Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: A mantra that I've always lived by was that I
Speaker 2: overcome odds, right like I overcome things that come my way,
Speaker 2: and I figure it out and I land on my
Speaker 2: two feet.
Speaker 1: Felicia Shoe's biggest dream was to become a doctor, and
Speaker 1: after years of dedication, she achieved that dream, but it
Speaker 1: took a heavy toll on her.
Speaker 2: I almost saw myself as this piece of glass and
Speaker 2: it got a crack, and you get up and you
Speaker 2: try to put a little band aid on it. You
Speaker 2: know that doesn't work, and then another crack, and another
Speaker 2: and another, and then you kind of just wonder, at
Speaker 2: what point is it just gonna shatter?
Speaker 1: On today's show, how do you know when to let
Speaker 1: go of a dream? I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who
Speaker 1: studies human behavior, and this is a Slight Change of Plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. Felicia is actually
Speaker 1: a longtime fan of A Slight Change of Plans. Her husband, Chen,
Speaker 1: reached out to us earlier this year to share her story.
Speaker 1: She'd never spoken publicly about her experience before, but felt
Speaker 1: that this show was the right place to finally open up.
Speaker 1: I really hope that her story will help anyone who's
Speaker 1: grappling with the prospect of leaving something behind, something that
Speaker 1: they thought would define their future. From the time Felicia
Speaker 1: was a little kid, she knew she wanted to be
Speaker 1: a doctor. It felt like a calling.
Speaker 2: My introduction to medicine in some ways was through Eastern medicine. Actually,
Speaker 2: my mom's best friend is an acupuncturist. I used to
Speaker 2: go and she would babysit me, and I would say
Speaker 2: in the office, I would watch people come in with
Speaker 2: like frozen shoulder and then like you do acupuncture and
Speaker 2: you just put all these needles into someone. It looks
Speaker 2: kind of freaky, and then like she takes it out
Speaker 2: and suddenly they can move their shoulder.
Speaker 3: For me, like as a kid, I was like, what
Speaker 3: the heck, what is that?
Speaker 2: Like I can't see what the needles are doing, but
Speaker 2: like somehow it fixed something. I think that was the
Speaker 2: first time that medicine kind of looked more like magic
Speaker 2: for me, and I was like, I want to be
Speaker 2: a doctor. I want to connect with people. I want
Speaker 2: to help people in like a time of need.
Speaker 1: Where do you think your drive to help people come from?
Speaker 2: My mom had really severe depression, and I think that
Speaker 2: was really tough on me as a kid. I think
Speaker 2: as a kid you kind of soak up, you know,
Speaker 2: all the emotions around you. Took up way more than
Speaker 2: you think, and I think I so badly wanted to
Speaker 2: make things better for her. I just didn't know how.
Speaker 1: What was your parents response when you first told them
Speaker 1: you wanted to be a doctor.
Speaker 2: You kind of think like Asian parents, like, oh, They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you have to be a doctor or nothing else, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course it's a stereotype.
Speaker 3: It's the stereotype.
Speaker 2: But my mom the first thing was like are you sure,
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, what do you mean? She
Speaker 2: really prioritized happiness and so for her, she was like,
Speaker 2: will you be happy being a doctor, because doctors that
Speaker 2: I know, like have no time for family, no time
Speaker 2: for vacation, no time for happiness and joy. So they
Speaker 2: actually tried to really distract me from medicine, like they
Speaker 2: tried everything to say like.
Speaker 3: What about this, what about research? What about engineering?
Speaker 2: But then I guess I was the one who was like,
Speaker 2: hell bent, I'm pursuing it.
Speaker 1: You end up going down this path of pre medical training,
Speaker 1: So tell me about that. What kind of resources and
Speaker 1: time did you invest in this process?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always interesting when someone asked me, like, how
Speaker 2: many years have you put into being a doctor, And
Speaker 2: I just I never know what to say, because is
Speaker 2: it med school? Is it med school plus undergrad? Is
Speaker 2: it medical plus undergrad plus high school? It's the sort
Speaker 2: of classic like you gotta get your GPA, you gotta
Speaker 2: do all the activities, you got to explore, you got
Speaker 2: to do research.
