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Okay. Did it show up on your screen? Houston Asian American Archive 2 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University Yes. Um, yeah, for some reason, it's not really...

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Okay. So today is July 16, 2021. I'm Kristie Lynn, an intern with the Houston Asian American Archives. And today I'm having the privilege of interviewing Dr. Feibi Zheng. So thank you for joining me today.

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And to start off, I guess, I want to ask, where and when were you born? If you could just talk a little bit about-about that? Yeah. Well, thank you for having me.

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I was born in Fuzhou, in mainland China in 1983. Could you describe the neighborhood that you lived in? And if your family moved around while you were living in China?

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Yeah, we lived with my maternal grandmother. But I also spent a lot of time at my other grandparents' house. So, we had both sides.

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My dad has five brothers and sisters, and my mom has three older sisters, and so had a lot of cousins on both sides that were around my age. So we were always over at the grandparents' houses playing.

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That's nice. So you spent a lot of time with your extended family. And can I ask, do you have any siblings? Nope, just me. How was that like, growing up as

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an only child? Well, it was pretty normal in China. And all of the cousins that I had, and all my classmates my age were, were only children.

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I did have some older cousins that had siblings. So, I didn't know that it was that different. We had plenty of neighborhood kids and cousins to play with, so it didn't feel like we grew up alone or anything.

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Yeah, that's nice. And also, did you—what kind of family gatherings did you have, if any? Like, did you do

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anything big for holidays? Or what holidays did you celebrate? Yeah, so we would get together probably almost every weekend at the grandparents' house.

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So I remember a lot of meals there. My grandfather was really into mahjong, and like had this, like, permanent space in the house

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that was basically dedicated to playing mahjong, and like, people from all over the neighborhood would come and play. And in terms of holidays, we basically celebrated, I guess, the normal Chinese

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holidays like Mid-Autumn Festival , and, and the New Year. And so I would say that I guess for a Chinese upbringing,

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it seems pretty typical. Um Fuzhou — I'm sorry. You froze up... All of our city Can you hear me now?

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Oh, yeah. You just froze up earlier when you were talking about Fuzhou. Houston Asian American Archive 3 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University Yeah. So I was saying Fuzhou is a small city in China.

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But even the small cities in China are quite densely populated. Um, and I would say that, during the period of time that I lived in China, it was still n-not as densely

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populated as it is now. Like there weren't as many high-rise apartment buildings and it was mostly one and two-story homes.

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And that's changed dramatically now because now you can't find any one- or two-story homes, hardly ever, in Fuzhou. And could you perhaps talk about some of the memories that you had as a child? Is there any particular meal

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or games or hobbies that you remember enjoying back then? Yeah, so Fuzhou is a city that is close to the ocean. And so it's very heavy on seafood. And Fuzhou is also

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just across the street from Taiwan. And so there are a lot of common foods. So I think one would probably be fishball, like really into fishballs.

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And whenever we go home to visit China, that's one of the first things we get. And did you,

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as a child, did you have an idea of like, what you wanted to be when you grow up? Like, did you have something that you would call—consider a dream job? Um, no. I wouldn't say that I had something specific in mind.

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My dad was a high school teacher, and my mom worked in a medical research lab. But I wouldn't say that there was a specific occupation that I was really

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interested in at the time. Um, speaking of that, did your parents ever try to impose to you about your like future career? Or did they, I

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guess, try to motivate you to become say, like a teacher, like your dad, or anything like that? Um, no, not specifically. I would say that my

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mom was actually hoping that I wasn't going to become a , the training pathway is so long in the United States for that. But in terms of a specific career, I don't

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think they encouraged me to do one thing or the other. And the last question for this section: would you say—what were some of the values that your parents emphasized in your upbringing that you really remember?

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Definitely persistence and hard work. I would say that, my dad, because he was a math teacher, he really

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emphasized the importance of being great at math. And even in the summertime, like, even after we moved to the United States, when most kids are just at camp or playing during the summertime, I would have to spend an hour

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every day doing math problems. And that actually ended up opening a lot of doors for me. So I—because my math skills were relatively advanced, I was able to skip

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several grades, and I actually started college when I was 15. And great at math. Great. That actually transitions nicely into the next section.

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Could you tell me when y-your family immigrated to the United States? Houston Asian American Archive 4 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University

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Yeah, so my dad actually moved a year before us; he moved in 1989. And then my mom and I came over a year later. My dad was enrolled in the Master program for American Literature at Sonoma

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State University in California. And then my mom and I came in 1990 after he'd gotten a little bit more settled. And how old were you at that time?

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I was six. So you spent—or you were enrolled in middle school and high school here? I actually started off in elementary school when I came, and then, and then I've been here since.

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As a child, did you feel—immigrating here, did it feel like a big—did it feel like a big culture shock? Or did you not really notice any big differences? Yeah, there were a lot of big differences.

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So I'll say that one of the things I noticed situation in the United States was a lot better in terms of like, the average infrastructure of a house.

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So I remember when we were growing up in China, like, at the time that we left, our– our bathroom was actually like, outside of our house, and like, so if you needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you actually had to, like, leave your house.

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And then, even like, just showering was very different, or bathing was very different, right? Like in China, we didn't really have running wa—hot water at the time.

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And so if you wanted to take a bath, what you would do is you would take like a giant, you would get a giant metal tub, and then you'd fill it up with hot water, and then you would take a bath that way.

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And so like this whole concept of like running hot water was quite different to me. Yeah, that must have been a big change. Also, yeah—

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Oh, and then also, okay, also, the other thing that was different to me was the variety, different types of ice cream. And so one of the first places we went to, when we came to the United States, was

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Baskin Robbins. And I was really shocked at how many different types of ice cream there were. Because basically, when we grew up in China, there was really only one type of ice cream. It was like some generic vanilla

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ice cream. You could only buy one type of cake, which was a white cake with white frosting and red writing on it. And so, it was really surprising to me when we came to the United States, and like there's just all this different

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variety. And although now in China, it's like the opposite, right? Like so if you go to China, like the variety is e-endless now; but back then, when we came over in the late 90s, or late 80s and early 90s, there was really quite

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a limited selection of things along the entire product spectrum in China. Would you say because of the variety did you feel that your, your tastes or the kinds of food that you liked, changed? Um, I

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would say that I definitely different types of food. But there are some things that still kind of stay the same.

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Like I really prefer an Asian style of cake that's very light and where the sugar content is not as high. But in terms of, like, the variety of foods I–I—now I pretty much eat everything,

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so. Houston Asian American Archive 5 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University And since you lived with your parents, did your, did one of your parents cook and what kinds of food did

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they cook? And did that also change when you moved here? Did they start cooking different kinds of dishes, perhaps American? Um, when I lived in China, we, again we lived with my grandmother so she actually did most of the

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cooking. And then when we came to the United States, my parents took turns cooking. And all of the stuff they cooked were pretty much still Chinese dishes and so there was a lot of like, stir fry tomato and egg , like we still eat that today.

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So, I would say the vast majority of the food I ate growing up with still Chinese food. Great. I also wanted to ask, with your family did you speak Mandarin and where and when did you learn

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English or begin to learn English? Yeah, so we spoke mostly Mandarin at home and then obviously when I was in school, we spoke English. Okay, so you only started learning English when you moved here?

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Um, for the most part, yeah. My dad had taught me just a couple of simple phrases and words and, like nouns in English when I was still in China.

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But for the most part, I learned almost all of my English in the United States. That's amazing. I wanted to ask, also later how—so you did mention that you matriculated early, as a 15

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year-old was it, to UC Berkeley. I wanted to ask how you prepared, like leading up to that. You mentioned also that you skipped grades. But I was wondering like, how– how was it, your relationship with the public

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education system leading up to the moment that you wanted to, to go to UC Berkeley? And sorry, also, like, was it your decision about going to college early?

