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Join Hala Sabry, an emergency physician and the founder of the Physician Moms Group. We will dive deep into the multifaceted challenges faced by women in medicine beyond the often-discussed issues of childcare and sexism. Hala will share her insights on mental health, workplace culture, mentorship, career advancement, and the importance of community building. Together, we will explore the hidden stressors that lead to career dissatisfaction and burnout and discuss innovative solutions to support women in medicine.

Hala Sabry is an emergency physician and founder, Physician Moms Group.

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast, and get CME for this episode by clicking on the CME link in the show notes. Today we welcome Hala Sabry. She’s an emergency medicine physician and founder of the Physician Moms Group on Facebook. Today we’re going to talk about some of the hidden challenges of women in medicine. Hala, welcome to the show.

Hala Sabry: I am so excited to talk to you again. We’ve only talked offline, so this is kind of cool, to be on your podcast. So thanks for having me.

Kevin Pho: Perfect, thank you so much for coming on. So before we talk about your article, just tell us a little bit about your story and your journey to where you are today.

Hala Sabry: Yeah. In a nutshell, I am a daughter of a physician, and he was a burnt-out one but loved medicine so much. And so, in one sentence it could be like, medicine sucks, I can’t wait to quit, and then he was like, and when are you going to become a doctor? And I was like, whoa, that’s wild, why would you want this life for me?

At the time I worked for Disney, and I loved the idea of operational management and business, so I wanted to get my MBA. So to appease my dad and myself, I went to medical school, got my medical degree rather, and an MBA.

And I thought I would be sitting here talking to you, which I didn’t know at the time, but I thought I would be on podcasts and on any type of news article as the CEO of a hospital, because in my mind that was the most powerful person in medicine. And then when I got into medicine, I realized, no, that is not the most powerful person. The most powerful person is every single person listening.

And that’s what I want to focus on today, is the importance of empowering ourselves, and focusing not only on equality, not only as women in medicine but even for the men too, is focusing on kind of getting out of the conversations of just talking about burnout and the next struggle that we have, but really talking about the bigger picture. And how do we really create community and understand the difference between equality and equity, and how do we empower ourselves to actually move the needle forward in medicine?

I went on to not be a CEO in the hospital. I actually was turned down for a role, not a CEO role but something much less, because they said I just had a kid and I should focus on being a good mom. I did not sue them. Actually, I’m very good friends with the man that did that. He and I both learned a lot. He learned how to be very equitable and very physician-focused in his leadership, and what I learned is how to develop a movement in medicine.

I went on to create Physician Moms Group, as you mentioned in the intro. It’s almost 10 years old. I cannot believe that today, or this year, is going to be our 10th year. I created it out of anger and out of fear, and maybe probably a little bit of burnout of, like, how do I get out of medicine? So if you’re listening to this and that’s where you’re at, trying to find an exit strategy or whatever it may be, I was there at that time.

And I just felt like I needed people to hear me out. And who you surround yourself with in those very impressionable and very personal moments is so important. I know there’s a lot of coaches that talk about, you know, you are who you hang out with, you are who your friends are. I think Tony Robbins says you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and those things are so true.

And so this last 10 years has been wild, because I’ve created the largest women physician support group that exists in the world. It’s over 120,000 people, over 100 countries. I think I’m doing a lot better maybe than my initial dream of being a CEO. Although being a CEO would be awesome, and for all of you CEOs of hospitals, I hope that you can learn to community build and really be physician-focused, and all health care focused as well.

But what I learned in the last 10 years, that I feel like has been a residency in itself, has been how to really listen to people, how to understand power dynamics, how to shake that up, and how to really stand up for the marginalized. And sometimes it is some of our women physicians as well. So I’m excited to talk to you about all that I’ve learned, and really try to have a broader conversation beyond just discrimination and burnout.

Kevin Pho: I don’t want to understate this. Physician Moms Group on Facebook is one of the most influential physician groups, period, that is out there. So over the last 10 years or so, tell me about the evolution of the themes and conversations from that group. What are the women physicians talking about in that group today, say in 2024?

Hala Sabry: You know, there’s a lot of the same conversations. Like, I remember the first post I put up. So if you’re a community leader, or you want to create a community, one piece of advice I’d give you is, remember, you are the first member. You were not the leader of that community, you were the first member, and you have to get a movement before you’re actually the leader.

