¶ The Life of a Surgeon's Spouse
What's it like being married to a surgeon ?
Oh , lord , I have to say it is pleasantly different .
Okay , now for the sake of the video like why are you putting up these pillows ? Because you never put up these pillows . Answer the question what's it like being married to a surgeon ?
Anyway , right now it's really annoying . Now , personality wise , call me because these surgeons out here they just be . Let me tell you , okay , the personality doesn't change just because the scheduling changes . So I'm like I could do everything , I could treat everything . I don't know why orthopedics don't want to change , Don't ?
want to replace their potassium .
Can you deliver a baby ?
But if we need to , we can yes .
Well , if anybody needs to , they can . The cab drivers deliver a baby knee .
I can do uber also . When did you when ?
Okay , you know what I'm not talking to you , mark , is this over ?
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Protect your income , secure your future . Check out SEPFALifeInsurancecom . All right guys , so we are going to talk with Dr Renee , our OB doc specialist . Hey , Dr Renee , how you doing , I'm fine . How are you Host of Docs Outside the Box ? How you doing ? Co-host ?
host , guest host . Which am I today ? I think you are the host .
I'm the host of Docs Outside the Box . And you are definitely in charge of this video right now and I'm here . You're here . Do you feel in charge ? Do you feel in charge ? Because we got some questions that people want to know about your life as an OB , doc , how long you been practicing now .
Well , if you count from residency , then almost 20 years . If you count from residency , almost 15 years .
Okay .
Okay , do people count from residency ?
No , you're not supposed to count from residency . I think you're supposed to count from when you finish residency how many years you've been practicing on your own .
Well then , almost 15 years . But I mean , come on like if you deliver babies from the time you graduate from medical school . I think that should count , but whatever .
Okay , almost 15 years . Well , let's leave it to you like this , let's get straight to the point , because I think people want to know . So you definitely , how you envision being an OB doc and how you practice has definitely changed from where you were at when you were in residency to where you are now . What ?
Over 10 years now , but 12 years out on your own Is that safe to say 14 ?
years out . Thank you , you're an old head . Okay , whatever . Yeah , I mean it's definitely different . First of all , I didn't even think I would be OB when I first started medical school . So even from there is like a crazy drastic difference .
But certainly when I graduated from residency I had already known that my I knew that my practice wouldn't necessarily be the way that I think most traditional OB practice . I just didn't , I didn't know quite how it was going to look .
So but yeah , I would say I've been through the traditional OB path , doing full scope OB , you know , delivering babies on call , doing seeing patients in the office , doing surgery . I've done all of that . But I can definitely say living the logan's life has definitely been the key to at least my way of avoiding burnout .
Okay , All right . So I got a question for you . Why did you spend over 10 years in training , Right ? So we're talking med school residency and you spent close to eight years in training and you spent close to $250,000 in paying for college as well as medical school and the interest that occurred after that $330,000 , you mean .
Well , when you graduated , it was $242,000 of debt . Right , but on the show multiple times you've talked about how you spend your time mainly with the kids at home and you . You work about a weekend a month . So why spend all those years to train ? Why spend all of that money to train and then spend most of your time at home ? Answer that , please .
Well , if I didn't spend all that time training , I wouldn't even be able to work that one weekend per month to go in and deliver babies , right ? So for me , you know , I look at it as I look at it as a very , probably very differently from a lot of people .
I think I've told the story on the podcast before where I had someone say to me I didn't spend all this time in medical school so I could be a stay at home mom and be at home all day . And for me I felt like , well , I didn't become a mother so I could spend my entire , you know , all day long , every day , in the hospital either .
I mean I'd like to see my kids right , so we could I mean , we could always ask that question a different way . So for me , it's not a question of , you know , it's not a question of why I spent that much money and now I stay at home .
It's a question of how do I balance , or find as close as I can to balance in my life , and that's how I find it . You know , I have a lot of things that bring me joy . You know , delivering babies brings me lots of joy , but also being home with my babies brings me lots and lots of joy .
And I got to say , with the way that I work , even doing one week in a month , I mean the investment . Let me tell you , when you do locums that investment right there that you made to go into medical school and accrue all of that debt , you could you literally could do something with the amount of money that you're going to make in locums .
So for me , I'm like I don't . I don't really feel like I'm losing anything . I actually think I'm working more efficiently than I used to when I was working as a full time OB , interesting , and I'm making more money this way .
So so the question is why people work in full time OB when you could be making as much money as me , working one week in a month .
Okay , okay . And how far do you ? How far when you go and work ? How far are you ? Is this an in town type of hospital ? Are you flying ?