Speaker 1: So you were just heads down studying nights, weekends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty brutal.
Speaker 1: Okay, so a lot of sacrifice, A lot.
Speaker 2: Of sacrifice because it's like ten twelve years of training
Speaker 2: and after MIT I ended up just hopping across the
Speaker 2: river going to Harvard Medical.
Speaker 1: School, no big deal, you know, as we all do.
Speaker 2: And then just kind of leaned into medicine. I really
Speaker 2: fell in love with the thinking behind medicine, feeling like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm putting things together in my brain. I
Speaker 2: can help this person and to be able to be
Speaker 2: there for them in that moment. The combination was pretty
Speaker 2: much what cent shift for me.
Speaker 1: So let's transition to your residency. This was the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty you did your residency at UCLA. It's
Speaker 1: the height of the pandemic. What was your mindset going
Speaker 1: into residency?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I'll back up a little bit, because March
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, how I was feeling was like on top
Speaker 2: of the world. At first, you know, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm about to graduate med school, Like I'm about to
Speaker 2: finally become a doctor. At this point, I had met
Speaker 2: my now husband, and I was like, I have met
Speaker 2: the love of my life.
Speaker 3: We're going to get.
Speaker 2: Married, We're already engaged. Things are going on track. If
Speaker 2: it's not obvious, I'm a planner, So things were going
Speaker 2: according to pay check the boxes, check the boxes, correct
Speaker 2: my timeline that I had laid out. We were on track,
Speaker 2: and COVID happened and the whole world shut down, and
Speaker 2: we decided to live with my parents to make sure,
Speaker 2: like if quarantine were to separate us, at least we're
Speaker 2: stuck together. And it was in those few months from
Speaker 2: March to May that that's when everything changed, because I
Speaker 2: started noticing that something was really not right with my dad.
Speaker 2: And he is this like I don't know how to
Speaker 2: describe it. It's like he's your like stoic Asian dad.
Speaker 2: Everything is fine, everything is cheery, no pain, everything's good.
Speaker 2: And there was one morning where I walked downstairs and
Speaker 2: I heard this like really guttural sound coming from his room.
Speaker 2: And I walked in and my dad was basically sitting
Speaker 2: up in bed, keeled over, just come completely drenched and
Speaker 2: sweat and groaning. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what's wrong? And he said the pain was really bad
Speaker 2: and it was going to his back. And I'm like
Speaker 2: a new grat, like what do I know? But I
Speaker 2: was like, something is really really wrong. And so I
Speaker 2: ended up sending the imaging to a friend back at
Speaker 2: Harvard and she sent it to her cousin who's an
Speaker 2: abdominal radiologist, and she told me that my dad had
Speaker 2: this huge tumor in his pancreas that was basically pancretic cancer.
Speaker 2: And so I remember like walking outside in the dark
Speaker 2: because I didn't want anyone to see me. I have
Speaker 2: a thing where like I can't cry in front of
Speaker 2: my family, and honestly, I was just devastated. And it
Speaker 2: was this thing where like I was trying to process it,
Speaker 2: but at the same time like get myself together to
Speaker 2: be able to go in and tell my parents what
Speaker 2: the finding was. So that was my mindset right before residency.
Speaker 2: My dad is sick, possibly dying. I was starting residency,
Speaker 2: which is supposed to be one of the most grueling
Speaker 2: times of your life. And it was a residency during
Speaker 2: COVID in which we had no idea what the hell
Speaker 2: was going on.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about let's talk about residency amidst this
Speaker 1: perfect storm that's happening in your life. What was it
Speaker 1: like day to day?
Speaker 3: Have you ever watched The Pit?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I'm obsessed with the Pit.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, it's incredibly accurate. I can't watch it.
Speaker 2: It's like too heavy. Anyway, it was a pretty brutal schedule.