And so you have to remember, in all the decisions I ever make in my community, is, what would I have wanted 10 years ago, what do I want today, and then I make those decisions for that part. It’s very different than what I would be taught in business, like, what’s the best business move? I just think about, what’s the best community move?

And my first post was, how do I hire a nanny when I’m a shift worker? So I’m an emergency medicine physician, I’m not a nocturnist, and if you’re not a nocturnist you basically don’t have the same shift. And it’s wild, like you can work day shift, mid shift, and then a night shift all in the same week sometimes, if your scheduler has you on that way. And so I was like, who the hell would want that schedule for $20 an hour, or whatever I was paying at the time? And I could not figure it out.

And I come from an Egyptian family, and what was modeled for me when I was growing up, and for everybody that comes from usually families from brown and Black families, might have a situation where you grew up with your grandma in the house, kind of being your nanny in a way. And I grew up like that, and my mom was like, hell no, I’m not doing that. Like, her retirement plans had nothing to do with taking care of more kids. So I was like, oh shoot, I don’t have a backup.

And so I did not know how to hire a nanny, which sounds so simple, right? But I will say that that is probably one of the biggest conversations that happens on Physician Moms Group, and there have been spin-off groups just about nannies, like how to deal with a nanny, how to deal with an au pair, all of these other things.

So I think some of the conversations are going to be just the challenges of being a working woman. I don’t think that that’s any different than the challenges that are in other industries at all. In fact, I’ve helped other industries create mom groups too, because we share similar challenges. But there’s other conversations that we’re having.

I think in the last 10 years, what we’ve seen is a lot of awareness of blindness of where physicians could have power. We say that we want to stand up for the marginalized, but a lot of us are marginalized ourselves, and we don’t even have power in medicine. I’m talking about BIPOC women. So I’ve had to learn, even as a BIPOC woman myself, I’ve had to learn how to listen more, how to advocate, how to elevate their voices. I’m not saying I do a perfect job, but I have been basically really focused on that.

And around maybe five years in, I was sick of having the same conversations. I was sick of having, you know, how do we fight discrimination, how do we prove that women are just as good?

My first article on KevinMD, actually my only article on KevinMD until you guys hear this podcast, has been about creating National Women Physicians Day. I created a whole holiday, really just for the patients to realize that the woman in the room could be the doctor.

I mean, so many times, even until now, I walk in and I will announce myself as the doctor twice. Hi, Dr. Sabry, I’m going to be your doctor today. That’s exactly how I introduce myself every single time. I’ll go through all the differential, the things that we’re going to be doing. I’ve done a full exam, maybe even a rectal or a vaginal exam on a patient, and then towards the end of the visit they’re like, well, when am I going to get to see the doctor? And my question is, who did you think? And why would you allow anybody that’s not a doctor to go to that depth with you in the room?

And I’ve asked my male colleagues, like, how many times have they asked you that? And they just don’t get it as often, if at all. And so that was my first article. But I think that’s going to be, until women have more power, and I’ll talk about what I think that looks like, but until women have more power, that’s going to be a discussion that we can always have. And we can spend all our energy fighting discrimination, but I think at least some of us could move the needle a little bit more and talk about other things, like equity.

So I think where discrimination will stop is when women actually have power. And that comes with a lot of different ways that they could do that. That’s not only representation in powerful positions, like being a CEO, like that I was deterred from, but there’s so many more women that have gone down that path.

But even if you look at most org charts of leadership in hospitals, you’ll see that maybe they’ll have a lot of medical directors that reflect the percent of physicians in medicine, so there’ll be like 30 percent of medical directors are women. But when you look up and you’re like, OK, who are the chiefs, and who are in companies, or in hospitals, like the chief officers, who are the CEOs, the numbers get smaller and smaller and smaller, often less than 5 percent. And so that is a power dynamic that I would like to have the discussion about.

So I think 10 years ago I was like, hey patients, please just recognize we’re a doctor in the room. And while there’s so many more people that are fighting that fight and carrying on that movement, I have kind of moved over to, hey, how do we get into more powerful positions? I think that making decisions, having more influence, is something that increases equity.

And also money. Money is a big thing. I did some research, and there’s so many numbers on this topic, and you guys can deep dive on this too, but in the world, not just the United States, but in the world, only 7 percent of women make more than $100,000. So I don’t know a physician that makes less than $100,000, but there may be some out there. However, most physicians are making over $100,000. And what I think is insane is that we haven’t leveraged that money, we haven’t leveraged that power. Most physicians haven’t. There’s so many physician finance groups and we’re so stuck in paying off debt and things like that, and not really thinking about investments and how to really change the power dynamic.