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Or was it kind of your parents pressured you a little bit about that? Oh, so I feel like the progression went very naturally. So when I was in first grade, again, because of the

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math skills, we sort of spent time in both first grade and second grade throughout the, throughout the school year. And so it was kind of nice, because the two classrooms were just connected. And so, during certain periods of

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time, like, when we're studying more of the math and science parts, I would just go back and forth between the two classrooms. And so then when it came in time for third grade, I just enrolled in third grade. And then, the

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summer after fifth grade, I took a class; I took an algebra class at the local high school for summer school. And so when it came time to enroll in the next grade,

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we actually ended up just going to seventh grade. And then that's sort of set up this problem where the middle school didn't have any of the math classes that were sort of next in

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the progression. And so, I ended up having in—ended up having to take math classes at the high school while I was in middle school. And so it was kind of a problem for my mother, because she ended up—I couldn't drive

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at the time, so she ended up having to drop me off in the morning at the high school, and then picking me up halfway through the day and then dropping me off at middle school. And the way the scheduling worked out was

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that the math class that I needed to take was only offered during second period. And so they let me take an English class during the first period. And so then I ended up taking two periods at the high

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school, and then the rest of the day was at the middle school. And so by the time that I got to ninth grade, I had already some Houston Asian American Archive 6 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University

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additional high school credits. And I continued to take more advanced math classes during the summertime at the local community college. And so by the time three years of high school

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had rolled around, I had enough credits to graduate, so we just decided to graduate. That's amazing. I wanted to ask—I mean, I know that it was, as you said, a natural

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progression. But if you could go back in time, would you have decided to enter college as early as you did? Because, I don't know if you felt maybe uh, less emotionally prepared?

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And when you went to college, maybe could you describe your experience there as someone younger than like average freshman students? Yeah. It didn't—I didn't personally feel very out of

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place because again, it wasn't like the three grades were, had been skipped all at once. So I had always felt like I was in my peer group. And so, going to college just felt

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like the natural progression, even though the, obviously the people are different. So I didn't feel like there was a huge difference.

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And if people didn't ask you about your age, they didn't really know that you were younger anyway, so it didn't seem like it was a huge issue. And if they did find out like you were younger, did that ever change their

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perception of you, like their attitudes toward you? No. Yeah, that's good to know. Um, I also wanted to know how you came to decide to go to UC Berkeley.

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Yeah, so that was kind of an easy decision for us. We, I obviously applied to a lot of schools in California. And because I was younger, my parents were really hoping that I was going to stay closer to home.

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And so that was sort of an easy choice, because Berkeley was 30 minutes away. And it was like, far away enough that you could have some independence, but not so far away that your parents couldn't

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come bail you out of some situation if they needed to. And did you—where did you live while attending UC Berkeley? Yeah, so my first two years I lived in the dorms.

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And then my third and fourth year, I lived with some friends on an off-campus housing. And did you go into college already set on a major? Or did you, did that kind of happen over time?

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Yeah, that definitely happened over time. So when I first started, I really wanted to be a computer science major, or electrical engineer. And so I had actually started off taking several computer science and math

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classes, and then eventually switched over to molecular and cell biology. Was there a particular class or a moment that kind of spurred you on in that direction? Um, we had a human anatomy class

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that was in Integrative Biology. And the professor was very dynamic. Her name is Marian Diamond. And she was a little bit eccentric, like, she'd carry a brain in a hat

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box around for Houston Asian American Archive 7 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University her class. And so, so that sort of turned me on to anatomy.

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And, and she, like, was very old school in the way she gave her didactics. So she never had any slides. She never had any like, I don't know, you're probably too young

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for this, you don't know what a transparency is. But like, we used to have these things called projectors, and a transparency is like a clear piece of plastic that people would

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write things on. And then it would be projected onto a screen. But like, she would actually do her whole talk with just chalk and a chalkboard, and she would just draw

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everything. So it was kind of a very old school way of teaching. But that was probably my, one of my favorite classes in college, and then, and sort of steered

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me more towards biology after that. And could you talk about maybe the social life at college? Um, did you make a lot of friends, and like, did you attend a lot of the social gatherings or social events they

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had? Yeah. Yeah, I definitely participated in a lot of community service activities. And then I was very close with the, my dorm mates on my floor.

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Um, and I do remember that like, in college was the first time I had a boba drink. And that was like, kind of life-changing, and ever since I've been addicted to boba. That's really funny. Also, could you

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perhaps talk about—going back a little bit—like your expect—what expectations that you had for university and did it really compare with your, your experience of it? My first year was kind of difficult academically, because all

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through high school and middle school things had just been really easy for me, right? And when you get to college, like nobody is regulating your time, right? Like you're responsible for your own time management, and the classes are a

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lot harder. So that was kind of a big challenge for me. I came from a relatively small town; my high school had about 300 people.

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And then, like Berkeley was just a huge setting where like, there'd be like classes I had that had 300 people, right, like just a single class that had 300 people.

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So it was very different. And, and basically, like, everybody's just as smart as you are. And so it was a very different environment. And I felt that I—it was,

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it was a challenge because I, like, now I actually had to put in effort, right? Like I actually had to, like, figure out a schedule and actually dedicate a lot of time to understanding concepts.

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So that was a big change for me. Did you ever get to a point where—or, did you eventually get become more comfortable with managing your own schedule? And like, how did that look?

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Or, like, I guess how long would you say that took, or like how– how did you try to overcome those challenges? Yeah, so it probably took me about a year to really get into shape. And one of the things that I did was like,

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pretty extreme. So I would get like a planner, and I would actually like plan out my entire day in like, really finite increments. Like I would even schedule in things like, 'catch-up time,' or like 'this

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is when I'm going to take a shower,' like it was very detailed and very specific. And then, and—but it worked, right. Like it, like if you follow the schedule, you've sort of allocated the time according to your priorities, and then

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you'll get what you need to get done. Did you keep any of these habits growing up now? Or did you kind of, did you stop being maybe that

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extreme in your planning? Or if that's something that you've kept even now as an adult? Houston Asian American Archive 8 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University Yeah, I definitely don't do that

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now as an adult. I definitely still did that when I was in medical school. But definitely not now as an adult. Great. Could you maybe describe the demographics at your university and more specifically, like, with like

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STEM students in that department? Yeah, I came from a high school that was predominantly Caucasian, there were maybe just a handful of Asians in my school.

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And then when I got to Berkeley, like, they were actually the majority of people, which was quite different for me. Um, and then in terms of

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the proportion of people in STEM classes, I guess, I'm not sure how to describe that exactly, because basically, even in the humanities classes, there were a lot of Asian people.

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So I just, like, had never seen that many Asian people before outside of China, or like being in China. So you never felt out of place or anything? And did you ever, or do you still

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keep in contact with some of the people that you met then? Oh yeah. Yeah. So I am, I have two friends

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from college that I still talk to probably every other week. And then my roommates from college I talk to probably more intermittently. They both still live in California, so sometimes when I'm back in the Bay Area, or in San Diego, I'll go visit

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them. That's great. And to close this section: what, what was the most enjoyable aspect of being a college student for you? And what were some fond memories that you– that you recall from back then? Yeah, I would say that that's

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probably the time where I really learned to enjoy food from other cultures. Like that's probably the first time that I had Thai food, that I had Indian food, and that I had like

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significant amounts of like, regional Italian food. Just prior to that, again, like my parents and I, we didn't eat out very much. And so we mostly ate Chinese food.

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So, so that was sort of a big eye opener for me. Was this because of the selection that they had at, like, a cafeteria on campus? Or is it because of the food scene in Berkeley?

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The food scene in Berkeley. That's great. So moving on, I wanted to speak with you about the surgical residency and the fellowship that you went through. Why did you decide on Houston Methodist as a

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hospital for your residency training? Yeah. Mostly for two reasons. I had met two people during my interviews who I really liked and who I

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thought would be good mentors for me. One was Rob Todd, who's now the Chief of Trauma Surgery at Emory—at Grady Hospital.

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And he was the Associate Program Director at the time. And then the other person was Barbara Batts, who was the Chair of Surgery at the time. And I, just during my interviews, I really connected

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with them. And so I felt like they would be good mentors and sponsors for life, which really has happened because they've actually both moved on to different institutions. And, but I'm still in contact with them.

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And I still call them for advice. And that was exactly the thing that I was looking for when I was looking for a program. Houston Asian American Archive 9 Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University Great.

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And could you describe what the residency training entails? How long did this period take? And perhaps how were you graded or assessed? Yeah, there are...

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so general surgery residency, the clinical portion is five years or 60 months. And a lot of programs have optional, what is called sometimes optional, sometimes required, what's called “personal

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development time.” And generally, this is the time taken between years two and three, or three and four, where residents do either basic science research or clinical research, although in more recent years, it's really expanded.

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So now people do education research and get an Master's in education, or, in my case, I went to business school and got my MBA. Some people get an MPH during that time, some people do

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device development. So it's very different now what people can do during that time. So I, I took a pause in the middle of residency: after year two,

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I went to Duke and got my MBA; I was in the health sector management program. And I had a lot of interesting experiences during that time. My, my summers, were spent

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doing different types of internships, which is what all MBA students do. And so my internships were at Duke University Hospital in the performance improvement benchmarking section.