No , I'm not flying these days . I'm not flying anyway . No , I drive about an hour and a half away , so it's nice and close . It's close enough for me to be able to , you know , get my kids ready for school that day and then leave on the Friday .
And then , you know , work for the weekend , leave them in the hands of my able bodied husband , who will feed them all kinds of crap for the weekend , but then I'm back by the time they get home from school .
Calories or calories .
Calories or calories . Yeah , so that's my good . But yeah then I'm , you know I'm back . I'm back in time on Monday , so that they're home from school and we can just start all over again until the next month .
Now what about board certification ? You've been able to maintain board certification . How are you able to do that ?
Oh yeah , absolutely Well , because I have enough experience and enough numbers right with the way that I work . So that's not , that's never been an issue actually . So in the way that my board certification works , they actually take into consideration that you could be an OB hospitalist . So they ask you know , they ask certain questions .
As long as I can meet the criteria , is this sustainable ? Then ? As long as I can meet the criteria , then I'm good .
So All right , let's switch , let's pivot a little bit . What was the hardest part of getting into medical school ?
Oh , what was the hardest part about getting into medical school ? Honestly , the hardest part about getting into medical school oh , real quick .
You know what's interesting is ? This is the suitcase that you use when you go on locos . Yes , so you're leaving tomorrow . You're leaving tomorrow .
Yes , okay , go ahead , you're leaving tomorrow . Yes , so that's on the floor right next to me For those of you who are listening on the audio podcast . I am out of breath because I'm literally fixing a bed and I just put our comforter inside the duvet cover , which I ain't even know nothing about a duvet cover until I don't even know .
When you don't do that in Brooklyn , but anyway I ain't sophisticated like that Answer the question please . So the hardest part about getting into medical school was actually finishing college . That really was the hardest part about getting into medical school .
I'm not going to let you off the hook on that one .
I'm going to tell you why . And the reason is because the class that , first of all , I .
I don't know about anybody else , but I well no , I know about a lot of people because of the work that I do with pre meds , but a lot of the information that you're supposed to know to get into medical school , like that pre college or the shooting , that pre med information a lot of people don't know , and I didn't know .
So I started as a chemistry major in college because I enjoyed chemistry . That wasn't sustainable . Look at that duvet fell .
Listen to your husband .
The one time you were right Broken clock so you got one more time to be right , damn . So yeah , I was a chemistry major because I enjoyed chemistry in high school . But what I didn't understand is that a chemistry major in college is a chemistry major who is for majors who want to do chemistry , not people who necessarily want to go into medical school .
Because , let me tell you , everything outside of what I learned in high school in terms of chemistry really wasn't anything that I was very interested in , but I didn't know that .
So it was very theoretical but not practical for you .
Right , very theoretical , not practical . You know , it was like I was studying to be like a chemical engineer , which I had no interest in engineering whatsoever . So this pile of mess so for me that was the hardest part was navigating .
You know , getting out of college , because you know when you're not interested in what you're majoring in , one , you're going to tend to do badly . Two , you're going to avoid your major , which is what I ended up doing . I ended up avoiding chemistry classes and you know , frankly , it just it just made for a really bad academic experience .
So that that was a challenge .
Okay , now what about applying to medical school ? There's a lot of people talk about hurdles , of how expensive it is taking the MCAT , going on interviews like wasn't that hard , like there wasn't anything hard about the actual process of applying to school . Can you talk to that ?
So I didn't find that process hard , more than I found it challenging , which I think is I hate you .
No .
I think it's two different things . I think it's two different things For me hard . So when I say hard , the difference between how I felt and how I reacted to trying to trying to get out of college is much different than you know .
¶ Navigating Medical School and Career Challenges
How I reacted , you know , when I was applying to medical school , or even when I failed the MCAT or not failed , but bombed it , I should say and that part was challenging , but it was more exciting because I felt like I felt like I had more control . I actually felt like I had more control because I knew whether or not I was a good candidate .
You know , by that time , by the time I applied to medical school and I had told myself I will not apply to medical school until I feel that I am the best candidate that I can be , and that's what I ended up doing . So even when I bombed the MCAT , I knew I was going to bomb it , but that just gave me fuel to be like , all right .
Well , you know now . You know what you need to do in order to do that in the next time .
Okay , did you doubt you would make it into medical school ? Nope never , Really .
Nope , I never doubted I would make it into medical . First of all , let me tell you something , because , weren't you ?
at point , because there's a concept of well , if I can't understand chemistry , is that going to ? Is that going to affect my performance in med school ? Is that like a precursor ? Is that a predeterminate to ooh , if I can't do it now in college , am I going to struggle in med school ? You never had any of those thoughts in your mind .