So when you have men in the world, not just doctors but men in the world, making decisions, and decisions come from influence and power. I want to focus the rest of my career, and I’m hoping to more, kind of beyond PMG, for people who are kind of ready not to balance, like, the nannies, because eventually that gets easier, your kids go to school or they’re in college.

But I don’t want it to be a fight just for the older generation of physicians. I feel like I’m in my midcareer right now, but I want to really empower the younger physicians to be like, hey listen, we got you, we have blueprints of how to get a nanny and all those other things that are challenging in the first couple of years, but I want you to focus on putting more money in your pocket, having more power in your positions and things like that.

So that way our, my grandchildren, have more power. And that 34 percent of women physicians that exist in the world right now, that eventually will be 50 percent because of just how we’re accepting women in medical school, that will actually be a power dynamic, not just a number.

And I think that people don’t realize that equality doesn’t equal equity. So equality is like, yes, number for number there’s the same number of men and women being physicians, but equity is, do we have the same number of opportunities, power, decision making, things like that, and money? And there still is a wage gap.

There’s so much that we could cover in this talk, but what I really want to talk about, if there’s any takeaway, is that there’s more to women in medicine than just fighting for equality. Although that is important, that’s a foundation, but we need more. We need that when we are that 50 percent, that we have power as well.

Kevin Pho: Sure. So let’s talk about that. You talk about, you want to move that conversation forward more towards equity versus just equality. So before we get to solutions, what are some of the root causes why there is that power imbalance today? What’s preventing women from having that equity in medicine?

Hala Sabry: Well, I think this is just left over from when we couldn’t even vote. And we could only vote 100 years ago, we just celebrated that in 2020, the ability to vote. Women couldn’t even get credit cards on their own until like 1974, and I was born around that.

And so when you talk about the legacy of discrimination and racism, it’s still live and existent today. A lot of people think, oh, we’re equal. I hear so many people miss opportunities to understand, like, for example, RVUs. Oh, RVUs are equal, like the RVU system does not know if you’re a male or if you’re a female. And that is true, although I’ve learned from lawyers that not all physicians are working under the same RVU system, that I can actually advocate for a different RVU system than my colleague. So that’s one, discrimination. I didn’t even know that that was possible.

And so for women, if we’re hyperfocusing and being very myopic on, I just want to be equal, but they don’t understand I could be equitable too, they miss those opportunities.

The other thing is, I get this a lot at work. Because I do a lot of community leading, I’ve worked for Disney, I have a lot of customer service background, and I’ve done a lot of coaching, my emotional intelligence is just, like, always beaming at work. I spend a lot of time with my patients. That decreases my RVU in the long run.

When I have a patient who I need to put on hospice, and they’re like, oh my gosh, Dr. Sabry is the best for it. Or for example, when a woman’s coming in and having a miscarriage, a lot of the men, not because they’re being discriminatory, but they’re like, dude, you should be in the room, you’re probably the better person. Like, they’re really coming from a place of love for their patient. But that takes so much time. And they could be suturing up somebody, or seeing five people in triage, whatever. And so that’s money lost on the table.

And so I think that there’s a lot of ways that it shows up in medicine. But then, once we get our paycheck, even though we’re getting paid a little bit less for a lot of different reasons, it’s like, what are we doing with it? We’re not taught how to invest and things like that.

So when you’re asking, kind of, how does it show up, it’s showing up because we’re still kind of making up for all the discrimination that’s happened over the last 100 plus years, even more. And then I do want to add a caveat, that a lot of the milestones, like women voting 100 years ago, being able to vote, people getting credit cards in 1974, those are for white women. Those were not for Black women or women of color. And so we’re making up for a lot of lost time, and so our generational wealth, our equity, is even less. And so I just like to highlight that, not to depress people, but you can’t fix a problem that you don’t even know is there. And that’s what I hope this podcast highlights. And then we could talk about solutions too.

Kevin Pho: Yeah, so let’s talk about a path. So how do we improve, or make things more equitable, between men and women physicians? How do we rectify that power balance?

Hala Sabry: Well, I mean, if I had the answer, obviously that would be like an easy thing to fix, but there is not one, because there’s so many reasons why this is, these systems. Whenever we talk about systemic racism or discrimination, there’s so much in it.