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And I also spent some time at a company called Intuitive Surgical and they make the da Vinci surgical robot. And I have sort of

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decided, within the past couple of months to a year, to sort of pivot my career more towards that direction. And so that time was really foundational for me.

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I had a couple of classmates during that period of time who started a small company with me to make serious games. And so my partner was a programmer for EA

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Sports. And so he had worked on the Madden football series. And he was interested in this idea of serious gaming, which meant that we were going to use games to teach people skills and to promote knowledge transfer.

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And, so he had already built a game for the University of Florida on burned resuscitation principles. And so we formed this company, and we only had one product, which we sold to the Duke Clinical Research Institute, which was a product on

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teaching medical students how to negotiate. And, but because I had that role, I was hired by Intuitive Surgical to work on their surgical skills simulator. And so I was hired for a summer to gamify

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their simulator, and then I returned the next summer to work on a different game, which was to teach OR staff principles of efficient robotic OR turnover efficiency, or robotics—O-, robotic OR turnover efficiency.

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And so, I've always kept, sort of kept in contact with those folks over the years and, and the people that were in my research group at the time. And so more recently, I started talking to them again.

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And then actually in the fall, I'm going to be taking a position there as the Medical Director of Global Access Value and Evidence. That's incredible. You've had a wide range of experiences.

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I—going back, sorry I didn't ask this earlier. But what made you decide to become a surgeon or to, you know, begin your surgical residency? You did mention that you changed your major in college.

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So how did that—how did you become set on becoming a surgeon? Yeah, so when I started res—or when I started medical school, I didn't think that I would want to do surgery. I — in my preclinical years, the things that are really liked

00:35:43.960 - 00:35:59.560

were neurobiology and neurology. So I really thought that I was either going to be a neurologist or a pathologist; but when I got one of my clinical rotations, I found that

00:35:59.630 - 00:36:15.320

I really enjoyed surgery, because of the immediacy of the effects. And this is sort of related to the surgical personality in some way in that, like, surgeons are not very

00:36:15.320 - 00:36:27.720

patient people. And they like seeing the effects of their work right away. And so that sort of instant gratification was

00:36:28.740 - 00:36:44.010

sort of what drew me to surgery. Yeah, that's great. Um, and since you lived in Houston for quite a bit, where did you live, like, specifically?

00:36:44.530 - 00:37:00.620

And what was your first impression of the city? Did you like it? So I've lived in Houston on and off since 2008. When I first moved to Houston, I actually lived in Pearland.

00:37:01.940 - 00:37:12.070

I had a Siberian Husky at the time, so I really needed a place with a yard, with big yard. And so that's where I ended up living my first two years.

00:37:14.490 - 00:37:25.240

And then, eventually, it just got like too hot and too miserable in the summertime for him. So he ended up back in California with my parents. But I still have the house in Pearland.

00:37:25.240 - 00:37:41.060

And then I went away for two years to Durham . And then when I came back, I really didn't need that house in Pearland anymore because I didn't have the dog anymore. So I sold the house in Pearland, and then I moved to

00:37:41.060 - 00:37:53.740

Rice Village. It was nice, just because it was a lot closer to the hospital. It was a lot more convenient. There were a lot more restaurants nearby that I could walk to. Uh huh.

00:37:53.950 - 00:38:08.140

So, I lived there for about a year and a half. And then I met my future husband, and then eventually we got married and then I moved to the Heights.

00:38:13.150 - 00:38:33.090

That's nice. Speaking of, did you, um, visit your family or your parents in California often during this time? Or how did—did you keep up, like, meeting them for maybe holidays, or anything like that?

00:38:34.620 - 00:38:52.100

Yeah, so the, the residency situation is kind of tough because like there is a finite amount of time you can take off. It's not like when you're in school where you automatically have certain holidays off, right, in

00:38:52.350 - 00:39:02.810

residency, you basically have to take turns covering the holidays so that not everybody can be off during the holidays 'cause the hospital runs all the time.

00:39:03.360 - 00:39:17.900

And so um, so during the holidays, we had a system where basically you would either get the week of Christmas off or you would get the week of New Year's off, but you couldn't have both times off.

00:39:19.350 - 00:39:35.660

And so all the other holidays were kind of like that, too. So I didn't get to see my parents every holiday, but some holidays, I would go back to California. My mom did come visit me every once in a while.

00:39:36.520 - 00:39:48.260

My dad never came to visit me, like when I was—like even when I was in Durham for two years, I think he only came for graduation. And then the entire time I lived in Houston, he came once, again for graduation, for my residency

00:39:48.260 - 00:40:03.830

graduation. But my mom actually came to visit me quite frequently. And then also during residency every once in a while, you would present papers at conferences. And so if I had a conference that I was going to, sometimes my

00:40:03.830 - 00:40:19.720

mom would actually meet up with me there, and then we would be able to spend some time together that way. That sounds lovely. So it must have been difficult to celebrate Chinese holidays, or even more so with the

00:40:19.720 - 00:40:35.320

very limited amount of time you had off. To go back to when you started that business with your friends. Could you talk them a little bit about the process there? I mean, it seems like a very big endeavor.

00:40:36.690 - 00:40:52.070

Oh. Actually, well, it wasn't that difficult, because like, everybody took a separate little piece of it. And so we basically registered it as an LLC in Delaware. And then, there were classmates of mine in the group who were

00:40:52.070 - 00:41:06.070

responsible for working on the marketing piece. And, and then, obviously, I was in the content development part, one of my partners was in the programming portion. And so it actually wasn't bad.

00:41:06.070 - 00:41:16.660

It wasn't a huge company, like it was really just the four of us. And we only had one product. So, it actually was not that

00:41:16.730 - 00:41:35.110

complicated at all. Could you talk about like, how—so with this one product—how did you, like begin getting it out there? And kind of like, um, like maybe the

00:41:35.210 - 00:41:48.910

kind of excitement that you felt like seeing your product being in use? Oh, yeah. So we actually just handed it off to the Duke Clinical Research Institute, so we actually never saw the product evaluation afterwards.

00:41:49.730 - 00:42:04.190

And I would say that that is kind of one of the frustrating parts about product development is that you may or may not ever see it actually in the hands of somebody that you developed it for. So very similarly, the game that I helped develop at Intuitive Surgical,

00:42:05.090 - 00:42:20.550

we actually made the game, but it actually never got distributed. So– So to answer your question, like, I've never actually seen the product in someone's hands. So I guess that's also

00:42:21.010 - 00:42:38.850

the appeal of surgery as well, as you mentioned, like— . And I saw that you later completed your—or actually, going back: was there a particular person that you kind of looked

00:42:38.910 - 00:42:57.550

up to while you're at Houston Methodist, that you would consider like a mentor? Or—and if so, like what is the most like memorable advice or kind of lesson that you learned during that time? So I'll say

00:42:57.550 - 00:43:11.600

again that that prob—that person is probably Barbara Bass. And the best advice that she gave to me was that it's fine that people's priorities change over time.

00:43:12.090 - 00:43:26.410

And so, when I became a resident, and even now, like the sort of the dropout rate for general surgery is about 20%, which is, like, a lot, right? Like to lose– to lose

00:43:26.410 - 00:43:39.500

20% of your classmates along the way is a lot. And so that used to really bother me. And I used to think like, "Well, why can't we hang on to these people or, like, support these people enough

00:43:39.630 - 00:43:54.660

that enabled them to finish residency?" Right? And– and so basically, she told me that, you know, five to seven to eight years is a long

00:43:55.080 - 00:44:11.620

time, especially in your 20s and 30s. And it's totally fine that you mature and your priorities change, and that surgery is not for everyone, and that's okay, right.

00:44:11.620 - 00:44:26.820

Like you reached a period of time in your life where you weigh what you still have to complete in terms of the sacrifice to finish residency versus your family or the other priorities in your

00:44:26.820 - 00:44:42.270

life and you just make a decision that's best for you and your family, and that's totally okay. Did you ever feel that way as well, like, perhaps your priorities, some of your priorities changed, or it was a difficult time for you?

