Speaker 1:
You're listening to Your Practice Made Perfect: Support, Protection, and Advice for Practicing Medical Professionals. Brought to you by SVMIC.
Renee Tidwell:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Your Practice Made Perfect. My name is Renee Tidwell. I will be your host for this episode. On today's show, we will be discussing aligning your work with your personal life, especially when you have a demanding job in medicine. How do you harmonize all the things you must do day-to-day while also ensuring you stay sane and still have time to take care of yourself? To help us better understand both the importance of finding that balance and to share some tips on best practices, we have our very own Dr. Katrina Hood. Dr. Hood's been our board of director since 2009. We are thrilled to have her today. Welcome, Dr. Hood.
Dr. Hood:
So glad to be here.
Renee Tidwell:
I'm excited to have an opportunity to have this conversation with you. Before we dive into our conversation though, I'd love for you to give a little bit of background on yourself.
Dr. Hood:
Sure. I've joined a practice here in Lexington, Kentucky. I'm a practicing private pediatrician in a group of, it seems to be ever-changing, but roughly 11 or 12 of us. Have been here since 2001. My husband, who's also ... I'll be discussing a bit, is a practicing internal medicine doc here in Lexington as well.
Renee Tidwell:
Okay. Let's kick off this conversation by stepping back in time. Would you mind sharing about your journey into medicine, what brought you here?
Dr. Hood:
Sure. I think, too, I want to start off with a bit of a disclaimer because this is about my life and what's worked for me. I think, as people listen, that just because it worked in this setting, it may not work in theirs, but there may be a few little tidbits as you move through this that will come across as something that might be helpful as either a working mother, or other caregiver, in some form or fashion.
I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. My dad was a physician, so I had experienced medical stuff and discussions about surgeries at the dinner table. Even, at one point, we had a turtle in our backyard with a big abscess that my dad and I drained the abscess on the turtle's neck. So things that just have been a part of my life all along that grew me up in medicine. But we also were very much outdoorsy. We had a creek in our backyard and played in the creek. We learned tree and plant identification. We had a greenhouse and orchids and ferns. I mean, it sounds kind of idyllic, but it's just what we did. My mom taught me all about bird watching. So that was kind of my growing up.
Went off to college. Decided I wanted to be a doctor, but then decided that maybe not. I guess that's the beauty of being in college. I majored in linguistics. And then had to choose between Chinese or Japanese, chose Japanese, which led me on a journey overseas right after I graduated college to be a teacher of English in elementary, middle, and high schools in a very tiny, tiny northern town in Japan. I decided at that point to dive 100% into the culture. Learned all kinds of things about tea ceremony and calligraphy, artwork. Just felt like if I was going to be there I was going to learn 100%. So jumped right in. Spoiler alert, the best part of it was teaching the little kids, which brought me, I think, to the place now where I'm a pediatrician.
Then had to do a bit more pre-med work after I returned from Japan in order to be able to go into medical school. I joined the Navy to help me in medical school. Met my husband. Greg, like I said, my physician internal medicine doc. He's probably my most important cog in this whole big story of our life as we've moved through this. We were lucky in life to both get residencies in San Diego, California. Mine with the Navy. He was civilian. Beautiful thing. All seven years that we were there in San Diego, I was a resident and then attending. We had all three children while we lived in California, in San Diego. And then in 2001, moved right back here to Lexington where he grew up. The rest is kind of history. At some point in there, around 2005, started with the SVMIC and have had wonderful opportunities through that as well. So that's a brief little snippet of how I got to this place in my life.
Renee Tidwell:
Okay, that's really interesting. I didn't know any of that about you, Dr. Hood, first of all. I'm a working mom. I'm not a doctor, but my husband and I both work full-time. We've got two little boys. They keep me on my toes. So talk to me for just a minute, San Diego, you've got three kids within seven years. How close together are they? Are you working during this time? How does that process play out?
Dr. Hood:
I don't really know because it just worked. My first child was born my third year of residency. I always laugh, she delivered on January 2nd and I was still on call on December 31st. I would tell the ... when I was running to deliveries, "Hey, I will be there at just a splitest of a second, but I'm going to have to run to the bathroom before I [inaudible 00:04:49] the delivery." So first one was born then. And then I had two born while I was attending. The first two are 22 months apart, and then roughly three years between the second and the third. They're now 22, 25 and 27.