Speaker 2: I would say on average, you easily worked eighty tw
Speaker 2: one hundred hours per week, and your shifts could be
Speaker 2: up to twenty eight hours long.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: You go in at seven am Tuesday morning and then
Speaker 2: you go home at Wednesday twelve one pm. And it's
Speaker 2: kind of this like non stop things happening all one
Speaker 2: after another.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there was this added element to all of
Speaker 1: this burden, which is that it was early months of
Speaker 1: COVID where doctors and other healthcare practitioners don't necessarily know
Speaker 1: everything they need to know about how to respond or
Speaker 1: help their patients or what all the risk factors are.
Speaker 1: So how did that compound the stress?
Speaker 2: Oh man, this was a time when there weren't enough
Speaker 2: masks and the gowns that could protect you. That at
Speaker 2: least people thought they could protect you from COVID. We
Speaker 2: didn't even know if they were truly protective. We would
Speaker 2: have these like brown paper bags that we would just
Speaker 2: hang up on the wall and after you used your mask,
Speaker 2: you would dump it into the bag and then you
Speaker 2: would reuse it, which that's actually it just doesn't work,
Speaker 2: But that's the best we had.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would fear, of course, for like myself getting it,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't just myself, because I would go home,
Speaker 2: I would be worried about my husband getting it. I
Speaker 2: wanted to be there for my parents because during this
Speaker 2: whole time, I was still advocating for my dad, like
Speaker 2: I was still trying to push his care forward.
Speaker 1: And were you still living with your parents so were
Speaker 1: they at risk?
Speaker 2: No, so I was living in la at that time.
Speaker 2: But I would want to be delivering food to them.
Speaker 2: But like I also didn't want to expose them. So
Speaker 2: it was this constant internal battle with myself of like
Speaker 2: I needed to help my parents, but by helping them,
Speaker 2: I should actually stay away, but also like I should
Speaker 2: be trying to spend time with them just in case
Speaker 2: my dad doesn't have time left. So it was just
Speaker 2: like all of this conflicting thoughts. That was also when
Speaker 2: there was a lot of the anti Asian sentiment going around,
Speaker 2: and I was really worried, and at the time, I
Speaker 2: was like, don't go out for groceries, like just stay.
Speaker 3: Home, order in. It was just like a total nightmare.
Speaker 2: You kind of felt like you were failing on all
Speaker 2: fronts because I'd be at work and I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I should be a better partner and daughter, but then
Speaker 2: like I'd be there, but then I'm trying to be
Speaker 2: a doctor and then trying to keep the grief of COVID. Honestly,
Speaker 2: like the worst of COVID surges in LA were really bad,
Speaker 2: and I would come home and I just like I'd
Speaker 2: remember getting to the door and being like, okay, like
Speaker 2: deep breath, going to leave this grief outside because there's
Speaker 2: already so much inside the house.
Speaker 3: But I think if you ask my husband I'm sure
Speaker 3: it leaked in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like you were very much just in
Speaker 1: survival mode, right, like, get through every day unscathed and
Speaker 1: just pope you survive the next day too. When did
Speaker 1: you first sort of recognize the toll that this environment
Speaker 1: was taking on you, both physically and mentally.
Speaker 2: There was no one defining moment or disaster for me
Speaker 2: that forced me to be like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 2: won't do. I almost saw myself as this piece of
Speaker 2: glass and it got a crack, and you get up
Speaker 2: and you try to put a little band aid on it,
Speaker 2: and then another crack, and another and another, and then
Speaker 2: you kind of just wonder, at what point is it
Speaker 2: just gonna shatter? But I think the first time where
Speaker 2: I was kind of forced into reality was actually in
Speaker 2: November of twenty twenty, so I was about six months
Speaker 2: into residency. My dad had just gotten most of his
Speaker 2: chemo done, and on the bright side, my dad actually
Speaker 2: responded really well to the chemo. The surgeon said, you
Speaker 2: know what, I think it's shrunk enough that I think
Speaker 2: we can try to take it.