00:44:42.580 - 00:45:00.580

And, like, how did you– how did you keep motivating yourself to keep going on this path? Yeah, so I was really fortunate in that I had a really supportive family in the sense that even though my mom

00:45:00.580 - 00:45:18.430

was not super excited about the surgery thing, like she was still really supportive in terms of helping me with, like, if I ever had a really hard rotation, like she would actually

00:45:18.430 - 00:45:35.640

just fly here and help me do like the day-to-day life stuff, like she would help me like, do, run my errands, or like, go grocery shopping, or like, and so that was really helpful. And then similarly, when I got married,

00:45:37.240 - 00:45:56.930

that probably like offloaded so much of my day-to-day stuff that I could really focus on my job. So in that sense, like, my husband has been really great as a partner, because I guess

00:45:57.150 - 00:46:15.240

we don't really fit that stereotypical role where the– where the wife handles sort of all the household things. Like, we have a very equal division of labor in terms of both childcare and sort of running the house, running the

00:46:15.290 - 00:46:28.350

errands, doing the bills. And so that has actually been really good for my career, and really has reduced the amount of stress in my life.

00:46:31.250 - 00:46:49.200

That's so wonderful to hear that everyone around you has been very supportive and caring during this time. And I saw that you worked to establish, like a general surgery leadership and healthcare administration track

00:46:49.260 - 00:47:03.670

program while as a resident—during residency. Could you maybe talk about the difficulties and like how you went about establishing this program?

00:47:04.900 - 00:47:19.010

Yeah. So when I was getting my MBA, we, my chair and I, we really talked about how to actually put those skills to use.

00:47:19.440 - 00:47:31.470

And so I think that's one of the challenges of people who get an MBA when they're a medical student, right? Like there's, you really need an opportunity to actually to continue to use some of those skills, but

00:47:31.470 - 00:47:47.720

then like, you go into residency for three to five years, and how are you actually supposed to use those skills? So one of the things that Methodist had, and many hospitals have, is an administrative residency or administrative

00:47:47.720 - 00:48:00.050

fellowship. And typically, they're geared for non-clinical, non-clinical administrators. So like people who have completed an MBA, or have completed a

00:48:00.260 - 00:48:16.960

MHA, and they want to become hospital administrators. And so typically, they'll either do an internship, or they'll do this type of fellowship at the hospital where you gain practical experience by doing projects and by working under the different

00:48:18.140 - 00:48:28.800

directors and VPs of different service lines. And so we felt that that was really important to do to gain sort of this practical experience. And so what we

00:48:28.800 - 00:48:44.880

did was we applied for a exemption from the American Board of Surgery to extend my training by a year. And that year, we actually folded into the remaining three years or 36 months of clinical training.

00:48:44.880 - 00:48:55.760

So we extended it out to 48. But it would be alternating, so that you'd spend like three months doing clinical rotation and then you'd spend one or two months doing an administrative rotation, and we just flip

00:48:55.970 - 00:49:10.390

this back and forth. It was a lot of coordination on the part of the hospital and on the part of the residency to make it work. But it worked out really well. That's amazing and definitely helpful as

00:49:10.920 - 00:49:25.080

well. And you later completed your fellowship at UCLA. Why did you choose UCLA? Yeah, I had a very specific goal in mind

00:49:26.650 - 00:49:45.090

when I was choosing the fellowship; I was planning to return to Methodist and build an endocrine surgery program. And so before I left, Methodist had never—before I

00:49:45.090 - 00:49:54.790

left Methodist for fellowship, we had never had a endocrine surgeon before. We had obviously had people that did endocrine surgery.

00:49:55.600 - 00:50:12.030

And so they either were surgeon trained, or general surgery trained, or ENT trained, and they've sort of developed a focus in this area. But, nobody had been specifically trained for this

00:50:12.100 - 00:50:25.840

area. And so I knew that I would have to sort of build a program from scratch. And when you build the program, it's not just about the surgery part, but it's about integration with your

00:50:26.650 - 00:50:40.430

medical endocrinologists and your thyroid pathologists and your nuclear medicine folks and your neuro-radiologist. And so, I really needed to understand how those components came together.

00:50:41.610 - 00:50:58.410

And also how to build not just the practice, but the entire environment around endocrine surgery. So of the programs, UCLA was actually a relatively

00:50:59.140 - 00:51:10.380

young program. They had—I was probably, I was their third fellow. And the endocrine surgery program there was actually relatively young.

00:51:10.730 - 00:51:23.670

I think it had been around, when– when I was there, it was like the eighth or ninth year they had been around. And so the program director had actually built it from scratch, like, because prior to his arrival, endocrine surgery did not

00:51:23.670 - 00:51:36.140

exist there. And so, so I knew I had a lot to learn from him in terms of how to make it successful, and how to grow the practice quickly. And so that's why I chose to go there.

00:51:38.440 - 00:51:48.760

That's wonderful. Um, and so you moved back to California during this time. And so I'm assuming that maybe you met up with your family a bit more?

00:51:50.170 - 00:52:05.070

Or were you too busy that you still weren't able to meet up with them? Yeah, so, definitely met up with my mom more because she was living with us at the time. So when I was a

00:52:05.070 - 00:52:24.050

fifth year resident, I actually had my first child. And, so my mom actually moved in with us, right when I had my first child. And then I was really lucky in that we moved to LA, both my husband and my mom moved

00:52:24.500 - 00:52:41.440

out there with our baby. And my husband was able to work remotely for a year. Yeah, you mentioned that you met your husband, but—so during this time? Could you elaborate on like

00:52:41.540 - 00:52:58.960

when and where you met your husband first and then how, how that relationship got started? Yeah, I actually met my husband online. And we met up at Empire cafe. And that was our first date.

00:52:58.960 - 00:53:14.560

And then we just went on a bunch of more dates after that. And I would say, like, of other relationships I have been in, it just felt really easy.

00:53:16.630 - 00:53:32.000

And, and he's been a great partner this whole time. I'm sorry, if I missed this, but was this during the residency period? Oh, wow.

00:53:32.100 - 00:53:49.320

How did you juggle, I guess dating and continuing your work? Yeah, it is definitely kind of challenging dating as a resident because, um, you work really long hours, but it,

00:53:49.880 - 00:54:04.270

it requires just a lot of extra planning. I mean, you always know like, which days you're going to get off, there just aren't that many; like, you get about four days off a month. And so you just have to plan a lot ahead of time.

00:54:07.730 - 00:54:26.870

And, um, what do– what does your husband do for a living? Yeah, so he works in the tech industry. And so that's been really convenient for us in terms of flexibility, in terms of working from home or working remotely.

00:54:26.870 - 00:54:43.330

So that's been great. And did he live in Houston during this time? Yeah. So my husband is, was born and raised in Houston. And the only time he's lived outside of Houston is

00:54:43.330 - 00:55:00.550

for a brief period of time when he lived in Sweden for a internship, and then he, when I dragged him to California for the endocrine surgery fellowship. And when did you two get married?

00:55:01.990 - 00:55:20.230

We got married in 2014. Wow. When did you have your first child? We had Zoey in 2016 during my chief year. Oh, what's– what's your chief year?

00:55:20.950 - 00:55:39.590

Oh, that's your fifth year or your final year of general surgery training. Oh, I see. How did you manage taking care of your child and completing your training? Um, you did mention that your mother came to stay with you so I'm guessing she

00:55:39.590 - 00:55:57.420

helped a lot on that part? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's, it's really crazy when I think about it. So during residency, we had

00:55:57.420 - 00:56:10.740

had a couple of people that had had kids during residency, most of them were male. And so their spouses usually took care of the

00:56:11.140 - 00:56:28.610

children. In terms of women who had children during residency, it was one of the first, and we had actually pretty carefully timed it for chief year.

00:56:29.300 - 00:56:42.940

Because in chief year, there's a lot more control over your schedule. And so you have sort of a lot more say in how the yearly schedule is constructed.

00:56:43.080 - 00:56:57.650

But then—so like the rotation schedule—but then also in terms of the monthly schedule, in terms of like, what days you need off. I had a really wonderful supportive OB, who basically just gave me her cell phone number

00:56:58.180 - 00:57:08.080

and was like, "Okay, whenever you need to come, just come to clinic, just text me beforehand, and just tell me, you're coming, and we'll fit you in somehow." So that was really easy.

00:57:08.080 - 00:57:25.110

And so I, like, never missed a, never had trouble doing my scheduled prenatal appointments. So that was really nice. And, and then, after I had the

00:57:25.110 - 00:57:43.150

baby, my mom had moved in with us so she would take care of the baby during the day. I spent a lot of time coordinating pumping in the hospital. That was a major pain, so

00:57:43.320 - 00:57:59.020

you'd be l-like, you'd be in a surgery and then like, you would obviously wait for the surgery to be over before you scrubbed out, and then you'd have to go pump. And the hospital at the time tried to be accommodating of the situation.

