approach things in a different way. So you may or may not know that my coaching program, that that I offer is called weight Loss for doctors only in the seven years I’ve been running it, we’ve always limited it to women physicians who are in clinical practice. You had to be actually working like seeing actual patients to be able to be a part of the program. And people have often really asked me over these years like, why do you work with those people? And like, why so limited and why such a tiny sliver of the population? Like, why not people who do this and people who do that and even doctors who do this and doctors who do that.

[00:06:48] And so when I first started this, like I said, seven years ago, I limited it. I like really limited it for three reasons. And so first [00:07:00] reason was at the time, I really didn’t know. I’m, you know, many doctors or maybe even any doctors. I mean, I’m trying to think if I knew anyone who were doing non-clinical work or who were not working for any number of reasons, right. Like maybe they were tired, maybe they had family obligations, maybe they just decided, I don’t want to do this anymore. You know, like, whatever it was like, I just really didn’t know people like all the doctors that I knew were practicing.

And so I thought to myself, Well, I don’t really know what specifically they’re struggling with. Like, I was a doctor in clinical practice. So that’s the type of person that I know the best and that’s who I think I can serve the best. And thinking like I won’t even know like how to help or serve, you know, people who are doing something different that’s not clinical work. So that was that’s what I thought to myself. That was the first reason. The second reason was that I [00:08:00] was just thinking about bringing the members of the coaching group together and thinking, you know, if they have a lot in common, like that’s going to create a stronger community, you know? So if everybody is in clinical practice, there will be that similarity and that bond and maybe some unity over that.

[00:08:18] They’ll just create a better community environment for everybody who’s in the program. So this was also a hypothesis thinking this will be the way to do it. And then the third reason is because everyone and by everyone I mean everyone in quotes, like the proverbial they you know, everyone says that for online businesses that you need to narrow your niche. Like you need to be really, really narrowed down. And by making the program only available to people who are in clinical practice, that was a way of doing that.

And when I say everyone, I mean like people who give, you know, business building advice, particularly [00:09:00] because, like I said, this is seven years ago, you know, maybe things aren’t quite the same as they are now, as they were back then. But I didn’t know how to run an online business. I didn’t know how to run a business at all. And so I was like, okay, well, I’m going to listen to the experts. The experts say this is how you should do it.

So, okay, you know, like I’ll just narrow it some more. And so kind of funny in hindsight to be like, well, I did it because everyone said that. But if you really think about it, there’s a lot of things that we do in our life because everyone says you have to do it this way or the proverbial they, you know, they always say that this and that and the other thing or the conventional wisdom is X, Y and Z.

[00:09:39] And, you know, it’s just a normal way. We kind of think of it as like, you know, why would I the person who doesn’t know, you know, how to run a business doesn’t have experience with that. Like, why would I think that I know better than people who at least proclaim to know more, you know? So I think it makes sense, particularly when we’re starting out to take that advice, to seek [00:10:00] out some experts who we feel like we resonate with and feel like they can help us and then do what they tell us to do, right? S

o that was honestly part of it too, was kind of like, well, everyone says you should narrow, so guess I will. And, you know, probably be better anyway. It’d be better for the community. I’ll be able to help them better. Sure. This all makes sense. Okay. So that is why we have always said that our program was for MD or or international equivalent women physicians or doctors, because in some parts of the world they’re called doctors who are in clinical practice. That’s why I’ve always done that. So seven years later and more than 1500 women physicians in our program coached later, things have changed. My way of thinking about things has changed.

[00:10:44] Actually, my perspective on a lot of things has really changed. I’ve learned so much, obviously, and so here’s what I’ve learned. What I’ve learned. First of all, it really just coaching that many people for that long. I’ve [00:11:00] just learned that lots of doctors make career transitions over time and that’s not a problem at all. Like we have had many, many, many clients, many members of our program transition to non-clinical jobs or they’ve retired or they’ve decided to stop working for, like I said, whether it’s personal medical reasons, needing to care for family member, whatever, transition, right?

They just don’t want to do it anymore. Whatever it is, they’ve made that transition and they’ve been coached by me and my team through those transitions and then they’ve stayed in our community, right? So now we do coach people actually who are in non-clinical practice or doing other things because we always then said like, Hey, if you come in in clinical practice, but you make a transition, we’re not going to kick you out, Of course you can stay. And so we actually have started over, not even started like over years. We really have been coaching a lot of doctors who don’t do clinical work and turns out, you know, a lot of their [00:12:00] their issues are very similar to what we’re already dealing with. There’s not anything that’s like, Oh, I didn’t know that, or I can’t help, you know, effectively because I’m not familiar with that kind of thing at all.

[00:12:09] In fact, it’s the opposite. You kind of realize like, oh my gosh, this is literally the same thing, just in a different kind of working scenario or just even mean sometimes we’re coaching people on, you know, the transition out of their career or, you know, being okay with the idea that, you know, maybe they could have kept working, but they decided they wanted to stop or things like that. So that kind of struck my first issue, you know, my first concern, which was like, I don’t know how to how to coach these people or I won’t know what their problems are or how to help them.

Turns out, yeah, I do. I absolutely, definitely do. And it’s not a problem. So that’s good to know. Okay. Number two, what I’ve learned is that our community is so much richer when we have members of all different backgrounds and stages of life and goals and aspirations [00:13:00] and career paths. You know, it’s been incredible to see. This is what’s so valuable about a group coaching program is, you know, coaching one person on their transition out of clinical practice into a non-clinical career and how somebody else who’s been watching all that coaching is able to apply that to their own lives and help them to see what the next steps are for them.