Speaker 3: Out, but let's do it quickly. Let's do it.
Speaker 2: End of November and two days before my dad was
Speaker 2: supposed to get surgery at UCLA. I had one of
Speaker 2: the most intense abdominal pains that I've ever experienced in
Speaker 2: my life. And when I showed up in the emergency room,
Speaker 2: the things that went through my mind it's like super
Speaker 2: sad to even think about. The first was wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 2: like I can't afford to be here because my dad
Speaker 2: has his surgery in two days and I have to
Speaker 2: be there for him and my family.
Speaker 3: What the heck is this? Like get me out kind
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 2: The second was dang it, like this is the middle
Speaker 2: of the night, I have to work the next day.
Speaker 3: What am I gonna do? And maybe I.
Speaker 2: Did register it on some level that something has to give,
Speaker 2: But the thought in my mind was like, well, it's
Speaker 2: not like I can stop being my dad's daughter. I
Speaker 2: can't stop being a resident, Like what am I supposed
Speaker 2: to do? Like, so there was no choice but to
Speaker 2: kind of keep going. And it was like everyone suffers
Speaker 2: in residency, Like we all do this, so just keep going,
Speaker 2: Like what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: You encoded this as a sign of personal weakness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought of like why can't I be better?
Speaker 2: What's wrong with me? It was kind of like I
Speaker 2: was blaming myself, and then I felt guilty actually because
Speaker 2: also I was like, oh my god, I'm worrying my family.
Speaker 2: They should just be focused on the surgery, and now
Speaker 2: I'm putting them through this extra worry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what struck me and what you said. And I
Speaker 1: think many people can relate to this level of self sacrifice,
Speaker 1: as you said, Well, I can't stop being my dad's daughter,
Speaker 1: and I can't stop being a resident. I guess I'll
Speaker 1: just have to stop caring about myself. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's essentially what you did. Oh, I can just stop
Speaker 1: investing in this body and this human that I am
Speaker 1: right now. And I imagine many people have to confront
Speaker 1: that at times where they're a caregiver or they have
Speaker 1: an incredibly demanding job and it's just their own needs
Speaker 1: come life. If at all, it sounds like you didn't
Speaker 1: even put yourself on the list. Yeah, you took yourself
Speaker 1: off the list entirely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I did.
Speaker 2: But it's crazy because in the moment, like I would
Speaker 2: like to say that I'm a somewhat reflective person, like
Speaker 2: I think a lot about how I'm thinking, and yet
Speaker 2: just totally miss this in the moment, like it just
Speaker 2: wasn't even a thing.
Speaker 1: I think, when you are so maximally stressed and you
Speaker 1: have zero mental bandwidth, who would have the ability to introspect.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're barely sleeping, you barely have time to eat,
Speaker 1: you're working ungodly shift lengths. I'm not surprised at all
Speaker 1: that that would be sort of the instinctual response what
Speaker 1: was the nature of your pain and what did that
Speaker 1: mean for your work?
Speaker 2: So I found out that my pain was actually intestinal spasms,
Speaker 2: which can happen in stress or like a body's response
Speaker 2: to stress. And at the time I didn't really realize
Speaker 2: where that was really coming from. I just thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm stressed with my dad's surgery and residency, like duh.
Speaker 2: But the doctor came in and said like, oh, I
Speaker 2: think you just need to rest more, and then laughed
Speaker 2: because she knew I was a resident. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's making me feel better or worse,
Speaker 2: because it's kind of like she said it as like
Speaker 2: this is all you need. You don't have cancer, you
Speaker 2: don't have some disease. You know you're gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: You just have to rest. But like knowing that it was,
Speaker 2: you know, impossible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask you whether that particular
Speaker 1: diagnosis actually further perpetuated your self narrative of weakness. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I think stress is as physical as
Speaker 1: any other thing in the body, but psychologically we can
Speaker 1: code that differently, we can carry a different emotional valance
Speaker 1: for us. And so I'm curious to know whether you thought, yeah, Felicia,
Speaker 1: this is on you tough enough. Yeah, deal with your
Speaker 1: stress better a thousand persons, that's the culture here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone is stressed. Come on, you know, like everyone
Speaker 2: gets through it. Just deal with it. I felt so pathetic.