00:57:59.020 - 00:58:13.010

So obviously, like the hospital has, like, lactation facilities. But I would say that they weren't really designed for residents, especially surgery residents, because, for example, like they would have, like three stations, right.

00:58:13.010 - 00:58:23.510

And if you just happen to be there when the three stations are full, they just expect you to come back some other time. But when you're a surgery resident, like your time is not within your control, right, like your next

00:58:23.510 - 00:58:37.960

case is going to start, like, with or without you. So, so that part was a little bit challenging. And then like the locations of the facilities was also challenging in terms of like, it would take you like five to 10 minutes just to even walk

00:58:37.960 - 00:58:52.640

there. And then by the time you finish pumping and walk back, it would be like 30 or 40 minutes later, and you just don't have 30 or 40 minutes of time. So it ended up being like a lot of impromptu

00:58:52.640 - 00:59:05.920

multitasking, like I would be pumping but still writing my notes on a computer at the same time, or like calling people back, calling nurses back if they had questions about patients. And so it was– it was kind of a really hectic time.

00:59:06.220 - 00:59:23.020

And, but I also didn't feel alone because at the time, there was a transplant surgery fellow who had also had a baby at the same time. And then I also had a, I

00:59:24.540 - 00:59:38.020

also had a co-resident who also had a baby during that same period of time. So it actually worked out well that there were multiple people in the same

00:59:38.400 - 00:59:50.800

situation because we could support each other, and then also advocate for each other. Yeah, that must have been tough as a new mother, but also to have people around you in the same situation,

00:59:50.920 - 01:00:07.800

that's great. Um, and in general, I was wondering if you could, since you've had experience, talk about perhaps like the challenges of childbearing and childcare for your profession and specifically, compared to perhaps women

01:00:07.880 - 01:00:23.700

in other professions. You spoke a little bit about it, but perhaps, could you elaborate on your view of this? Yeah, so I would say that for both residents and even when you're an attending, like,

01:00:24.190 - 01:00:42.460

just the scheduling of childcare and taking care of a baby and pumping is really, requires a tremendous amount of coordination. And, and there are some, like really, sort of,

01:00:43.140 - 01:00:59.840

like, interesting modifications that people have made along the way. So, for example—so when you're breastfeeding, you usually have to either breastfeed or pump every three hours or so,

01:00:59.840 - 01:01:11.500

three to four hours or so. And so that's really challenging, obviously, in the operating room if you're doing during a case, right, like you either have to scrub out, pause your surgery and scrub out to

01:01:12.440 - 01:01:30.120

pump. So the surgeons that I know who have really long cases, there's actually newer pumps that you, that fit under your clothes. And so you can actually like pump while you're doing your surgery, which, to me,

01:01:30.170 - 01:01:42.760

at the time seemed a little bit unusual, and like, I thought would be uncomfortable. But apparently people make that work. So that's kind of interesting.

01:01:44.970 - 01:02:02.560

You need what I like to describe as layers of childcare. And so you need to have daycare, you need to have neighbors, or grandparents or friends that are willing to pick your children up if you're running late, which inevitably

01:02:03.140 - 01:02:20.820

happens. So I would say that those are probably some of the challenges. I haven't really encountered the more emotional challenges of having a surgical practice yet with kids.

01:02:20.880 - 01:02:34.660

So I've heard from my colleagues that sometimes they feel guilted by their children, that if their children don't see them for some period of time, because they're coming home later after their children have already gone to bed.

01:02:35.640 - 01:02:54.530

So I actually have been fortunate not to experience that to a huge degree. Although I will say that for a period of time, when you asked my daughter like, oh, like, "Who are your favorite people," or like "Who are your best friends?"

01:02:54.840 - 01:03:15.600

And so the sequence was Daddy, and then it was Amma, which is my mother, and then it was Teddy, who was her teddy bear, and then Mama. Wow, and so going back,

01:03:18.130 - 01:03:34.710

could I ask how you came to specialize, or like how did you come to focus on thyroid surgery in particular? Yeah. So remember that thing I said about instant

01:03:35.400 - 01:03:48.420

gratification. And so endocrine surgery is sort of the epitome of that. So we deal with conditions that are highly curable, so over 90% of the patients we treat can be

01:03:48.420 - 01:04:01.000

completely cured. And so whether that's Grave's disease, or hyperparathyroidism, or adrenal tumors, like we are really fixing the problem when we're removing that tumor or that

01:04:01.060 - 01:04:16.240

diseased organ. And so that is really gratifying. And, and it is one of those things where you typically see the results pretty soon after surgery. Yeah that's great to see

01:04:16.500 - 01:04:32.500

patients getting well with your– with your efforts in the surgery room. And lastly, for this section, what advice would you give to say a pre-med student considering a career in the health industry or

01:04:32.840 - 01:04:54.180

specifically on the surgical route? Yeah, I would say that surgery is really satisfying. But it's not for everyone, and it's fine that it's not for everyone. You definitely have

01:04:54.400 - 01:05:07.630

to be willing to make some timing sacrifices, in terms of, sort of, this very long training pathway.

01:05:10.440 - 01:05:27.920

But it's very nice that you are able to sort of meet people in this very scary part of their lives where they're needing an operation. And it's very nice to be able to be the person to guide them through

01:05:28.010 - 01:05:45.540

that. That's wonderful. Could you, for the records, say where you currently work? And for how long? Yeah, so I've been an endocrine surgeon at Methodist for four years.

01:05:46.200 - 01:06:01.240

In the fall, I'm actually going to be transitioning my clinical practice over to Baylor College of Medicine. And then I'm also going to be starting my non-clinical role at Intuitive Surgery, for Intuitive Surgical.

01:06:02.390 - 01:06:18.160

And how did you get introduced to Baylor College? Um, well, I have had interactions with Baylor d-during, all the way since medical school.

01:06:18.160 - 01:06:34.980

So I had visited them when I was looking at different medical schools and had really enjoyed the campus and meeting the people there. But I ultimately ended up at UC San

01:06:34.980 - 01:06:48.660

Diego because it was an in-state School for me. And, and then, when I came for residency, we had some interactions with Baylor faculty, by virtue of being at Methodist.

01:06:49.030 - 01:07:06.270

And then when I was a attending at Methodist, I have several colleagues who work at Baylor in the endocrine surgery section. And so, we had talked about working together in terms of

01:07:06.300 - 01:07:25.710

research collaborations, and it just felt like when I took this job at Intuitive, it was a good time to scale down my clinical practice and move it over there. Do you think it will be a big change moving, to Baylor, on

01:07:25.800 - 01:07:47.560

like how it affects your life or your lifestyle? I don't think so, I hope it's not going to in terms of sort of the day-to-day taking care of the patients. Where I'm hoping it's going to be a little bit different is that I'll have a lot

01:07:47.560 - 01:07:58.540

more research collaborators. So that's what I anticipate. That's great. And I wish you the best as well.

01:07:59.810 - 01:08:14.630

And I was wondering if you could speak about the challenges of entering the medical field as an Asian female. And being younger than most, I was wondering, like, did you face any challenges?

01:08:14.830 - 01:08:33.250

And if so, how did you overcome them? I would say that it probably has less to do with being Asian because Asians are typically well-represented in medicine. Being a woman is more

01:08:33.250 - 01:08:46.640

challenging, especially in surgery, and some of those challenges I've already described to you. But there are what I would call a lot of microaggressions in surgery and probably some

01:08:46.640 - 01:09:05.330

macro-aggressions in surgery. So I will give you a specific example. Every once in a while, I will have a patient who I have explained the surgery to, and

01:09:05.630 - 01:09:22.160

I've scheduled their surgery, and then I will show up on the morning of surgery, and they will be surprised that I'm there. Like, they will be surprised that I'm actually going to be the person that is performing their surgery, even though they came to

01:09:22.160 - 01:09:34.400

my clinic, and I explained the surgery to them, and I scheduled their surgery. So that, that kind of disconnect or micro-aggression happens not infrequently, and if

01:09:34.400 - 01:09:50.600

you ask any of my female colleagues, everybody has a story like that to tell you. So, I will also say that there are sometimes different expectations for how women surgeons behave versus how

01:09:50.600 - 01:10:03.200

men surgeons behave. So you probably have heard that surgeons don't always have the most patient personality, right, like everybody's heard of things like surgeons

01:10:05.210 - 01:10:19.090

throwing things in the operating room—that doesn't really happen anymore, but, but you hear about that, right? And so there are definitely situations where you are in a high-stress environment, and you need a specific piece of equipment, right?