But I think, from just someone listening, I think just being aware of the problem is important. So for the men out there, especially if you have a female partner that is a doctor, listen to her stories, and then translate that at work.

My husband is not a doctor, he works in aerospace, he’s an executive at a company. And just hearing my stories, I’m not saying my husband does it perfectly, but I’ll just give this example. There was a woman that was on his team and she was amazing. He tries to hire more women on his team. I mean, women in engineering already is a situation like medicine, even probably worse. And she kept giving him excuses, that she had a child that needed child care and things like that in her situation. And he was like, OK, but how can I support you? How can I still get you in that position and accommodate you for what you’re going through? And I just love that he had that conversation, and he gave her the choice.

And so I want each of you listening, whether that is, you’re a hiring medical director, or you’re a colleague and you see that somebody’s kind of going through a rough time, whether it has to do with a child or an ailing family member. There’s so many ways that women physicians are pulled. When somebody gets sick, it’s usually the women in the family that’s taking care of them. I’m not saying always, I’m sure that there’s some men listening going, no, that’s not true, I’m doing all of the work, and that’s fine too, and I wish that there was more equality and equity with that. But the truth is, women are often the caretakers, not only for their kids but for their husbands, or for their partners, husbands or wives, or their in-laws, or whatever it may be.

And so just kind of understanding those situations, and making it equitable for all, not just the women, but maybe the men want to be available for that too. And so I think one is just understanding that people have different needs, and that’s OK, that we don’t have to, I remember one of the companies I work for, they decided to make a parental leave policy, and I love that they included men in it, so they can take paternity time. I love that they included adoptive parents, things like that. But it is equal.

And I have a problem with that, not because I think women should have more, but I think women should have a little bit of a gap for more. Like for example, my husband being able to take time with our kids is so important, and I think necessary, and he had paternity time, he’s not in medicine, but they gave it. But I had a C-section with twins twice, like I had two sets of twins, so my body needs a different recovery than, say, someone else.

So just giving a little bit of room for special circumstances, and not making it a policy that can’t be adjustable, I think that is a key to equity, is really understanding that each person has a different need. Maybe there’s somebody who’s on bed rest from like 22 weeks, that might need a different need, and her partner might need a different need as well. But just being more aware of that.

And I think companies don’t like doing that because they want policies that they could stick to, because it gives them some kind of framework. So I think that we could be just at our level of just like, hey, do you need help, how can I help you be successful? And I think that when you do help somebody, whether it’s a man or woman, they’re going to give it back tenfold. So I think that medicine would be a better place if we could just identify that.

The other thing I want to talk about too is that, a lot of the financial strategies that people talk about, and I’m not a financial guru so I’m not going to give any financial advice, but just one of the things I see that’s a little shortsighted is that we only talk about retirement. And I think that that’s a really important thing. Or maybe we don’t even talk about retirement, we’re just talking about being financially free so you don’t have to work, like, what’s your exit strategy?

And I mean, personally, I love medicine, still practice. A lot of people think I don’t, but I still practice, and I love it so much. I actually stopped practicing for a year and a half because I went through some medical challenges, and I was so depressed, I was like, oh my God, I want to get back to the hospital.

And so, for people, I mean, and it’s OK if you don’t want to practice medicine or anything like that, but I think, whether you’re practicing medicine or you’re in a nonclinical role, I think just planning for the next phase of your life is really shortsighted. I think that we could plan for, how do we create power now, how do we create generational wealth, how do we make the next generation not just have to focus on their student loans, whether that’s fighting through policy, whether that’s setting them up and actually having money for them, or whatever it may be, however, whatever is right for you. But how do we make it easier for the next generation to have the more important and deeper conversations?

And so those are the things that I like to highlight. Now, I think it’s hard when you feel like you’re drowning. Like right now, maybe somebody’s listening to me like, oh, that’s great, Hala, that sounds like a really great topic, but my kid is sick, I have to call in sick to work, I’m an eat-what-you-kill kind of physician. And yes, all of those circumstances are true, and they’re hard.

And I think just being aware of, hey look, this is bigger than just the next shift, this is bigger than just the next tax season, this is bigger than just the next year. Just being aware of that and being prepared for that, because you can’t prepare for something that you don’t know is coming down the line.