Speaker 2: My worst fear actually was that I needed surgery. So
Speaker 2: that part of me was like, Okay, good, I don't
Speaker 2: need surgery. But in some ways it made me think like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's not that big of a deal either, because if
Speaker 2: it's just stress, I can just keep going.
Speaker 1: When we return, Felicia tries to muscle her way through residency.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans, and it's all the stress Felicia was facing
Speaker 1: in her residency. There was one piece of good news
Speaker 1: in her personal life, her dad's surgery to remove the
Speaker 1: tumor and his pancreas had gone well. He was recovering,
Speaker 1: but Felicia's health it was only getting worse.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I referenced the cracks before in the glass.
Speaker 2: More and more and more cracks were coming up, like
Speaker 2: more than I could keep track of. It was this
Speaker 2: sort of rapidly increasing deterioration of my body. At one point,
Speaker 2: I was coming off of a twenty eight hour shift
Speaker 2: that had turned into twenty nine, and I noticed this
Speaker 2: really annoying rash on my neck starting to go into
Speaker 2: my ear. And it's one of those things where as
Speaker 2: a resident, you're like, Eh, it's fine, you just kind
Speaker 2: of move on. But then I realized, like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: is this shingles? And I don't know if you know shingles,
Speaker 2: but it's very much associated with sixty five year old
Speaker 2: or older aminocompromised, neither of which I was. That was
Speaker 2: probably the first time that I really looked at like wow,
Speaker 2: Like I came to the point where I'm effectively imminocompromised.
Speaker 2: What is wrong with my body? And this is where
Speaker 2: it gets a little heavy. But when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: I had a really traumatic experience with sexual abuse that
Speaker 2: forced me to grow up at the age of seven,
Speaker 2: and at the time, I kept it a secret because
Speaker 2: I thought that's what I had to do until I
Speaker 2: was eighteen. And I think the manifestations of hiding that
Speaker 2: trauma in my body is what kind of it makes
Speaker 2: my body respond to stress differently and was making my
Speaker 2: body not cope with all of this additional stress, like
Speaker 2: the intestinal spasms. And this was the first time where
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, there are reasons that I'm breaking
Speaker 2: down in a way that maybe other people aren't. Most
Speaker 2: people after a twenty eight hour would go home and sleep,
Speaker 2: they would get rest. For me, like I have an
Speaker 2: intense stomach ache after really traumatizing COVID, I see you
Speaker 2: shift and I'd go home and I like, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to sleep. And honestly, it reached this point
Speaker 2: where two things happened. The first was I will never
Speaker 2: forget this moment in the car. It was such a
Speaker 2: heartbreaking moment for me and my husband when he looked
Speaker 2: at me and I was on the way to the
Speaker 2: er and he said, I can't keep taking you to
Speaker 2: the er, like I just I can't handle this emotionally,
Speaker 2: like it's taking a lot on me, Like I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to make it about myself, but it's just a lot.
Speaker 2: And I think it took seeing someone else suffer on
Speaker 2: my behalf for me to be like, oh my god, wait,
Speaker 2: like this isn't just about me, Like I'm not just
Speaker 2: doing this to myself at this point. The second thing
Speaker 2: was that I realized, like I wasn't rerecizing myself. I'm
Speaker 2: aware when I'm not acting like myself, and it makes
Speaker 2: me more annoyed that I'm not being myself.
Speaker 1: I want to know how you were not being yourself.
Speaker 3: So I was at our twenty nine of a call.
Speaker 2: At this point, I had slept on literally two chairs
Speaker 2: that I had put together, ketchup stained two chairs in
Speaker 2: a call room. That was my brief fifteen minutes of
Speaker 2: sleep overnight, and all I could think about I was like,
Speaker 2: thank God, I made it to the end.
