From Security Guard to a Doctor: Resilience, Mentorship, and Diversity in Medicine. #416

And I was like I'm Dr Russell Leday , md , phd , mba , and I'm a triple board resident . They were right Security guards don't become doctors , they become double doctors .

All you have to do is show that your income is increased and you can buy more benefits at that time . No medical questions asked .

Before you know , people listen to this portion of the episode , but I just want to jump right into it because the story goes so many different ways with you . Um , but where I want to start off with is let's start off at Yasso's , or is it Yasso's ? Yeah , my dude , my dude .

So when I get a moment to share with my mentors , I bring them where I'm from , Like I don't want them to think that , like you know , my goal is to ascend to this ivory tower type place .

My goal is to ascend back to where I'm from , you know , because I guess the way I think about it is like when I left my community , I left and created a void , and so my goal is to always come back and bring something back , and so by bringing my attending who's paying for the meal I'm bringing money back to the community . You know what I'm saying .

But I'm also bringing knowledge back , because now you got these people who eat this amazing food and obviously food is such a strong part of our culture that now they're like yo , they bringing all their friends coming , and now there's more economics coming into the community and I think sometimes the perception is , oh , I got to bring them to a fancy restaurant .

Well , that Jamaican spot is a fancy restaurant . To me it's the best food I know , you know . Especially a resident salary , that's that's at least I'm assuming , with all the people that you brought .

He's a pediatrician , uh , at the clinic that I'm at , um on west 38th in eskenazi , um , but he's just like such an insightful dude , very philosophical in nature , but you know , he , he takes the time to not assume he knows things , um , he asks questions out of a place of true curiosity and wanting to know more .

And then I could see the implementation when we're in the clinic , which is a whole different level Because , you know , it's one thing to value someone's education and their knowledge and their lived experience . It's another thing to see it implemented in the clinic . You know , in a way that he interact with patients .

Almost all of our patients are either Haitian , creole , from some part of South America , or they're Black Americans .

And Thomas Klausmeier , there's a bunch of people Aaron Phipps , stedging who've been there and they really they believe in you know what I'm saying , what it means to really contribute back to the community in a meaningful way , not only from a medicine perspective , but from a cultural perspective too .

So it's heavy man and it's good because , like he didn't hesitate to go to that spot and since then we've gone back twice .

Extremely difficult to get into and I think in what two years ago , 2022 , you were the only African-American to African-American male , excuse me , to get into one of those programs . So , in essence , you were a unicorn or you are a unicorn , and I'm the first one here .

You have to do all these different things perfect so that if someone behind you wants to come and they look like you , they want to get through . You know , you have to make sure that you are that pioneering person , and that's a lot of pressure , right , it's a lot of pressure whether you decide to take it on or not .

Um , so it was very interesting that you know I , I , you started off by taking them all to a restaurant that you frequent , to kind of just see and frequent like what it's like to be in your world . I just thought that was really fascinating . That's why I wanted to start there .

You know , I , I try to , I try to make my way to , you know , to the hood , like almost always , because I want to understand the people who actually are from there , who live there , and get a feel for the real culture of the city , as opposed to just being a parasite who just comes in and get what they want and then leave .

You know , oftentimes I find my colleagues being like yo , this place is boring . I'm like you don't really know nobody from here .

You don't know anyone from here , and that's always my challenge is like yo , you know , go meet the locals , go sit down , chop it up with them , join a djembe drum circle , you know , go sit with some of the ancestors , go to some of the older churches and understand , like , the history of the city Madam CJ Walker was here , of course , they got rich history

here . So much jazz come out of the city , you know . But I mean , I'm also in touch with you know where I'm from . The people where I come from hold me accountable for not forgetting where I come from , and so it makes it easy for me to do the same thing when I come to a place like Indiana .

they would be from the neighborhood , oftentimes they're not looking , they're not really , they're not acting the way in which you would expect someone in the neighborhood . Whether or not that's a good or bad thing , right Like it , just it's almost like once you become part of the medical institution , like you become part of the system and so forth .

Right , the reason I'm bringing that up is , in essence , you were kind of one of those locals when you started right . Because the story that tells the story with you is is that you started off as a security guard working in . Was it at which ?

Honestly , I wanted to be the food stamp plug . I wanted to go back to my community and just run it up . You know what I'm saying Make sure everybody could get something , because I understood how hard it was to get food in general .