Renee Tidwell:
Wow. Let's go back to before you were officially a doctor. What are a few key things you would like to tell yourself back when you were nearing the start of your official career in medicine?
Dr. Hood:
I think the biggest thing, especially as now I'm launching two others into that same field, is that you have to recognize on the outset, and as you go through, it is naturally stressful and extremely tiring when you're going into residency. Including even med school, I mean, for that matter. It's just there's a lot that goes into it. The fatigue and that stress are definitely real. But on the other end, I think if you can just keep plugging through, as I work through it with my husband, is that you get to the other side of it as a hopefully caring, knowledgeable physician. So always keeping that part in mind.
I think the other thing that really is important is how important it is to make sure, when you don't know something, you tell somebody. So if it's a family ... I still even, like last week with practicing, had a child come in with something, some rash I had never seen. I had to be honest. I'm like, "I have no idea, but we're going to figure it out." So whether it's a knowledge base and the attending is asking you question or a family's asking you a question, or you don't know what you're seeing, ask questions and make sure that you do understand.
I think the other thing that was so important for me now as I look back is how much medicine and the culture of medicine evolves. I think keeping that in mind. So what you do on day one is highly unlikely to be anything like what you're going to be, like me, 20 some years later into practice. What you think you're going to do and what you end up doing are very, very different things. I think in that vein, it's important as you move through to make sure you're learning new skills, and that you can say yes to some things so that you can learn things outside of medicine that'll also help you be a better doctor.
Renee Tidwell:
I think, Dr. Hood, that's important really in a lot of aspects of life is saying when you don't know. Whether it's asking for help or just being honest and saying, "I don't know, but we're going to find the answers." Also, I think you kind of hit on, at the beginning of your career just recognizing it's going to be hard, but if you keep plugging through, just like medicine evolves, practicing medicine evolves, everything kind of has its own stage, is so important.
Dr. Hood:
I think looking ... myself as a pediatrician, what I was 20 years ago is very different now. So I think pivoting on the evolution, you evolve into who you are too.
Renee Tidwell:
Yes, absolutely. Looking back on your life, were there some more stressful moments for you where you felt it was hard to balance all that you had on your plate?
Dr. Hood:
I think our plate, Greg and I, my husband, was always balanced, but when things would be added to it that were completely unexpected. One of our children got really ill through his high school ... basically, throughout his whole high school timeframe. So adding that in. And then having my mother, aging mother and the passing away of her over the course of the last couple years. Those kind of things, where your plates balance, but then you've got to add all of this extra. That was always hard for us to figure that part out. But again, you just keep plugging away, and then you there's ... You get on the other side of it a different person, but at the same time learning from what that has brought for you.
I think the other part for us, because we were two full-time ... What I mean by full, with emphasis on full is both of our offices ... I mean, we were 10 and 12 hour kind of days. So having three kids, two physicians working like that was the balance of, "If I can't make it to a kid thing, who was?" And, "How are we going to take a family vacation if we already had this much time out of the office and limited on a certain number of vacation days." So balancing the income stream to support three kids. At the same time, really wanting to take some vacations together. I think that was stressful because we couldn't always line those things up really well. But I think what we found was how very important family and friends can be. My husband's parents moved around the corner from us, literally hop, skip and a jump. So in a pinch we could always say, "Hey, help us with this part," or, "Cook dinner for them," or, "go pick them up." That was really a very blessed thing for us.
Renee Tidwell:
Dr. Hood, when you think about the word balance, which our whole podcast episode is on today, what really does balance mean to you?
Dr. Hood:
I thought a lot about this question. Because I think, in today's terminology, with a lot of the new physician is everything about a balanced life. I mean, I think everybody has a different definition, but for me, as I was thinking about this, is I came up with the idea that it's incredibly fluid. There's not one time ... If it's how I was balanced now in my life, to how I was balanced as I put three toddlers, two full-time, us as parents, a dog, a cat, living in California on our own, those kind of things, that that's incredibly different than now. Now we have two full-time parents working, three adult kids. Now we have three dogs because we can't have enough dogs. And all the other various commitments we have.