Speaker 3: I want to go home.
Speaker 2: And right before I was going to sign out, which
Speaker 2: is when you transfer over care to another resident coming in,
Speaker 2: they announced code like a code blue on the intercom,
Speaker 2: which basically means patient either as pulseless, not breathing.
Speaker 3: One of those and to remind.
Speaker 2: You, like the kid Felicia right, who just yeah, it
Speaker 2: felt like I had so much to give. Fast forwarding
Speaker 2: to myself, it was like the first thought that went
Speaker 2: through my mind, I'm so ashamed of this, was like,
Speaker 2: why couldn't he have coded twenty minutes from now? And
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, I cannot believe that.
Speaker 2: That is what I thought in that moment. And this
Speaker 2: was a patient I deeply cared for, reminded me of
Speaker 2: my own dad, And that's what came out of me.
Speaker 2: I wasn't recognizing myself and when I got home, did
Speaker 2: not sleep.
Speaker 1: Walk me through your thought process at that point? How
Speaker 1: were you thinking about whether to stay or whether to leave?
Speaker 1: For me?
Speaker 2: Like I needed a pro con list, Like I wrote
Speaker 2: this whole thing out with my husband and essentially kind
Speaker 2: of boiled it down like staying was for other people.
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I had spent so much of my life dedicated to this.
Speaker 2: Why would I give up one and a half years
Speaker 2: from finishing Quitting wasn't in my vocabulary?
Speaker 3: Was I disappointing my friends? My family?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What would everyone say? As much as.
Speaker 2: I'd love to say that I don't care what people think,
Speaker 2: I really care what people think.
Speaker 3: Of course, we are annoying. I know, it's very annoying.
Speaker 1: I got like a PhD in people pleasing girl, don't worry, Okay.
Speaker 3: I also have that PhD. God, it's so annoying. My
Speaker 3: co residence.
Speaker 2: The response that I got from initially even saying I'm
Speaker 2: considering it was like, oh my god, I can't do it.
Speaker 2: I felt like a horrible human being. I even thought
Speaker 2: like I should help my parents more by staying in
Speaker 2: the system, seeing how I saved my dad's life, Like
Speaker 2: by being in the system, why would I leave it?
Speaker 2: There was an element for me where I was like,
Speaker 2: we are in the midst of another COVID search, how
Speaker 2: could I possibly think about leaving now? In terms of leaving,
Speaker 2: my body was breaking down. I realized with a bit
Speaker 2: more clarity that it had to do with my trauma
Speaker 2: and my ability to recover. And at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, like I realized that I was kind of
Speaker 2: in a system that just like really.
Speaker 3: Didn't let me be human. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think these sorts of stressors they can pound, and
Speaker 1: they can prick your heart's memory, and they can resurface
Speaker 1: old wounds that you felt you had effectively buried or
Speaker 1: had resolved, And then you enter a deeply stressful environment
Speaker 1: like this one, and you just have fewer cognitive resources
Speaker 1: to keep some of that anxiety and whatever the trauma
Speaker 1: responses are at arm's length.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as you're saying that, I'm realizing it was
Speaker 2: like this spiral of shame around it because I had
Speaker 2: done the work and I had overcome a lot of this,
Speaker 2: I had unpacked all of this, and I was like,
Speaker 2: why is this even coming up again? Because I've already like,
Speaker 2: I've done the work.
Speaker 1: This is such an important part of your story.
Speaker 3: I just.
Speaker 1: We try to do the work. We try to be
Speaker 1: really good students when it comes to our mental health
Speaker 1: and processing our past and getting the quote work done.