No , I never had any of those thoughts , because that's what they always say right , because they want you to do orgo , they want you to do organic one , organic two . And if you can't get through that , then how are you going to get through med school ?
right , Right , right . Which is what my pre-med advisor tried to put in my head , because my first semester , when I basically failed chemistry , she basically told me go to graduate school and do something else . And I just thought , how the hell is she talking about ? Like I ? Really I was distraught by her , by her conclusion , but I didn't doubt myself , right .
And so that's why that day I ended up calling my parents , very , very upset at what she said to me , and the reason that I call them was more to say can you believe ?
She said this to me More than I don't know what I'm going to do , whatever Now , my parents didn't quite know what to do either , so they just told me to keep going , and I was like all right , I'll just keep going , I figure out how to do it by myself , which I ended up finding out .
But the reality is I never doubted that I would get into medical school . I just thought I'll just do it by myself . Now , maybe that was naive , maybe that was cocky , I don't know , but I just , I never had that thought that I would not make it . I just didn't know how and when it would happen .
No matter where you are in your career . You've seen patients your age or younger get seriously injured , have a lot of pain , have a long-term illness or even have a mental health issue that affects their ability to work . Now , what if that was you ? No , for real . What if that was you Without disability insurance ? How are you going to replace your paycheck ?
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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 .
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So , once you got through college , how long did it take you between college and what happened in between college and getting into medical school ?
So , first off , I spent five years in college because I ended up changing my major like my ugh . What should have been my fourth year of college , I ended up changing my major from chemistry to biology . So that added on an extra year . So that's number one . Again , when I graduated , I started actually taking .
Well , the first thing I did was actually no , I went and I got a job at a food lab and I was doing . I was doing microbiology testing , so you know all those recalls on the lettuce and the shrimp and all kind of stuff .
So you knew you was messing up , and then I got through .
No , no , no , no , no , no , I wasn't messing up , but yeah , so I would catch things like that at a lab .
And then that that was in the summer , and then I decided that I was going to go back to school for a post-bac and so I started looking into actually a community college not far from my house and my sister she was like , ugh , you know , you went to a four year college , are you sure you want to go and do post-bac at a two year college ?
And I was like , oh , I hadn't really thought of that . So I thought you know what she might be right and I listened to her and I ended up going to Hunter College , cuny . That's in New York , in New York City . This is your pillow , this is a soft one . I don't want that one .
I'll change it after the video , whatever , so yeah , so I ended up going to Hunter College . So they do have a post-bac program , an official post-bac program , but I wasn't really eligible for that because I was already a science major . So I was like , well , let me just DIY it .
And so what I did was I ended up going to the pre-med advisor and just letting him know hey , I'm not eligible for this post-bac program , but I am taking post-bac classes and I'd like to just be involved with the office , the pre-med office .
And he was like , all right , he and I didn't necessarily see eye to eye on the classes that I should take , like an anatomy and physiology class . He was like , I don't really need to take that , that's for nursing students , blah , blah , blah . It was really the only thing that we didn't see eye to eye on .
I ended up taking the class anyway because I felt like I needed to know more about anatomy and stuff . But I retook some classes that I had failed in college or had not done well in . I retook physics because I had gotten a D in physics , and then something else . Oh , biochem , that was the other one . We took biochem .
I took molecular biology for the first time , which was really biochem disguised .
But yeah , so I did that for two years and in those two years I worked for a nonprofit organization that serviced older people in Manhattan and then I tutored high school to get people ready for the regions , for the math regions , and then from that job , from that tutoring job , I ended up getting hired as a science teacher at a New York City public school .
Yeah , okay . Well , what is ? Let's pivot again . What's the biggest myth the public has about OB and OB-Gynes ? Is it OB-Gynes or OB-Gyns ?
You can say however you want . People say OB-Gynes , people say OB-Gyns . People say OB-Gyny . Is that the biggest myth ? So people say obs-gyny .
They say that overseas Obs and gyny .
Obs and gyny . Yeah , the biggest myth , oh my God , I think the biggest myth is that all OBs are pro-choice . I think that's . Say that again , I think anyway , that's the biggest myth that all OBs are pro-choice Because we're very women's health oriented . I think that might be one of the biggest myths . That oh wait , what do you mean ?
You're obstetrician gynecologist is against abortion , not even like doesn't perform right , because performing is a specific skill and you actually have to be skilled in performing abortions . But I think that it might be a myth that obstetricians and gynecologists are all pro-choice because they are not all pro-choice .
Got you .
That's my thought . The doctor also has another one out there . I'm sure there are others out there , other myths . Okay , very interesting .