I grew up like that , so my thought process was I'm going to college to become a social worker and then I can help people in my community get food stamps , and but you know how medicine can bite you like medicine can absolutely encapsulate you If you see it in the right , if you see it at the right time in your life when you're still vulnerable and you don't

really you know understand your capabilities or what your possibilities of life are

. And

you

don't

really understand your capabilities or what your possibilities of life are . And you see traumas coming through the ER . You see stroke alerts , you see heart attacks . You see all these things and you're like dang , that's such a cool job . You get to see people resuscitated .

You see IOs get put in and test tubes and all the GSWs getting treated and all these other things .

It's crazy how those flashbacks come back . But essentially all those moments , you know , mesmerized me and I was like yo . I can't imagine not being able to do this , but I didn't know what I was barking up that tree . I didn't know what it took to get into medicine . So I was just asking doctors like yo , can I shadow you , you know ?

Can you , you know ?

You know how , like , when you go to the hospital , there's like a parking , a parking lot in the front of the hospital that the doctors park the fancy cars in and they walk up the steps and they cross over the hump and then they walk into the hospital and there's a security guard just standing there who's like helping people get in and out of their car or

whatever , and every time a doctor would pass by . I'd be like yo , what do you do ? Like where did you go to school ? Some of them be like I went to harvard . I say , oh , you got an mba too . Where'd you get that from ? They're like I went to harvard business school . I'm like dang like how long did that take ?

Because this is all stuff that I was really naive and so this is a small talk that you have , yeah and I'm like yo can I shout at you and they like nah , bro , they're not taking you seriously . They like nah , I mean they'd be like yo , you're a security guard , but like you're not about to become no doctor .

But there was this one guy I mean he was , he's a trauma surgeon . You might know him , uh , patrick greifenstein , dr patrick greifenstein , he's at lsu um , he's at lsu . He trained at uh miami and uh I think he trained at miami for trauma and then at um lSU for general surgery .

He was the chief surgery resident and I was like yo , you really a surgeon ? He was like yeah , I was like well , you think I could shadow you . And he was way shorter than me , so I think he was kind of intimidated and we was walking by ourselves .

I stayed in the hospital overnight that night because I worked the fort of midnight shift as a security guard and I just stayed in the library and studied all night to the next morning . And when he came in , I saw him at . I was studying for O Kim , like I was just standing there and just study all night .

Yo , I used to pick up them heavy books and just walk around with them and act like I was studying , like I was in medical school , like you know , just like you know , you just want to act a part . Yeah , I just wanted to envision what it was going to be like . Nevertheless , I met him the next morning .

We went in to go do a mastectomy and the attending was a black guy , dr peter bostick . He's like a world renowned uh uh oncology breast surgeon and uh , he ended up chopping it up with me in the doctor's afterwards and uh he was like no pun intended nah and uh , yeah , we and uh . You know he .

You know he told me like man , yeah , you could become a doctor . Obviously , I didn't get into medical school the first time . I'm thankful I didn't . I'm so glad I went and did a PhD first because it made getting an MD free .

That's probably the only way we can get them , which is true Cause , you know , at that time , medical schools were starting to think about full rides , like you know , full tuition for all of their medical students .

And so when my second daughter was born , february 20 , 2018 , that same morning , maybe like 30 minutes after she was born , I got an email from Tulane and they gave me a full ride for medical school . And I looked at my wife , who was exhausted from having a baby , and I was like yo , we going home ? She's like , yep , we going home .

Because I'm sure at that point you know you were seen by the chief resident . And then now you're seen by someone who's well established and they're saying like nah , you , like you , you can do this . Like how did , how did that make you feel , man , it was it was everything .

And it's crazy because I recently got his cell phone number and I sent him a text message and in the text message I literally told him like and in the text message I literally told him like hey , I don't know if you remember who I am .

I'm not sure you remember encouraging me to do well on the MCAT or telling me to becoming a doctor wasn't outside of the realm of possibility . I wanted you to know . I never forgot what you told me .

I am now Russell J Lidday , md , phd , mba , and I'm a triple board resident at Indiana University , specializing in pediatrics , adult psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry . I'm in my second year of residency , I was recently elected into the AOA , my kids are healthy and my wife and I are closing in on 20 years of marriage .

Thank you for encouraging me then . And no , I took your words seriously .

He said it with conviction , you know , it meant everything , man . It meant everything . I still to this day like bro

.

In episode 176 , jamie Fleissner of Cephalife Insurance explains why the best time to buy disability insurance is during your residency .