Speaker 1: And then a big change comes our way and we're
Speaker 1: thrust into a new reality that challenges us and makes
Speaker 1: us feel like we are backtracking, or that we didn't
Speaker 1: develop sufficient defenses, or that we never actually overcame our demons,
Speaker 1: and it can feel so defeating in that moment to
Speaker 1: have to carry that in addition to all the active
Speaker 1: stressors that you're experiencing in your life. We can have
Speaker 1: trauma in our past, and when a change resurfaces that
Speaker 1: it doesn't just fill us with the anxiety and depression,
Speaker 1: but exactly what you said, which is a feeling of shame,
Speaker 1: like you didn't do a good enough job, and that's
Speaker 1: just not accurate.
Speaker 3: No, thank you. You're going to make me cry now.
Speaker 2: It's just a mantra that I've always lived by was
Speaker 2: that I overcome odds, right like I overcome things that
Speaker 2: come my way and I figure it out and I
Speaker 2: land on my two feet. And so this felt like
Speaker 2: I was completely betraying who I was. I kept telling
Speaker 2: myself if I quit, and I actually hate the word
Speaker 2: quitting because it implies you're taking the easy way out.
Speaker 2: And that was actually something my husband said when we
Speaker 2: were talking on this pro con of whether to leave
Speaker 2: or not. He was like, I noticed that you're using
Speaker 2: the word quit, almost like you're giving up, and then
Speaker 2: you're giving up to the trauma. You're giving up to this.
Speaker 2: Your body wasn't good enough, You're not good enough. You're
Speaker 2: letting everyone down.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're blaming yourself, and.
Speaker 2: It's actually the braver thing to think about leaving a
Speaker 2: system that has such a tight hold on you. And
Speaker 2: I think that shifted my mindset entirely where I was like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, actually leaving maybe the trying thing, the
Speaker 2: brave thing to do. And I think it up until
Speaker 2: that point, any decision that I was making, people always
Speaker 2: showered you with this phrase that like I always hated.
Speaker 3: But it was like, there's no wrong choice, you know.
Speaker 2: Like, did you choose your class, There's no wrong choice.
Speaker 2: Choose mescal, There's no wrong choice. And in this moment,
Speaker 2: even contemplating the decision of leaving, why it was so
Speaker 2: hard was it felt like I had no good choice right,
Speaker 2: Like it felt like I felt backed into a corner
Speaker 2: and either one was just bad. When I had on
Speaker 2: my list like all the reasons to stay, one thing
Speaker 2: I realized was all the reasons were for others, and
Speaker 2: the reasons for leaving were for me.
Speaker 1: So you told your supervisor? How did they respond and
Speaker 1: how did your colleagues respond?
Speaker 3: Not very well?
Speaker 2: There was such an intense social pressure to stay. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was ridiculous. I was actually shunned by co residents
Speaker 2: who heard that I might be considering leaving, and it
Speaker 2: made me feel like, oh my god, am I being
Speaker 2: a horrible human being for quitting and leaving them with
Speaker 2: this extra workload. Because medicine, unlike any other field. If
Speaker 2: you leave, they don't just hire someone to replace you.
Speaker 2: There was a very noticeable gap in the residency that
Speaker 2: other people have to make up for. I lost friends.
Speaker 2: It was really tough. The day that I had to
Speaker 2: go turn in my badge.
Speaker 3: I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: I had to ask my friend from my residency class
Speaker 2: to do it for me. Like the thought of walking
Speaker 2: into that hospital, possibly seeing some of these co residents
Speaker 2: who were clearly just really mad at me, I just
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. The first few weeks after leaving,
Speaker 2: I was just like, Oh my god, what have I done?
Speaker 2: I felt so guilty. I almost went back. There was
Speaker 2: another surge for COVID, and I was like, how could
Speaker 2: I just be sitting here on the sidelines helpless.
Speaker 3: I have to go back.
Speaker 2: And it took my friends, my family, my husband reminding me, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you made the brave choice. This is the right choice
Speaker 2: for you to prevent me from going back. My way
Speaker 2: of coping is like I need to explain it. I
Speaker 2: need to justify it. I need to rationalize it, I
Speaker 2: need to intellectualize it. I need to literally think of
Speaker 2: it in every single way I can. And so that's
Speaker 2: how I process it. I was so bitter. I was like,
Speaker 2: why did my dad have to get sick? Why did
Speaker 2: there have to be COVID? Why did I have to
Speaker 2: have trauma such that my body like can't cope. The
Speaker 2: whole time, I was like why is it that I
Speaker 2: have these limitations? Rather than thinking like, oh, these limitations
Speaker 2: are just a part of who I am as a
Speaker 2: result of my experiences.