01:10:19.750 - 01:10:31.550

And I think for men, it's fine to be demanding and precise. But for women, you somehow have to coach it in a very nice, non-threatening way, right?

01:10:31.600 - 01:10:44.920

Because if you are precise and demanding, you are somehow being difficult. So I have a really good relationship with most of the nurses at, in the operating room.

01:10:45.180 - 01:11:02.950

But even then, like, every once in a while, I'll still get these comments like, "You're really high maintenance," right? Like, and I think if I were a male surgeon, nobody would tell me that, because I definitely have partners that are higher maintenance than I

01:11:02.950 - 01:11:18.650

am, and nobody ever says that to them. Yeah, there is a kind of double standard in play with like the kinds of attitudes between women and men that

01:11:18.930 - 01:11:33.260

I could see that had happened. But I'm glad that, so the staff at least didn't have that– that strong of, like, kind of

01:11:33.340 - 01:11:45.910

discrimination or prejudice about that, it's mainly, you said, with your patients? Well, I think it's with both. It's a thing that people don't even realize, right? And so it's sort of these inherent

01:11:45.910 - 01:12:03.500

biases we have about how we expect certain people to behave. Right. And could you speak about some of your research interests. I saw, or you mentioned, patient-care and decision making, I believe.

01:12:04.460 - 01:12:24.420

So what got you started and what are you currently working on? Yeah, so my research interests really fall along two different tracks. So I am really interested in sort of the patient journey from, in terms of the financial

01:12:24.550 - 01:12:41.940

aspects. So a lot of my research has to deal with this question of value in surgery and measuring value from different perspectives, whether it's measuring it from the health system perspective, so from the hospital perspective, or from the insurer perspective,

01:12:42.110 - 01:12:54.200

from the surgeon perspective, or from the patient perspective, and more of the recent work has been around what the patient perspective is. And so we’ve done several projects, looking at what the

01:12:54.200 - 01:13:11.280

patient out-of-pocket costs are and what—and this concept of financial toxicity, meaning that what patients have to pay out-of-pocket and how that impacts their quality of life or their stress levels about surgery.

01:13:12.110 - 01:13:27.030

So those are things that we have been looking at recently. The other area that I'm really interested in is digital innovation in surgery, which is sort of why I took on this role at Intuitive Surgical.

01:13:28.560 - 01:13:44.140

There are a lot of technological changes coming down the pipeline, both for surgery and just for the clinical workflow. And so at Methodist over the past two years, we've spent a lot of time sort of digitizing

01:13:44.140 - 01:13:57.390

the care pathway. And we spend a lot of time figuring out how we can engage patients in a way where we provide meaningful information in digestible pieces for

01:13:57.830 - 01:14:10.910

patients. So one of the things that's really difficult about preparing a patient for surgery is that there's this huge volume of information that you want them to understand and all these steps that they have to do to get ready for surgery.

01:14:12.060 - 01:14:25.570

And it's really impossible to– to convey that amount of information in a 30- or even 40-minute visit. And so, and even if you could tell them all that information, they're not going to retain it.

01:14:26.070 - 01:14:39.450

And so, we've really looked into ways where we can send smart alerts to patients at the time that they need that piece of information, that they can act on that piece of information, both before and after

01:14:39.450 - 01:14:55.440

surgery. And so that's sort of been the focus of my work over the past two years. And your other responsibilities include an effort to improve the quality of care for surgical patients across

01:14:55.440 - 01:15:12.580

the country. What are some of the major challenges you've encountered, or expect further down on the line, in making care more, more accessible, or, you know, caring for patients in the manner that you've

01:15:12.630 - 01:15:30.290

described? Um, so I would say that one is definitely this cost aspect. So some of our work has shown that there has been an increasing amount of cost shifting to the patients

01:15:31.410 - 01:15:50.470

over time. So, as the insurance companies start to demand more in terms of proving outcomes, the health systems are feeling that pressure and, and as costs continue to go

01:15:50.470 - 01:16:05.780

up, employers are feeling that pressure. And so they've shifted more and more of the cost over to the patient. And so I think that's probably going to be an issue in the future where, really, we are going to start pushing more

01:16:05.780 - 01:16:17.320

patients into, into these difficult financial situations or even medical bankruptcy. So we could potentially cure your cancer, but then you're going to be bankrupt.

01:16:17.930 - 01:16:33.270

And so that's really a challenging situation for someone to be in. The other things that have been focused on a lot nationally are sort of surgical never events, like things where

01:16:33.670 - 01:16:48.600

really the processes of care, there should be processes in place that prevent certain things from happening. And those are increasingly being associated with financial penalties from both government payers and private payers.

01:16:48.940 - 01:17:06.890

And so that's definitely a challenge in the upcoming years, because we obviously want to get there, but we need to figure out how to get there. So I would say that those are sort of the challenges that we face in the

01:17:07.080 - 01:17:23.890

upcoming years. And for a more, I guess, abstract or broad question, um, how do you define success for yourself? And has that changed over the years?

01:17:29.270 - 01:17:40.400

I think in surgery, it's really easy—in clinical surgery, it's easy to define success, right? Because your success is the patient getting back to their life.

01:17:41.960 - 01:18:00.060

So that part is very satisfying, and it's easy to see. Where it's a little bit harder is in academic surgery, where you have to do, in addition to your clinical practice, you also have to

01:18:00.320 - 01:18:16.120

demonstrate scholarly activity. And for me it's—that part has been a little bit challenging in that I have to balance that part with the rest of my responsibilities in terms of being a

01:18:16.190 - 01:18:31.860

parent. And there has been a lot of research recently on why women do not get promoted in surgery, in academic surgery, up to the professor level and why

01:18:31.910 - 01:18:45.940

the pipeline is so leaky. And, and there have been multiple workarounds around that. So for example, like many places allow you to extend the tenure clock, if you're, or the promotion

01:18:45.940 - 01:19:02.510

clock, if you are, if you have children, right, like for every child you have they extend it by a year. So there are like, there are these workarounds. So, for

01:19:02.510 - 01:19:18.250

me, I think the most challenging part about being in academic surgery is not comparing yourself to your peers that are in totally different environments than you are, and have different resources than you do.

01:19:18.250 - 01:19:40.400

And so being, being able to work at your own rate and to be able to measure your own progress and to work on projects that are meaningful to you, I think is the meaning of success. Great, um, and when

01:19:40.400 - 01:19:53.650

was the last time you visited your family in China, your grandparents and your extended family, since your employment or even before then, or since you immigrated to the US, and have they

01:19:53.650 - 01:20:11.780

visited you and your family here? Um, so my mom's mom did come for a period of time, to visit. And I think that was when I was in either–

01:20:12.180 - 01:20:28.810

either college or in medical school. And then the last time I went back to China, it was —the last time I went back to China was when my parents made me go back to China to get married a

01:20:28.810 - 01:20:39.300

second time in China. So we had already gotten married. So we had already gotten married in the United States. And then they wanted to have,

01:20:39.340 - 01:20:55.400

like, a ceremony in China, too. And so that was the last, that was the last time I was back in China. Wow, that's really amazing. Could you describe the two– the two weddings that you had then?

01:20:55.960 - 01:21:09.340

And did your husband's family fly to China as well? Like, what kind of celebration was it? Yeah, so we got married in Napa, which is close to where my parents live in Northern California.

01:21:12.450 - 01:21:30.470

And it was a very nice wedding, it was at, it was in wine country. And it, I guess, was very American in that sense.

01:21:32.280 - 01:21:45.630

My parents did end up inviting several of their friends who I had actually never even met before. So I feel like that's very Asian. But maybe that's not even an Asian thing, maybe that's just a parent

01:21:45.710 - 01:21:59.070

thing. When we got married in China, like, 90% of the people I had never even met before. So it was definitely more of a thing for them than it was for us.

01:22:01.490 - 01:22:17.100

And could you describe more of, like—perhaps going back, how did your husband meet your family first? And then how did you meet his family? And, um, do your two families have a close relationship

01:22:20.540 - 01:22:36.170

at all? So how I met his family, I think the first people I met in his family were actually his brother and his wife and their four kids. And then, eventually, I think

01:22:36.480 - 01:22:55.440

we ended up having lunch or dinner with his parents at some point. And then I was invited to, like, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then, so that's how I got to know his family. My parents, I think we went back to California

01:22:56.720 - 01:23:12.030

one Christmas break, and that's how he met my parents. And– and then you asked about whether our families interact a lot now. So my mom actually still lives with us—well like, we

01:23:12.030 - 01:23:28.840

just never let her move out after I had children. And then I had a second child so she definitely could not leave. And, but a-again, that question about like, layers of childcare was so important. So there was a period of time my

01:23:28.840 - 01:23:42.090

husband was doing consulting work. And so that basically meant that he was traveling Sunday through Thursday every week. And so he wasn't home during that period of time. And I just remember, there was one time my mom

01:23:42.360 - 01:23:51.360

got the flu. And, except we didn't know that she had the flu. She felt really bad, and she told me she felt like she was having a heart attack. And so I had to take her to the emergency room.