Usually you get less healthy over time , so when you're healthy , it's easier to acquire the coverage . Number two it's also less expensive because it's based on your age and your health . You're not getting younger or healthier over time , so you're at the ideal time . The earlier you get it and the younger you are , the less expensive it's going to be .

So then , okay , so let's transition , because I think right now , I think you established the importance of mentorship and the importance of people just even just seeing you Right , even if you haven't reached that point , but just recognizing some talent in you , or recognizing that , hey , like you have the ability 10 years , 15 years from now , to be in my role in

my seat , right , which is a very powerful thing . That's what happened to me when I was in high school . Someone you know , as I was going into school , someone said hey , listen , I think you can become a physician , a cohort of well-established doctors also , or very well-accomplished doctors . What's up with the 15 White Coats ? What is that ? Tell us about that .

What's behind that ?

You know , 2019 , we all went to visit the Whitney Plantation and I had sent an email a couple months before to my classmates and asked them like yo listen , I went to this Whitney Plantation with my daughter and you know , she kind of told me , like you know , man , we've come a long ways , ways that , and I was like who is we ?

She's like black people have come a very long way . We were just at a plantation where , like there , far we've come , and you know how blessed we are to be in this position , to be in medical school , but also , let's take this photo and show the world how far we've come .

We so excited to have followers , and it's another thing to be like yo . We could generate a cause , we could do something wild , and what we envisioned was three things . The first one was cultural imagery .

So you don't see pictures of Black doctors on the walls of classrooms , and so it's hard for kids to envision themselves becoming something that they've never really seen before .

They're not going to see a doctor when they're a kid because there ain't that many Black doctors to begin with and definitely ain't that many Black pediatricians their kid , because it ain't that many black doctors to begin with and definitely that many black pediatricians .

Then their colleagues or their eventual colleagues can't imagine them becoming that , but their colleagues all their life have seen people who look like them in white coats all their lives . So they have this mental perception of what they can and can't be , depending on which group you're in . So we wanted , wanted to change that .

So we ended up taking that photo along with the other three poses , and now they've been in over 25,000 classrooms around the world .

Um , I thought was , if you don't understand how much it costs to become a doctor , then it's easy to just tell people like yo , you should become a doctor . You , you gotta know how much it costs and how much it costs Cause .

And then we just got a half a million nonprofit right yeah , this is a total nonprofit yeah , like and the beauty of it is is that the four of us me , dr sydney labatt Labatt , dr Rachel Turner and student Dr Brian Washington we don't get paid for any of it . So , like 100% , it's a true nonprofit and that , like everything we're doing , is volunteer status .

Yeah , that's us , and none of us get paid . Like absolutely none of us get paid . And we really doing this from a position of believing that the next generation will get a benefit from the 15 white coats .

And so the Funding the Future Positions initiative that just came out , which was funded by Genentech , allows for us to prepare 50 students from HBCUs , hispanic-serving institutions and Indigenous-serving institutions to go to medical school . That includes everything you just talked about the prep , the test , the mentorship , everything you know .

Jack Weston is like an MCAT prep course company . But also the American Academy of Medical Colleges has helped us . We're getting them prepared for medical school .

And then a whole bunch of you know people in , including the other Dr Darko have Dr Renee Darko have come along and helped us a ton with getting these you know people prepared for medical school , the medical school application process , and then after that is getting them actually in and then figuring out how we can support them through medical school .

Our next goal is obviously to pay for some medical school tuition .

Even if it's just one year of your tuition that we pay for , that's a lot of money , but it changes the game from an economic perspective because the reality of it is that a lot of students who want to go into primary care don't go into primary care because of their debt . Oh , absolutely . Care . Don't go into primary care because of their debt ?

Oh , absolutely . You know , that's like . I mean , y'all talk about it on the podcast all the time how debt shifts , where you end up picking a job for you know , oh , yeah , it self-selects .

But you know , what people don't know is that actually , like the hospitalists , the family medicine doctors , they have the cheat code because there's so many different things that they can .

You know you don't necessarily get paid the highest salary , but there's so many multiple streams of income from being a director of , like , nursing home or , you know , being a consultant or all of these different things that they actually have the cheat code .

So that's the second part , and then the third part of the 15 White Coats work is cultural literacy , you know- Rob Markman what ? does that mean Rob Markman ?

Yeah , so you know , it always befuddles me that , like kids from the 9th Ward of New Orleans , or like the 5th Ward of Houston or like Compton , they really going with the wind and I'm like there's no relativity here , like there's none , like there's absolutely no relativity .