Speaker 1: I think society tells us that we must fight every demon,
Speaker 1: we must overcome every weakness, we must do whatever it
Speaker 1: takes to achieve every dream. And like another model is
Speaker 1: to say, actually, no, it's okay to engage in radical acceptance,
Speaker 1: like maybe there's nothing to keep fighting there, you know.
Speaker 1: And I do think that that's not the narrative that's celebrated.
Speaker 3: Even these days.
Speaker 2: Like I need my husband to sometimes remind me of
Speaker 2: that this is who you are, Like stop fighting it,
Speaker 2: you know, like just love yourself for who you are.
Speaker 3: Why is that so hard?
Speaker 2: And it's like, but like why can't I just change
Speaker 2: that one thing and like make it work? Because yeah,
Speaker 2: I wish I could have been in a different state
Speaker 2: that I could have pushed through like everyone else.
Speaker 1: It's been four years since you quit. I'm going to
Speaker 1: use the word quit because I want us to reclaim
Speaker 1: quit as a positive word.
Speaker 3: Okay, you can do that.
Speaker 1: It's been four years since you quit being a doctor,
Speaker 1: and these days your work involves researching and investing in
Speaker 1: healthcare startups. I'm so curious to hear how you feel
Speaker 1: your identity has shifted over time.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was this moment, maybe a year or
Speaker 2: so after I've left, I was on a hike with
Speaker 2: my husband, and in those three hours, I came up
Speaker 2: with a new fiction book idea, like a short story idea.
Speaker 2: We came up with like two different startup ideas that
Speaker 2: we were kind of just like hashing out and they
Speaker 2: didn't work out, but like we did the exercise of like, oh.
Speaker 3: And then what if this and what if that?
Speaker 2: And I got in the car and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I don't think we could have done
Speaker 2: that a year ago, because I was so underwater that
Speaker 2: this creative side of me was completely silenced and just
Speaker 2: recognizing like I wasn't whole before, and now I actually
Speaker 2: more whole in some ways because this other side of
Speaker 2: me that I love can actually come out now. I've
Speaker 2: had so many moments with my family. We started a family.
Speaker 2: I had a beautiful baby girl, and right now I
Speaker 2: am hanging on to the fact that she can't quite
Speaker 2: walk on her own, but wants to walk everywhere, and
Speaker 2: so she is holding my hand and like this feeling
Speaker 2: those like little fingers wrap around your hands and like
Speaker 2: walk you around. It's one of the best feelings.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: There's so many things that I can do now that
Speaker 2: I couldn't before and that I definitely wouldn't have imagined this.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you've had a
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans in your own life, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear your story. You can reach us by email
Speaker 1: at slight Change at pushkin dot fm. And if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow a Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans wherever you listen to podcasts next time.
Speaker 1: My friend and the former Surgeon General, the Vig Morphy,
Speaker 1: returns to this for a conversation about connection, community and love.
Speaker 4: Why are so many of the people that I meet
Speaker 4: all across America and increasing across the world, why are
Speaker 4: they so unhappy? So many people would say, I guess
Speaker 4: this is just the way life is. Everyone's feeling this
Speaker 4: way and I refuse to believe that because I don't
Speaker 4: think that we are consigned to live a life of
Speaker 4: emptiness where we're just unhappy because life is hard and
Speaker 4: as a result unhappy. Life can be hard, and life
Speaker 4: often is hard, but that doesn't mean that it has
Speaker 4: to be unfulfilling.
Speaker 1: That's next time on A Slight Change of Plans. See
Speaker 1: you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Changed
Speaker 1: family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week.