So for me, what my life looks like is really not getting bogged down by the day-to-day challenges. Just realizing, hey, that’s just part of my life, whether my nanny calls in sick, which has been happening a lot lately, or, oh, this is unfair at work, or I don’t like working with this one colleague, or whatever it may be. Instead of, I’m not saying not deal with that, but not fixate on it, and just think about, OK, what’s my bigger plan here?

And so the things I’m thinking about for Physician Moms Group is, how do I prepare this next generation of women to not be so fixated just on child care, where they can actually look at career growth, and not think that that’s something for the future? How do I teach them financial literacy, not me personally, but how do I facilitate teaching them financial literacy, so that way we have less women in debt, we have more women with investments and things like that?

So that’s what I’m thinking, and I hope that if you’re thinking that way too, then you can actually receive the messages that I give, with the people that I surround myself with that want the same thing for women physicians. And then we can move forward, and together I hope what the result is is just a more powerful group of people that can demand what they want.

Maybe we can control medicine again, maybe we could be the owners of our industries, or be in government positions, even have practicing physicians in government positions. I know we have some physicians in government positions, but they don’t practice, and I think you lose some of that connection to the community when you don’t practice.

But I think we can get to that state. And I know that that’s a non-tangible goal, and it makes it hard for people to really get behind. But if we just each kind of think about, what are our goals in the next year, five years, 10 years, and how does that relate to increasing our power, whether that’s influence, reach, money, whatever it may be? How do we each engage that for ourselves? And when we’re each doing that for ourselves, we’re going to be doing it as a community together.

So anyways, I know it’s a little bit of an intangible kind of thought, but I think it’s one that we need to start having, because if we start to be very cause and effect, we’re not going to get anywhere.

Kevin Pho: So tell us a success story. It could be from a systemic standpoint, or from an individual physician standpoint, of what correcting that power imbalance would look like. So it would be a success story where either Physician Moms Group moved the needle, or something that you’ve seen from a systemic standpoint that’s really implemented some of the suggestions that you’ve had. A short anecdote just to kind of illustrate some of the concepts you just talked about.

Hala Sabry: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s so many examples, but even just listening to this podcast, my example. I mean, I started the group thinking I was going to quit medicine, because I couldn’t figure out how to have a position that would be flexible enough with a young mom, and hiring a nanny. And so now the conversations, like 10 years later, are like, how do I increase power in the community? That’s a very different kind of conversation to have.

I do some coaching as well, for people who want to work one-on-one. I have a client who came to me and said that she wanted to quit. Actually, this is like a lot of clients, they come and they want to quit medicine, and obviously if they want to quit medicine I support them, I have no problem.

But one of the things I tell my clients is, don’t dream from a place of pain. Don’t allow the painful stimuli that you’re having right now dictate your future goals. Let’s deal with the pain right now, let’s figure out what the actual problem is, and then solve that problem, and then have a better solution for the future.

So for example, people think, oh, my job is toxic, or I’m burnt out. Let’s deal with the burnout, let’s deal with the job situation first, let’s get you into a situation that is a little bit more neutral or even positive, and then make a decision. And some people still decide to leave.

So this specific person initially decided to stay in medicine, and then decided to leave and became an executive in her organization, and now is getting paid more. And what she’s doing right now is identifying people with the same struggles that she had and really trying to fix it from a ground level. And so I think that that’s amazing, that she could go from, I’m going to leave, to, no, I’m going to stay. She stayed enough to be like, oh wait, I think I have a game plan for the physicians at my institution. Then goes on to being an executive, making more money, having more power in decision making. That is a success story.

I have women who, I have one right now, a client right now, she’s super amazing. I actually started talking to her husband first. I get this a lot too, I get women who are like, oh, can you talk to my husband? And so I’m like, yeah.

So there was one, I was talking to her husband and he wanted to create a business, and he was just a little bit scared about it. We were talking about it. I happen to know the region that he’s in, I happen to know a lot of the competitors in the industry there, and so he ended up biting the bullet and going and creating his own business. And so he’s doing awesome.

And she kind of saw herself as the support person for a while. She was like, OK, I want, they’re both a dual physician household, so she was like, let me make sure that I have a stable income so that way he can kind of grow his business until it gets up and running. And so she does that. But through it all, we were talking and we were working together, and she was like, wait, I don’t see why I can’t have my own business too.

And so, just thinking about where she can harness her own power, and not just be the support system for her partner. And so now, not only is she opening up her own business, but she already is profitable even before that, just with the things that she’s doing right now. And so that’s really fun to see. And she’s learned how to build a good support system.