One of the ways that we balanced was it was very important to us to have in-home care. Just for us, that was just an important thing that Greg and I committed to. So we had nannies from all over the world, like Czechoslovakia and Sweden and South Africa. They were really helpful while we lived in California. My mom also happened to be out there for a brief part of it as well. So she was very beneficial.
No matter how busy though, and this is where I think the balance comes in, and really what I focused on was, if my husband's my primary focus at the moment because he's with me, that's what I'm focused on. If my kids are here, that's what I'm focused on. So we had to make some sacrifices with that. In my mind, I always bring this up when I talk about it, is my house was never the cleanest. I mean, we had cats, we had kids, I did not focus on that. I mean, it wasn't like it was hoarding situation, but I was not focused on vacuuming once a week, that kind of thing. That was just put off. We made laundry day a family thing. We would, when the kids were young, pile all the laundry and sing. Throw them into big piles. Put all the colors together in this. Anyway, it was a fun thing.
Dinner times would be fun when we would get home, even if it was cooking dinner at seven or eight o'clock at night. Make them themed dinner so that they could have fun. This was Italian night, or whatever. I would take one of them at a time to the grocery with me. We would talk about things in the grocery and kind of play when we did that. We would take kids on one-on-one dates. And then we'd just let slide what could slide if we had to. There were certain things that had to be focused on. So balance, I figure is found in what you are focusing on and what you make your life to be at that moment. I think you just can't have one definition.
Renee Tidwell:
I think that's so important. It sounds like y'all were able to balance your life, that when you were in that moment, you could focus on it without your mind being elsewhere and what maybe you were missing out on or needed to be doing. I love what you're saying about you've prioritized for your family what was going to be important. I know for us, we've kind of always hit on this bedtime thing. It works for us. It doesn't work for every family. But as a mom, I feel like we're so ingrained that things are supposed to be a certain way or we need to stick to a certain schedule. I think across the board, I'm not a physician, but I feel like that that's kind of one of those things as a mom, across the board, you have things in your head that you have to maybe figure out a way to let go of. How do you think your family came to a system that worked for y'all?
Dr. Hood:
I think as best we could hold routine on all the days that we could. I mean, every now and then, I would have days off anytime we were on call, we were on post-call days, we would have the day off. So we'd have a routine on that day. On the weekends, if we weren't on call, we'd have a really good weekend routine. And then just not sweating. I say this later, too, but you just can't sweat some of the small stuff. I mean, I think that it's really critical for kids. We know that a routine bedtime ... There were times where me and my husband, we would get home and they'd already be in bed. I mean, that was just what it was. But I think you just do the best you can.
The message I say as well as we come down a little bit in this talk is just, if you love them and you show them your support and do all of those things, I mean, it does work out if that's ... I think, as the mom, if you love them, even if those things are details that you feel are so important, if they don't happen all the time, so what?
Renee Tidwell:
It's okay.
Dr. Hood:
It's okay.
Renee Tidwell:
Right. Well, let's skip over to your practice that you have going on now. When you onboard new doctors, do you have any type of process with them? Do you have anything you tell them to help them get settled or into a new rhythm?
Dr. Hood:
Our biggest is introducing them to protocols. We have a notebook that we just continuously update. So they get a big notebook of onboarding. Like, "These are all the things we do in our practice." We have a wonderful practice administrator who sits with them those first couple days. Does all the process questions. Knows our computer better, I think, sometimes than us, as far as our EMR and the little things that they do. They also sit with one or two of the doctors, both seasoned and newer, so that they can see how things get done. And then they're immediately, from a governance perspective, put on our clinical committee, so that they can be a part of helping us and educating us, because they're fresh out of ... Typically, they're younger and may have some good input for us. And then any of our non-partner meetings, they're included in on as well. So they feel a part of it. We just tell them up front, "All of us can answer questions, come talk to us."
Renee Tidwell:
That's great. I feel like that would make it easier to get into a rhythm or a process there. I'm going to hop back to your kids for a minute. They're older now. Mine are younger. How did you and your husband, also a full-time physician, manage life with having small children?
Dr. Hood:
The biggest thing ... We've also had conversations with our kids throughout. Even now, I mean, at holidays we're like, "Did we do it okay?" Even now there's even some self-doubt. We just recognized, my husband and I both, we couldn't be at every event. We couldn't be at every basketball game. Every one of these things. But one of us would be. We always made a priority of getting one of us there. Now, big things like graduations and those sort of things, obviously we're both there. We made that commitment to those sort of things.