And I think that when we have people who have, you know, similar educational backgrounds but other career and applications of that degree, let’s just say what we find is that it opens our eyes like it kind of takes away a little bit of the mystique or the mystery behind like the people who work at insurance companies, you know, or like things like that.

[00:13:47] Like it’s helped me to see how much it’s very easy for us to sort of vilify people who make that transition. We do a lot of coaching on people who are in clinical practice being concerned, like if I leave [00:14:00] this, like are people going to think I’m a sellout? Like, what’s my reputation going to be like? Just a lot. Of concerns about like what’s going to happen if I do this. I’m going to be ostracized. Excommunicated from the the medical community. Like what’s going to happen? What are my colleagues going to all think and my friends and and things like that. And I think that more that we have a richer community of people doing a whole bunch of different things.

We can actually learn so much more from each other and we can work to break down that stigma of non-clinical careers or just deciding to stop, you know, working the way that we do. I mean, when I decided to leave my practice, I mean, people gave me all kinds of hard time, you know, and like, oh, just like, what a waste. You put so much effort into, you know, your educational training and now you’re just like going to stop doing it.

[00:14:47] And and of course, I argue that like, everything, every experience I had led me to be able to do what I do now at a super high level and be very effective. So I’m actually super grateful for that and think [00:15:00] it was amazing and I don’t regret any of it, right? I mean, here I am an example of somebody who left clinical practice and has a non clinical career. So I do really I’ve seen this just again and again and again. This has been something that’s been on my mind now kind of creeping up more and more over the last several years that it’s actually so great to be able to have people in the community who can speak to all the different options and can really learn from one another.

You know, we found that we have members who are in retirement who are then able to be kind of the wise sort of auntie, older sister, you know, type of presence for people who are earlier in their careers. And then on the flip side is people who are earlier in their careers are, you know, offering such energy and enthusiasm to the people who are later in their careers and doing other different things. And it’s just [00:16:00] so much of a richer environment and community. I think the community is actually much better off because we now have people with varying backgrounds and applications of their educational path. So now the third thing I learned is, you know, what’s really cool is that when you make the rules, you get to change them any time you want to, just because you want to, or especially because they just don’t make sense anymore.

[00:16:28] And that’s really what the announcement is. The announcement here is that we are now allowing or international equivalent women physicians into our weight loss for doctors only program, whether you are in clinical practice or not, whether you are working in a job that pays you money or not, just whatever you’re doing in your life. Having had that shared experience of becoming a doctor is really that kind of core foundation that is really helpful in the program. [00:17:00]

But then bringing everybody else in actually makes for a better experience for everybody. And I just love that. I can just decide like, you know what? I don’t want to do it like this anymore and I can just change it. It’s actually really, really fun. And I know over the years we’ve definitely had people who are like, Oh, like I’m so close, or I kind of do this instead, or I work for this government agency. Like, could I come in? And, you know, sometimes, particularly when the line was so gray, it was just like, oh my gosh, this is so painful. And now I’m just so glad to be and happy to be able to just say, Absolutely, absolutely. Come on in like, you are welcome here. You are a valuable part of our community.

[00:17:39] We can absolutely help you and we will help you. And we know that so many people are going to learn from you as well. I think that’s what a lot of people forget about group coaching. Like they think like, oh, one on one is better. And there definitely are benefits in some ways to one on one. But group coaching is so powerful when you [00:18:00] are getting the help you need, of course, individually and learning from others. And so welcoming in people who’ve made those decisions for any number of reasons like, you know, earlier than when they’ve been in our program, makes complete sense and is something that I’m really, really proud to offer.

So once again, if you are an MD or international equivalent, you are welcome to come into the weight loss for doctors only program. We are going to be opening up enrollment for our September group here very soon. If you’re like, Oh my gosh, this is the best news because I never thought that I could join and now I can’t. And you want to check out more information about the program. You can do that even now just by going to Katrina, md.com/info info. You can get information about the program and kind of get yourself thinking about whether it is the right next step for you. And of course, you know, give the opportunity to ask us any questions or anything like that. But like I said, I’m just super excited about this.

[00:18:59] I think [00:19:00] it’s high time that we just take away this arbitrary limiter. You know, who cares what everyone says? Or they say, You know what I mean? I’m like, Listen, you are welcome here. We can’t wait to work with you and help you to reach peace and freedom around food, any weight loss goals that you have and of course, any other goals that you have as well. So with that, I’m so excited to be able to share that. It’s something I’ve had kind of up my sleeve now for a little while and I’m very happy to be able to share it with you now.

So like I said, if you wanted to check out more about the program, just go to katrinaubellmd.com/info and you’ll get everything you need there. All right. Well, I hope that you’ll consider joining us coming up. I know there’s probably been some people who’ve been really waiting and we’re very happy to welcome you in. So with that, I will talk to you next week. I hope you have a great rest of your week and maybe you’ll want to, you know, book yourself in to go see some Broadway shows in New York City in the coming months, [00:20:00] if that’s possible for you. All right. Take care. Have a great rest of your day and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye bye. Ready to start making progress on your weight loss goals. For lots of free help, go to katrinaubellmd.com and click on Free Resources.