Sure , you could probably pull out some strings and pick or something now , but theoretically they should be reading , you know , between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates . Or you know there's other books that reflect the lived experience , but also books that have illustrations , stories that they can relate to .

So we talk about , like you know , sister soldiers books , you know , books that really , midnight , you know that that really changed the game , to give us the creativity and the to imagine a world where our fiction is also , um , something that we can talk about .

And so , uh , the resilient readers book club is is our way of making sure that children in um who come from come from minority backgrounds have access to books that reflect their lived experience . So we created these mini libraries called Resilient Readers Book Boxes , and these Resilient Readers Book Boxes allow for us to put these in schools .

We're at the place where we're almost able to sell them to people to put in their homes , and all of the books are curated by the Black World Schoolers Bookstore , which is owned by a Black woman , and all of the books are exclusively by Black and Brown authors and illustrators .

And you should see how much these kids just like gravitate towards these books , bro , Like they go crazy , man , it's insane to see these kids just go wild behind behind these books , man , it's like a mobile bookstore .

Um , that's it right there , and so this is our , this is our K through three right here , but we also have one for four through six , and then , um , we have one for high schoolers as well , and you can see that the author , you know the , the curated books are here and you know it's , it's , it's amazing , man , to , to see how much these kids see these

books and they like what this is . This is wild , that this is like . I know these books existed . You know , and , and obviously there's a way for you to sponsor a book box on there . You know , and , and obviously there's a way for you to sponsor a book box on there .

So if you , you know , if you're listening to this podcast and you want to hop in and help out the 15 white coats , you could go to 15wcorg the craziest thing the 15 white cousins been able to do . So we , uh , we getting some funding , uh from genetic tech to do an hbcu tour next year .

Um , we're going to , I think , to 18 HBCUs and we're just going to talk about how important it is for them to join the medical community so that we have diversity in the medical community Because our lived experiences contribute to better outcomes for our patients . There's so much peer-reviewed data that talks about how important it is for our presence to be there .

But not only our presence . Our lived experience , the way we interpret very basic things , you know the language , the vernacular , how much all of those things play a role in patient care , from obtaining an HPI to you know , to , to , to medication . What's an HPI History and physical .

They're residents who are listening and they may be thinking about doing something like this , or scared to do something like this . Um , so let's hear it from you , like how are you managing this ? Talk to us about that .

So , being efficient is about building a team . You know that . You know you got to build a team of people . You don't have to do everything . There's more that you have to , you know delegate than what you actually have to do . Everybody's relying on your brain .

But that's not the case , right ? No , no , so talk us through that .

. So we've created a grant , we've created policies , we've created an execution plan , but I can't oversee making sure that the people who work for us are following up on emails , making sure that they're answering , you know , making sure that students are getting paid , making sure that scholarships are being sent out , like all of these things . I can't do that .

I just I have to be able to raise money and I have to be able to strategize , and then somebody has to execute all of that strategy and somebody also has to help me to think about that strategy .

Help Sydney think about that strategy , help Rachel think about that strategy and Brian and turn it into something that's realistic , because I don't know the capabilities on the ground of the team .

And she helping me to understand well , this is the capabilities of the team . Ok , well , do we need to expand or do we need to reposition ? Do we need to teach someone a new skill ? Which one is a better investment ? Because obviously , with a nonprofit , you're always thinking about stretching your dollars as far as you can until you get more to come in .

And so all of the . And then we got a CPA , we got somebody on our board who does all of our budget stuff .

We have people who help us to understand the data-driven component , like we have a scientist at NYU , dr Vladimir Zvetlov shout out to him one of the best mentors I've ever had who helps us with strategy and understanding what's realistic and what's not , and he can talk directly to our executive director .

And so that allows for me to expand what I can do by just saying hey , vlad , can you talk to our executive director about strategy ? And I trust his opinion , so I don't have to oversee it . I don't have to oversee everything . I just got to be able to go to a company and be like yo .

Here's why you should invest a half a million dollars in our non-profit .

And so , like you know , if I send her a text message and I'm like yo , this needs to get done , and I give her completion , you know , like a full list of things that need to get done in order for it to execute , and she'll get it done and she'll give me , you know , either feedback or she'll give me the finished product and then whatever trickled down from

there . I'm trusting her leadership to go ahead and handle it from there . I don't need to oversee that . So it could be like I'll usually text her every day like , hey , here's what I'm thinking at like 5 , 6 o'clock in the morning .