They were also all very involved in big time sport things like swimming and club swimming. Two of our daughters for brief time did fencing. One of them did Irish dancing. So we were always going to out-of-town competitions and those kind of things. Clearly, we already talked about earlier in the talk that we couldn't make time for all our vacations, so those became sort of the vacation, in the lightest sense order, because they weren't always that relaxing, but it was time away from the office. We would make sure one of us got to one of those kinds of events.
And then both, Greg and I, we were always constantly, "Well, this isn't perfect, but you know what? We're living well. The kids are happy. For the most part, doing great in school and having good athletic abilities as well." I focused on the big picture and didn't worry. One of my daughters always says, "Why does my hair always look so bad in our pictures?" I'm like, "Because I did not want to brush it."
Renee Tidwell:
Wasn't a priority.
Dr. Hood:
Was not a priority to brush it and put it up in ponytails and bows and all that. And then two of them went on to do college athletics. So we continued to be a part of those sort of things all the way up into college as well. And then I think little things, kind of touches even on some of our previous comments is we would occasionally have Hamburger Helper. I mean, not like the healthiest thing, but you know what? You can have it ready in 10 minutes. Just making sure that, again, that you're just there and not sweating, like I've already said. Any of those sort of things. Just focus on being that mother that knows how to love their children. And it works.
Renee Tidwell:
Those are good tips. You doing Hamburger Helper some nights gave you more quality time to spend as a family. They were fed.
Dr. Hood:
Right.
Renee Tidwell:
They were happy.
Dr. Hood:
Yes.
Renee Tidwell:
I don't think you've mentioned on this yet, but I'm going to brag on in a minute, two of your three kids are going on to be physicians, correct?
Dr. Hood:
Correct.
Renee Tidwell:
So that's a testimony that y'all did something right. Because if they felt like that their upbringing wasn't what they may want for their own families, they wouldn't be going into medicine. That to me is a true testimony that what you're saying here is great advice for the rest of us. Maybe on a lighter note, do you have any funny stories you want to share? I'm sure you've got a few.
Dr. Hood:
There are quite a few. The two I picked though that I thought were just classic was, Connor, our youngest, was a basketball player too. At one point, 30 minutes after practice was over, I got a phone call, "Is one of you going to come pick your son up from practice?" I had assumed that my father-in-law was. My husband had assumed I ... Anyway. I don't know whose responsibility it was, but anyway. So we did forget a kid once.
The other big funny one was we had a fencing tournament. At one point, two of our girls were both fencers. They were in the national championship. It was out in LA. From the start to the end of it, there was no way we could both be out there for a full 10 days, which is how long the whole thing took. So my husband took the first leg, and I was going to join him. I had a flight. Everything was perfectly planned. We were going to have dinner on a Wednesday night. And then he was going to go to the airport and fly out the next morning. Well, of course, middle of whatever time of the year it was, big storm. I got delayed. So I didn't fly out till the next day. We literally ... He brought them to the airport to hands on. Threw me the hotel key, and I threw him the car keys. He loaded the plane. He said, "I think the rental car is here in the parking garage." Anyway. Those kind of things where you navigate and just, again, make it work.
Renee Tidwell:
Just life, right?
Dr. Hood:
Yes.
Renee Tidwell:
Ships passing sometimes, but choosing your priorities.
Dr. Hood:
Right.
Renee Tidwell:
What have you learned from all of your experience working as a physician, and as a mother, wife, friend, member of the community? What would you feel is beneficial to share for our audience today?
Dr. Hood:
I was at lunch recently with a friend. I had said something about something that had happened. She said, "Oh, it's just a season of life." I said, "Well, that absolutely fits in this." We just have different seasons, the toddler season, the elementary, the teenage years, woo, college years, that sort of thing. I think recognizing that things will change. Like I said, part of this earlier, was practice isn't the same for me now. When I first started, which even made life with toddlers harder, was our office did not have an end time. So when we would go to the work every day, except for Saturday ... Well, even Saturday and Sunday, I guess I'd take that back. Every day, you never knew when you would leave. Sometimes in the middle of winter, in 2009 when H1N1 hit, I was getting home at eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night for five months straight. It was just really ... It was tough. That's just the way our practice functioned. It was a beautiful day if you could leave the office by 5:00 or 5:30.