01:23:51.700 - 01:24:02.810

But then like, I wasn't going to take my two kids to the emergency room with her at like 3 am in the morning. So I actually had to call my father-in-law, and he actually came over in the middle of the night to take care of the

01:24:02.810 - 01:24:15.990

kids while I took my mom to the ER. And so– and so she ended up not having a heart attack–she, but she did have the flu and her heart rate was 130, which made her feel like she was having a heart attack.

01:24:19.310 - 01:24:34.730

Like stressing the importance of having many layers of childcare around you. And then shortly thereafter, I made my husband quit his job and find a job locally where he didn't have to travel Sunday through Thursday every week.

01:24:36.830 - 01:24:53.820

Yeah, it's nice to hear that, that his family is relatively close by to you where you live. And you mentioned that you have a second child, could you say when he or she was born, and I guess, during what period of your

01:24:54.690 - 01:25:07.500

time he or she was born? Yeah, so I had my second child at the end of—right after I finished my endocrine surgery fellowship. And again, we had kind of timed it that way.

01:25:07.640 - 01:25:23.900

And I would say that that is probably very common in for– for surgeons to try to actually time their kids for periods of, sort of, these transitions or where you have more control over your

01:25:23.900 - 01:25:40.920

schedule. So a lot of surgery residents, for example, have, if they're going to have kids, they're going to try to have kids during their personal development time or their research years, where the– where the rotations, well, because

01:25:40.920 - 01:25:57.900

you're not on a clinical rotation, your time is much more predictable. Um, I will say that that is probably an additional challenge for women in medicine or women in surgery, in particular, because your time in training is

01:25:57.900 - 01:26:13.690

actually like your prime childbearing time, also, and you kind of have this trade-off, right, where you're inviting a lot of chaos into your life during your training by having a child, or you're going to try to delay having a child and

01:26:13.690 - 01:26:29.750

then coming up with, coming up against issues of fertility if you delay your childbearing. And so that's definitely a source of stress, I think, for many female residents that are in these long, long training programs.

01:26:30.740 - 01:26:48.190

So I had my second child during—at the end of fellowship, and I was really lucky in that I didn't have any fertility issues and things pretty much happened according to schedule. And again, I was really lucky that my mom was there to

01:26:48.190 - 01:27:08.070

support me and to help with the childcare, which was really important for me as I sort of built up my clinical practice in the beginning and came to build this endocrine surgery program. Great. Could you, speaking of your family life,

01:27:09.290 - 01:27:21.380

could you perhaps speak about, like, what traditions or values your husband and his family brought over, and you brought as well? Since you did live with your

01:27:21.380 - 01:27:42.320

grandmother—I'm sorry, with your mother—did she keep up with the Chinese traditions and try to teach your children about them, to keep your Chinese heritage alive? Yeah, so I would say that now, kind of like when I was growing

01:27:42.420 - 01:27:55.710

up, my grandmother did most of the cooking. So now my mom does most of the cooking. And so the vast majority of the time we're still eating Chinese food. Although the kids they– they've actually branched out, so like, they

01:27:55.780 - 01:28:09.090

eat more typically Americanized kids food. So like, they actually eat fish sticks and pizza, which I actually never ate when I was growing up. And, but they do eat some

01:28:10.850 - 01:28:23.770

Chinese food as well. Like they definitely eat the tomato and eggs. And they, and they also like eating roasted duck, like Peking duck.

01:28:24.140 - 01:28:38.950

And so, so they definitely get plenty of exposure to both right now. And what about your, from your husband's side? Did he have any traditions that he brought over?

01:28:41.930 - 01:28:59.690

Um, so my husband was born in the US, and, so his family is Taiwanese. We do share some food traditions in terms of like, also being into the fishballs .

01:28:59.720 - 01:29:15.480

But other than that, I don't know that there are any, like, specific traditions or food traditions that we've implemented from his side. Yeah, it's interesting to know his

01:29:15.870 - 01:29:23.850

family's from Taiwan. Does he go visit them often? And do you—have you visited Taiwan yourself?

01:29:25.340 - 01:29:40.620

Yeah, we've been to Taiwan together one time. And that was before our wedding to take Taiwanese wedding pictures. So that was definitely a cultural experience. Oh, wow. That's fun.

01:29:41.550 - 01:29:58.140

But what else did you do there during your, your trip there? I actually had a bunch of friends from business school that were also in Taiwan at the time, just coincidentally, and so we spent a lot of time with them eating out at

01:29:58.170 - 01:30:16.670

night markets. Wow, that's great. And did you meet your husband's extended family there during that time? How was that like? And... Yeah, I would say that most

01:30:16.890 - 01:30:29.260

of the events revolved around eating, and so we spent a lot of time either eating at home or going to restaurants. Oh, that's a real love for food.

01:30:29.570 - 01:30:48.900

That's great. And I think, perhaps moving on to current events, such as COVID, your paid time off, and more of your personal life. So to start off, how has COVID affected your medical

01:30:49.320 - 01:31:06.790

practice and your personal life, like in the last year or so? Um, so the hospital did shut down elective surgeries for a period of time, it sort of delayed surgical care for some patients.

01:31:07.200 - 01:31:23.210

I don't think it had a huge negative impact on the vast majority of patients because we did have a—or at least for my patients—because we did have exceptions where if we felt like delaying the patient surgery

01:31:23.210 - 01:31:40.230

was going to cause progression of the disease, that we could apply to do the surgery on a more urgent or emergent basis. The good news for endocrine surgery patients is that the vast majority of the conditions that we treat are

01:31:40.330 - 01:31:55.860

really slow to progress. And so delaying the surgery by a couple of months generally does not make a huge difference in the ultimate outcome. So from that perspective, it– it just maybe halted

01:31:56.330 - 01:32:12.610

my practice for a short period of time, but I think long-term did not affect the practice in any significant way. That's great to hear. In particular, has the pandemic

01:32:13.150 - 01:32:30.310

influenced your telemedicine program and your efforts toward that or your efforts toward patient care? Oh, so yeah, so the telemedicine program definitely exploded during COVID. We had very sort of slow but

01:32:30.310 - 01:32:42.510

steady uptake, like prior to COVID for telemedicine. So telemedicine has been, been in place in several departments at Methodist for several years prior to COVID. But the uptake has always been kind of slow and

01:32:42.600 - 01:32:56.960

reluctant. And then when COVID happened, everybody was sort of forced onto telemedicine, but we were just fortunate in that the platforms and the protocols had already been established. So we could scale up really quickly,

01:32:56.960 - 01:33:12.330

really fast, or just really fast. And so that worked out really well. I will say that it also showed us what the limits of telemedicine were, because there—after COVID sort of subsided, we saw

01:33:12.370 - 01:33:26.030

a huge number of patients coming back into clinic, and there are definitely a subpopulation of patients, when you offer them the option of doing a telemedicine visit versus coming in person, there are definitely some patients who will

01:33:26.030 - 01:33:42.520

just say, "No, I just want to come in person; I don't wanna deal with installing an app." That's, that's fair. Also the, I guess a lot of patients feel more comfortable with that in-person interaction.

01:33:44.490 - 01:34:01.420

And from a healthcare worker's perspective, would you like to comment on the US's handling of the pandemic? Um, I would say that it kind of ebbs and flows, right, like in the beginning, I felt like we were really not

01:34:01.970 - 01:34:18.890

well-prepared, like, especially the public health systems had sort of been underfunded for many years. And so we were, we really did not respond as fast as we could have. And then, in terms of like supplies for PPE, we

01:34:19.020 - 01:34:33.030

definitely were not prepared. And then, when the– when the vaccinations came through, and then we finally started sort of ramping up the vaccinations, it seemed like we were doing really well

01:34:33.030 - 01:34:45.100

for a while, and we were going to totally get COVID under control and things are gonna go back to normal; but now it seems like we've kind of plateaued again and we might be actually backsliding a little bit.