Okay , what is your least favorite part of your job ?
Well , paperwork for one . I think that's the least part of everybody's job . But if I had to pick a really , really , really you know big thing that I hate about my job , it would be when we have bad outcomes , like you know , when a baby unfortunately passes , things like that . Thankfully , I've never not going to have a mom pass .
I've seen a mom pass before but she wasn't somebody who was under our care . But that's probably the worst part of my job .
So would you say it's a high stakes type thing ? Because I mean , it's a . You know , I think when people think about high stakes , they think about cardiology , they think about neurosurgery , they think about trauma surgery . Is OB one of those ? It's a high stakes type game and stuff . It's high pressure .
So , yes , very much so . But you know , what's really funny is that pregnancy oftentimes is seen as this social event . Right , it's very social and of course there is a social aspect of pregnancy in that you're going to be adding a new family member , you know , and that's great . But you know , pregnancy is a very unpredictable at times .
It's a very unpredictable condition to be in . So you know , I always say , like you know everybody's low risk until they high risk . You know Everybody's low risk until they're high risk . And that's the key is knowing you know the difference between who is low risk and high risk .
As it is happening and sometimes it doesn't happen you don't end up turning high risk from low risk until you're actually going to deliver . So you know , a lot of times you'll see patients oh , there's nothing wrong with my pregnancy .
It's like , yeah , there might not have been anything wrong with your pregnancy , but that doesn't guarantee that that's not going to end up in a high risk delivery . Those are two totally different things . And I think sometimes you know people the public in particular they don't understand that there is such thing as being low risk until you're high risk .
So well , how about we finish this up ?
Right .
Last but not least , what's it like being married to a surgeon ?
Oh Lord , what's it like being married If you ?
missed the spot right there there's a little wrinkle right there , fix that .
Fix that . What's it like being married to a surgeon ? Hmm Well , so first of all , I think I've put out there already that I never even wanted to marry a doctor , as I was thinking about what my future was going to be .
So I have to say it is pleasantly different from what I thought For the sake of the video , like why are you putting up these pillows ? Because you never put up these pillows .
Well , first of all , sometimes I do put up the pillows number one , number two you still asking me questions and I got to finish . I got to do something . I didn't just stand here like an idiot , put on these accent pillows that you never , but then why I ? Got the pillows if I never used them .
That's why I've asked you before when you first bought these . We don't need these . Answer the question .
But I use them . What's it like being married to a surgeon ? Anyway , right now it's really annoying .
She's serious yo .
So what's it like being ? I don't even know how to put these pillows . That's so much .
Easy Like that . Prove right there , you don't put them up there .
Anyway , it's actually pleasantly .
Guys , did she do it right ? Do we have ?
symmetry here , no , not at all .
All right , we are going off track . Please finish this question , are you ?
supposed to do this too , like something like this yeah , anyway , so yeah , I was saying that it is pleasantly different than what I thought it was going to be . My fear was that if I married another doctor , that I would be so busy and he would be so busy that we would not see each other .
But I have to say , the surgeon that I am married to , is Married to , is very different in terms of his approach to his career , which has made things a lot easier .
I think if I were with someone who was like , no , absolutely , I just want to work in the office , work my butt off and , every single day , grind , grind , grind , put in 16-hour days , every single day , I think it would be a lot more contentious . I think it would be a lot more contentious . I don't know that .
I don't know that that would be the type of relationship that I would want , or at least I don't think that that would be the schedule that I would want for my relationship . So it's been , it's been good . Now , personality wise . Call me , I'll let you know everything , because these surgeons out here , they just be . Let me tell you .
Okay , these surgeons like , the personality doesn't change just because the scheduling changes , so I could do everything , I could treat everything . I don't know why orthopedics don't want to change , don't want to replace their potassium , but I can that , that , that but we can deliver a baby but if we need to , we can .
Yes well , if anybody needs today , can the cab driver deliver a baby knee ? I can do when did you went . Okay , you know what . I'm not talking to you anymore . Is this over ?
I got tell them , tell them about , tell them about the show , tell them how they can keep in contact with you afterwards so this is Docs Outside the Box .
Guys . I'm Dr Renee , this is Dr me . Listen . We are here every week tuning in for our little banter and antics talking about medicine , money , pop culture yeah , anywhere you can listen to podcast and on YouTube , and we got a lot of stuff on Instagram , too that we do .
So if you want to follow us , follow us there all right , y'all stay tuned for questions from a trauma surgeon , but let us know what you think about this . The links to the podcast , the links to everything , is in the show notes below . But once again , yo , we want to try something different . We'll keep you checking guys out on the next episode .