But as we've had new docs come on board, they're like, "We're not sure about this leaving at eight o'clock at night. Isn't there something we can change about this?" Some of us were like, "No, because PAA," that's the name of our practice, "has always been like that." And then ultimately, we're like, "Maybe we could." Now we do have an end time, Monday through Sunday. It's a huge quality of life game changer that I just didn't recognize. I can go to office and know my last patient, every day, will be at five o'clock. That's been huge. It's changed take home pay. It's changed things in that ... So you have to always take into account, "When I make big changes, how does that apply?" But as far as that season of life comment, I'm in a great season now, because my kids are grown and I have an end time. I'm more involved now with SVMIC. All of those things have been moving parts that are in a great place now.
Renee Tidwell:
What's some advice you may give to new moms of your patients?
Dr. Hood:
One that I try to always tell, the newborn size, you can't really spoil that baby in that first year, because a spoiled baby has to be one that wants something on the other end. Well, all they want to be is loved. So hold them, love on them, kiss ... All that kind of thing. Dance with them, listen to music, all the good things. I think as I look back, my three kids were ... they're just the brightest stars of my life. And then if you love them and you just let them grow, and you foster, all those kind of things. I will have to say, this is off my scripted sort of things I wanted to say, don't use technology until they're older. You don't need any of the tech things for babies. They will learn to talk better, they'll learn to socialize better, they'll be more emotional if we don't use technology. What I tell them is an awake baby is a tech-free zone. Really important in that regard. And then I just tell my kids I love them all the time.
Renee Tidwell:
I feel like that advice for new moms is so great. What do you, or have you done in the past, when things get hectic or overwhelming, to help bring yourself back to a stable place or a feeling of balance for you?
Dr. Hood:
Since college, I have always been a runner. Not like a marathon runner, but just a runner. It's my time to de-stress and center myself. I've run in the rain and the snow. SVMIC, we've had some trips where I've just run in all kinds of different, wonderful places. I've run with migraines because it's a great medicine. Those sort of things. When my kids were young, I got single strollers that you could jog with. And then I got a double stroller that you could jog with so that I could take two kids with me. It's always been enjoyable. I always come back feeling good. Except the one time I fell and had bruises from head to toe. It was one of those things, but I got back out and did it again. Exercise is my definite stress reliever. Now I've added, after the pandemic, it was very helpful, I added indoor rowing.
So I feel like for any mom, dad, caregiver of any kind, if you haven't found a routine for yourself or some way to exercise most days of the week, you are missing out on helping yourself feel better and be a better one of those caregiver models, whatever that is. It's just a very stable place for me, so I'm hopeful I can continue it for many years to come. If not, I've got a rower in the other room. I can do that. So, very beneficial.
Renee Tidwell:
I love that advice. I think it's easy, especially for new moms to kind of lose that piece of themselves. It's really important to have that time to think, to clear your head.
Dr. Hood:
Right.
Renee Tidwell:
Is there anything I haven't touched on that you want to tell our listeners today?
Dr. Hood:
I think a brief quick ... because I thought it was just important to summarize, that again, like we started out, we're not making this like, this is going to work for everybody, because it won't. Whatever works to make life just be good for your kids and for yourself is so critical. Even my daughter, the other day, the one that's going to be, hopefully, a pediatric neurologist is her goal right now, but something had come up. I was talking this and that, a little bit intense about it. She says, "Mom, like you said, don't sweat the small stuff." So I was like, "Oh, you took it all to heart." So you just have to find what really matters. She clearly has in her life and the way she's getting married in a few months. So don't worry about the hair bows, don't worry about vacuuming the house, just be a good parent. And then always, exercise is the best medicine.
Renee Tidwell:
I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Hood, for being with us today. This has been super great for me to hear.
Dr. Hood:
Thank you.
Renee Tidwell:
Thanks for listening, everyone.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Your Practice Made Perfect. Listen to more episodes, subscribe to the podcast and find show notes at svmic.com/podcast. The contents of this podcast are intended for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Policy holders are urged to consult with their personal attorney for legal advice as specific legal requirements may vary from state to state and change over time.