01:34:45.510 - 01:34:57.170

So I would say like it kind of ebbs and flows, like some– some days, I feel like we're doing really well. And some days, I feel like we could be doing a lot better. Yeah, and going off of that.

01:34:58.540 - 01:35:13.130

So most hospitals suffer from significant financial damage as a result of the pandemic. What have you personally observed in terms of the impact of this lack of support or turnover or loss of

01:35:13.200 - 01:35:24.330

medical staff and other changes that you've seen faced by your particular field? And how has this impacted patient care? And what's your biggest concern at the moment?

01:35:26.050 - 01:35:43.590

Yeah, so I think a lot of people during this period of time, even before COVID, there was a lot of burnout for healthcare workers, and COVID really pushed people sort of to the breaking point. And I think we're seeing a lot

01:35:43.590 - 01:35:55.650

of turnover and people leaving the medical field at this point, and I'm not sure if those people are going to come back. And I think that's going to make, that's going to create a lot of stress on healthcare systems, because

01:35:56.240 - 01:36:11.730

especially now, as more people are seeking care that they were delaying during COVID, it's kind of creating this surge. And there just aren't that many people around to be able to take care of, as many people to take care of

01:36:11.730 - 01:36:31.900

those patients. So that's– that's definitely a major concern of mine. And so what would you say would be a good way to like improve the situation, if, or like what would be a good solution, if there is one right now,

01:36:32.700 - 01:36:49.420

for this situation? I think the hospitals that are, and the practices that are going to do well, during this time, are going to have to really focus on retention efforts.

01:36:49.490 - 01:37:06.070

And what that means is being able to give healthcare workers back some degree of autonomy. And also in terms of more support in

01:37:06.070 - 01:37:20.830

terms of flexibility in the way that they schedule their shifts, or that they construct their practices. I think those are probably the institutions that are going to be able to hang on to

01:37:20.880 - 01:37:38.750

people because I think there's going to be a major shortage of workers, and only the places that really demonstrate that they have a commitment to your career progression or to your personal developments are going to be

01:37:38.920 - 01:37:57.130

hanging– to be able to hang on to people in the long term. Right. And there's a good percentage of medical practitioners who choose not to be vaccinated in the medical center, as I have heard, with the uncertainty of the growing number of

01:37:57.130 - 01:38:12.910

variants. How concerned are you by this? And what kind of efforts are in place to try to convince these practitioners to get vaccinated? Yeah, so I am definitely concerned because the

01:38:13.650 - 01:38:29.380

people who don't get vaccinated are creating sort of this selection pressure for more contagious variants. And in, our sort of, our stance at Methodist has been both the

01:38:29.380 - 01:38:44.240

carrot and the stick, right. So like in the beginning, they basically offered anybody who was willing to get vaccinated a $500 bonus, and then at some point, it became mandatory.

01:38:44.240 - 01:38:55.540

And then if you didn't get vaccinated, you couldn't be employed at Methodist anymore. And I think that that actually has been the right stance for, for people

01:38:55.540 - 01:39:12.090

in health care. Yeah, do you know, like, if other hospitals are also taking that approach as well, and how, how the situation looks in the US as a whole?

01:39:13.020 - 01:39:27.300

Yeah, I think more and more places are going to mandate that patients be, or that their workers be vaccinated. Yeah. That's great. Also about another aspect of COVID

01:39:28.380 - 01:39:42.170

or what has come up. There have been a rise of a lot of anti-Asian sentiments and hate crimes. So I was wondering if you or anyone y–you're close to has been victimized

01:39:42.280 - 01:39:59.540

or has been tar–targeted by these crimes, or any difficulties or discrimination that you had to face during this time? I've been really fortunate in that that hasn't happened to me.

01:39:59.640 - 01:40:11.610

I think it's probably a product of just not being out there that much this year, right? Like, I mostly just go to the hospital and come back home.

01:40:11.680 - 01:40:25.570

And my husband has been working from home, like for a year and a half, essentially. And so we really haven't had the opportunity to go out and interact much with other people other– other than, like,

01:40:25.570 - 01:40:37.280

in, for me, in the hospital. And so, I guess that's plus minus in that it hasn't given an opportunity for any of these negative interactions to happen.

01:40:40.080 - 01:40:54.410

And could you repeat what your husband's job was again? I think you did mention this before. Yes, so he works in the tech industry. Okay, thank you. And you're currently on your PTO,

01:40:55.500 - 01:41:11.670

correct? So how long it has been and what were the circumstances that, that led you to decide to take a PTO at this time? Oh, so PTO is just that I'm taking a few days off.

01:41:11.700 - 01:41:24.350

So generally, I usually block up a week or two off here and there for vacation. And, but this year, we just didn't have anywhere to go. So I basically spent this time just at

01:41:24.350 - 01:41:41.260

home catching up on paperwork. So what do you usually do on your vacations or times off? Do you usually travel with your family? Yeah, so we used to go on basically a cruise every year.

01:41:41.320 - 01:41:57.550

And last year, we were actually scheduled to go on a cruise in March and then COVID hit so we obviously did not go, thankfully. So yeah, I actually don't know what our next trip is going to be or when it's safe to go on vacation again.

01:42:00.500 - 01:42:14.600

Are there any new hobbies or interests that you've picked up during this time, with the, during the pandemic? And with maybe with your family? Do you spend more time with them?

01:42:16.020 - 01:42:31.990

Yeah, I've definitely picked up some crafting hobbies during this time. So, I remember my kids, they had gotten a play kitchen. And we wanted to go and get some, like, play food,

01:42:32.430 - 01:42:44.540

right, like fruits and vegetables, or like, different things like that. And, but they were actually like, really hard to find online and also in the stores.

01:42:44.580 - 01:42:58.730

So then we decided to just make some. And so we ended up like making a bunch of different like foods from felt and then stuffing them. And so we ended up making like an

01:42:58.930 - 01:43:15.130

apple and like a pear and a lemon and a tomato. And then we decided, Okay, we're gonna make some Chinese food. So we made like an egg tart, and we made an egg roll, and we made some dumplings, and we made like, a zongzhi .

01:43:15.280 - 01:43:31.160

And so that was a lot of fun for us. Yeah that sounds like a great way to bond with your children. And also, is there anything that you—you did

01:43:31.160 - 01:43:45.890

mention that you don't know when, you know, you'll be able to begin traveling again or going– going out? But is there a place that you have in mind that you would love to visit with your family?

01:43:47.320 - 01:44:03.920

Or like, do you have like your next vacation location in mind? Yeah, I would definitely like to be able to go back to Asia. I have this friend who has been engaged

01:44:04.630 - 01:44:19.890

for about a year and her wedding is going to be in Thailand, but they haven't been able to do it yet, because like Thailand is pretty much closed to all tourism other than one island right now.

01:44:19.980 - 01:44:35.840

And so, ideally, whenever Thailand opens back up we'll hopefully make– make it a family trip out there. And then in– in the more definite future, I guess.

01:44:36.300 - 01:44:48.130

We've tentatively scheduled a cruise for December 2022. So hopefully that'll work out. But we'll see. Yes, I hope so as well.

01:44:51.300 - 01:45:06.970

And could you perhaps talk about any involvement with the Chinese American or just Asian American community in Houston? Are you involved in any way with the community here?

01:45:08.770 - 01:45:23.550

I'm not formally involved in the community in any way. My father-in-law is more involved in the Taiwanese community, more formally, but I'm personally not involved in any societies or groups.

01:45:26.360 - 01:45:43.350

Alright. And I think I have this one last question for you. What is your view of the impact of COVID-19 on college graduates, specifically, who might have considered a career in

01:45:43.650 - 01:45:58.740

me—in the medical field, but because of the pandemic may– maybe, you know, not so certain anymore? And do you have any advice for people who– who are thinking about going into the medical field?

01:46:00.850 - 01:46:16.780

Yeah, I think any– anybody who's considering entering the medical field probably recognizes that there is a degree of personal sacrifice that's required.

01:46:16.940 - 01:46:31.900

And I would say that that, again, is not for everybody. But if you are realistic about what is required, and the commitment that it takes, that it's a very satisfying career.

01:46:34.880 - 01:46:51.270

Great, and yeah, it's wonderful to hear that it has worked out for you. And that's all the questions I have. Do you have any last thoughts that you would like to add, anything that I didn't cover so far? No, I just wanted to thank you for giving me the

01:46:51.270 - 01:46:57.690

opportunity to do this interview. Yeah, thank you so much for joining me today.