But when she was coming to me, she was like, hey, I’m just stressed out, now my husband, you talked to my husband, now he’s building this company, now I’m stressed out with all of the responsibility. And she was having some other issues with her family and things like that. For her to get over that, literally in three weeks, in three weeks, she was like, OK, now let’s build my business.

So this is not like, when you start talking to people who, A, have done it, so whether you get a mentor, B, you get a coach that helps you get out of your own way, the pathway to getting over the day-to-day problems that you have right now, especially as a woman physician, is just on the other side of that.

And so, whether it’s, I have a toxic, the most common complaints I hear are, I have a toxic job, my boss doesn’t understand me, child care, whatever it may be is an issue, there’s so many issues with child care, or, I’m just unhappy.

There’s a whole topic of midcareer crisis that is an issue. It’s not really an issue, it’s just a stage of life, really. There’s some studies that show women professionals, when they hit around about seven to 10 years out of their training, whether that’s college or beyond, that they start to question themselves, like, is this all I’m going to do for the rest of my life? What’s my, they’re really asking, what’s my impact? But they’re not asking it like that, they’re just like, I’m bored.

Kevin Pho: Yeah.

Hala Sabry: Right? They’re saying those things. And for some people, because we don’t have that vocabulary of midcareer crisis, we only have the vocabulary in medicine as burnout, so then we slap that on ourselves. Because as physicians and as people, we want to give a diagnosis. And so it’s like, oh, I’m burnt out.

And when I talk to people I’m like, I don’t think you’re burnt out, I think you’re going through a normal stage, you’re asking what your impact is. And then when they realize that, they’re like, oh, I’m doubling down now. So they even become a stronger physician, business owner, whatever it may be.

And so I think that’s the power, either finding a mentor that’s done it, finding a coach. And those are different things, for people who don’t know, that’s why I give them different labels. A mentor is someone who’s done it before and they’re going to teach you exactly how to do it, by giving you the blueprint of how to do it. A coach is someone who may or may not have done it before, but is just helping you get out of your own way to be able to do it.

I think that we set up so many barriers for ourselves, like, oh, I can’t do that because of XYZ, oh, that would be a pay cut, or I don’t have the money, or I don’t have the talent, or I don’t have the time. And so coaches kind of help you get out of your own way.

And I personally feel, as a coach, that everybody knows exactly how to get there. It’s just that sometimes our brains like to make it confusing, so we sabotage ourselves, not to get to our results. So whether that’s more money, a different position, moving, having more kids, having more boundaries in your life, or whatever it may be, I think that we know how to do it. Just sometimes we’re scared, and we just need somebody to handhold us and remind us that we’re so brilliant. And that’s what coaching does offer.

So there are so many success stories I’ve seen, not only in my community but also in my practice as a coach as well. But what I hope that this podcast gives all of you is just the awareness of the problem.

If you are just thinking about your next day, next week, to the next tax season, these are things that I’ve thought about in the past, like, if I could just get to my next tax season, then I could hit some kind of set point or zero point, and then I’ll deal with this next time. So I just keep kicking the can down the road about dealing with building more power, getting myself in positions that I’m happier in, whether that’s a new job, whether that’s a new position, or whatever it may be.

And I just want to say that there’s no reason to kick the can down the road. You guys could do that now. And if you harness your power now, to get over just the day-to-day things that we deal with, whether that’s someone saying something bad to you at work, or somebody discriminating against you, I’m not making light of any of those things, but I think that we can deal with those things in a more efficient manner, so that way we can actually stop fighting the barriers and start creating our success.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Hala Sabry. She’s an emergency medicine physician and founder of the Physician Moms Group, and we’re talking about the hidden challenges of women physicians. Hala, we’ll end with some of your take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Hala Sabry: Yeah. I think each of you are brilliant, and you guys have so much power, even though you might be listening to this and not feeling that right now. And so please surround yourself with people who are forward thinking. Even if they’ve just figured out 10 percent more than you, that may be just the push that you need.

But please use your community, leverage your community, leverage your strength. Each one of us are so well trained, but we also are well trained to be workhorses, and sometimes help other people become more powerful and not ourselves. So please harness back that power, whether you’re a woman, man, or non-binary. And if you need any help with that, you could reach out to me, and I could guide you in the right way if I don’t have the resources for you.

Kevin Pho: Hala, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insight, and thanks again for coming on the show.

Hala Sabry: Thank you.