We also have a running collaborative notes on iPhone , so I can drop something in there and she can see it when she's available to see it .

We just drop messages in there to each other about things that we're thinking about , like , we got this new apparel getting ready to come out , because , really , the crux of the 15 white coats is the crux of culture and medicine . So if you could think about us introducing , like you know , black brown culture into medicine . It's kind of where we want to be .

We want brilliance , but we also want culture at the exact same time , and so we coming out with this new apparel for that . But we have to go through this iteration process of , like yo , this is what our apparel designer came up with . Do we like it ? What do we want to change ? Do we like the logo where it is ? Can we trademark it ?

You know , like all of those , things .

So we have a board of advisors which is like some deans of medical schools , some scientists , some accountants and a few other people , some principals of high schools , and they give us guidance , but the four of us are the board of directors , so we really guide how the 15 white coast run .

And then our executive director runs the day to day , so I can't imagine what email she's answering or what meeting she's taking on behalf of the 15 white coast . I just get a download of it at the end of the week , you know in terms of like hey , here's the things you actually need to pay attention to .

And it's very much the same thing as like in medicine , where it's just like I don't need all the nitty gritty , I don't need a full presentation , what's the plan If ? I want to know the nitty gritty . I'm going to go ask you like oh so what would a violence ? You know what I'm saying Like so what would you know ? How did ? How did the meeting go ?

You know ? Did you feel like they were on edge where I actually need to go to the meeting myself ? But you know , and I think that didn't happen overnight , which is one thing I always try to distill to people , is that , you know , this idea that like the success happens overnight is wild .

Like there's a book I'm reading right now called Atomic Habits , by James Clear .

Nobody saw the 1% better . They didn't see me on yesterday on my back patio trying to submit a grant .

That is , I think a lot of folks think that there's a lot of glamour and also , at the same time , that you have to be the final person to make that decision , and then what ends up happening is people will take on these roles , they'll start a nonprofit or even start a for profit , and then they can't kind of scale because you know they're the bottleneck ,

because you know they're the bottleneck , right Like you scrubbing for cases and you trying to make decisions on something else when it's like that's just not how it should work . So I'm glad that you gave us a little bit of a window into how , like you are operating .

You and your team the rest of the other doctors are handling the 15 white coats , because it's like it would suck for it to be kind of held back because of ego and it sounds like you know you've been able to step away from it and everybody's been able to kind of just focus on what they do really well and then kind of just leave it at that , exactly .

But let's pivot real quick . I want to ask you some quick questions about your . You know things from your Instagram and things from your background . So I'm going to share this with you because I thought this was so interesting , because this is kind of how I think about life , when you know I'm doing my thing .

So there's so much I can get from you , from your site , but this right here the things I think about on a 24-hour shift in a hospital .

home . Yeah , it's that Jamaican spot going to have oxtails today . That's the most important one .

I've taken many a 24 hour shifts , or now that I travel for locums , I'm gone for like a week . These are the things that I'm thinking about , right ? Is my family safe ? You know where I work at there's no Jamaican spots where I'm at , but when I come home , you know .

When we first arrived in New York for my PhD , we were in a U-Haul and we had this little small S40 Volvo and I asked my wife to drive and she was like hell . No , she was like I'm not driving .

She's like you got this , you could kill it , and so , like her , she always used to tell me and she still does she's like you don't surprise me when you succeed , you surprise me when you fail . So try your best not to surprise me . And that's literally how I live . My life is like yo let me just not surprise my wife and I'm in good shape .

You know that's a different level of support , you know so .

What I'm really trying to do is leverage my existence , as well as my qualifications , to improve accessibility to mental health resources while you're incarcerated as a youth .

Yeah , it was dope learning about them and so , listen , you know what's the . So if anybody wants to support you , what ? Where's the number one place that you want them to go ? If you want wants to support you , where's the number one place that ?

We give out three USMLE board exam scholarships every month . We do it all , man . We do it all and we're going to continue to do it . I always think in my head that we are the Robin Hood of medicine . We take it from people who got a lot of money and then we're giving it to people who ain't got so much .

You can support us in so many different ways Body apparel , give us a donation , volunteer there's a million different ways to help us , but that's the only way that we're going to make medicine a better place for everyone .

So everybody , make sure we will have all this stuff in the show notes , in the description , if you watch it on YouTube , and there it is Dr Russell O'Day man , thank you for your time .