Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Independent emergency physician Kenneth Ro discusses his article, “From survival to sovereignty: What 35 years in the ER taught me about identity, mortality, and redemption.” He shares his deeply personal journey, from growing up as a bullied Korean American boy in Texas who used academic achievement as “armor,” to a 35-year career on the front lines of the ER. Kenneth explains how the unprocessed trauma from his work—bookended by the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics—led to a life of compartmentalization and addiction, creating two versions of himself: one who saved lives and one who sabotaged his own. The conversation explores his spiritual awakening and how he began to dismantle an identity built on perfection and pain. Kenneth introduces his new personal mission, the Nova Oath™, which evolves the Hippocratic principle of “do no harm” to “do more good” by prioritizing integrity, self-care, and presence over performance. This is a story of turning scars into scaffolding and choosing to consciously write a new, more honest chapter in life.

Careers by KevinMD is your gateway to health care success. We connect you with real-time, exclusive resources like job boards, news updates, and salary insights, all tailored for health care professionals. With expertise in uniting top talent and leading employers across the nation’s largest health care hiring network, we’re your partner in shaping health care’s future. Fulfill your health care journey at KevinMD.com/careers.

VISIT SPONSOR → https://kevinmd.com/careers

Discovering disability insurance? Pattern understands your concerns. Over 20,000 doctors trust us for straightforward, affordable coverage. We handle everything from quotes to paperwork. Say goodbye to insurance stress – visit Pattern today at KevinMD.com/pattern.

VISIT SPONSOR → https://kevinmd.com/pattern

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://www.kevinmd.com/recommended

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome Kenneth Ro. He’s an emergency physician, and today’s KevinMD article is “From survival to sovereignty: What 35 years in the ER taught me about identity, mortality, and redemption.” Kenneth, welcome to the show.

Kenneth Ro: Hey, a pleasure to be here, Kevin.

Kevin Pho: All right. So, thank you so much for writing on KevinMD. You’re an emergency physician. Tell me about the events that led you to write this article on KevinMD in the first place.

Kenneth Ro: Well, it’s pretty much an autobiography, and I did a lot of reflection. I’ve been doing a lot of reflection for the past seven to eight years. And I think COVID really accelerated that process because we were not seeing many patients in the ER. There was a lot of time to read, and it was a hectic, scary time, particularly for us in the ER wearing all that personal protective gear for 12 hours. And it was crazy times.

But the story starts, of course, with how I grew up. My dad was a political science professor, and he had the option to either go to Fargo, North Dakota, or College Station, Texas. He actually grew up in North Korea. He hated the cold, and he said, “No way am I going to go to Fargo. I’m coming to Texas.” So we ended up at Texas A&M. I was the only Asian; we were the only Asian family in central Texas, in the whole city. Which in first grade in elementary school was actually an advantage. I was the only one. I wasn’t singled out for bullying or pain. I was actually very honored for being different. And so as a kid, that really imprinted in my mind. It’s like, “Well, this is the way it’s going to go in the world. As I get older, my differences, my individuality, and my uniqueness are going to be an advantage.”

And that all slapped me in the face when we moved when I was in fifth grade, in the middle of the year, rather suddenly. We didn’t expect it. They changed the school district. So I ended up in a different school, and they say there’s safety in numbers, and my number was one. So there wasn’t too much safety there. I was introduced to bullying in a huge way, and I was shocked. Some of the excerpts in the story: I got thrown into a dumpster while I was waiting for the bus and locked in, and I had graffiti spray-painted on my car and all the usual racial slurs that an Asian had to endure at that time.

And I really felt ostracized and rejected and a lot of shame, but I really didn’t know until I got older what all that really meant. I told myself that this too shall pass, you know, once I get into college things will be different. But looking back upon it, what I built was this attitude that if it’s going to be this way, academics is my only way out. And I’m just going to flat-out work harder than anybody else. I have to work harder than anyone else because I’m not going to get cut any slack anywhere. And so I took that perfectionist performance attitude into the rest of my life until I was almost in my mid-fifties.

It served me well on one hand as far as what was defined as success for me: ER doctor, adrenaline junkie. But I finally realized something was missing after I had a couple of injuries. I had a couple of surgeries back in 2015 or so, and I was on the shelf for like three months. I gained 25 pounds. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t do anything. And then that angry portion of me that had been my shame armor lashed out at my wife and at other people. And I would really look at myself in the mirror and I’d say, “I don’t like who I am.”

But one of the seminal moments in my life was when I read Dr. Gundry’s The Plant Paradox back in 2017. And it literally changed my life. I learned that my vegan diet was actually working against me because I was eating a whole bunch of lectins. And once I got on his plan, the results were astounding. I lost 20 pounds, and I got my energy back. And then I started becoming kinder and nicer and more present. And so that was a big epiphany in my life, saying, “Well, hey, guess what? You take care of your physical, the mental gets better, and you become a better person.” I started looking into spirituality and self-compassion. I started reading Brené Brown, learning about shame and learning about what I built up over the years that really wasn’t working for me anymore.

And, about the same time, I had the same epiphany because I’m sitting in the ER working full-time shifts and I’m seeing my patients come in and it seems like everybody’s getting more and more frail and weaker. And you’re starting to see hip fractures in 60-year-old women. And I’m thinking, “I’m a doc, I’m an ER doc, I have very limited amounts of preventive medicine, and it’s all consequence medicine for me.” And, “Have I been part of the problem rather than part of the solution? Have I just been a band-aid?” And so that that really led me to a lot of deep thinking. And I just said, “You know something, I’ve spent so much time studying what causes diseases, studying what causes the body to go wrong. I really haven’t studied enough of what the body does right.” I mean, the body does so many right things. And so at that time, I took a real deep dive into all things precision medicine, biohacking, and individual medicine. And I really felt it was my calling to try to help people in that way, really start going into health care rather than sick care.

And so of course, I’m an ER doctor. I’m very comfortable in my role. And then COVID hit. So I really wanted to start a virtual practice for men, but really for everybody eventually, to optimize their health. Kind of the same pathway that I took because I did a lot of individual testing, tested for allergies, food testing, SIBO, and inflammation. I found out I was high on all accounts. And then once I adjusted that, everything else fell into place, and it was a great, positive, upward spiral for health. And I just said, “Hey, this is my calling. I’m a healer. I want to be a guide to other people to help them achieve health and vitality. Help them feel good.” And, once they feel good, they’re going to be better people and do good. So that’s kind of been my mantra for the past several years.

But this year, everything is coming to fruition. I have been reading and following your podcast for years, and I just said, “Wow, I get so much good information.” For some reason, the past few months have just really spoken to me. I mean, you had the two Korean physicians on several months ago, and I was just like, “Wow, these guys have stories that are very similar to mine.” I mean, every story resonates with me in such a huge, deep way. So I just said, “You know something, maybe it’s time that I just start putting this together.” So I finally started putting together all the—I got the consult, started putting together practice, and we’re hoping to actually start seeing patients on August the first. So a very, very exciting time.

And then I also spun off a couple of things just from my feeling better, doing better attitude and my philosophy. And that was the Nova Oath, the modern Hippocratic Oath that you published as well. And also there’s a movement that that I’ve coined, “So Go Make a Difference.” Basically, that’s going to be “pay it forward,” but it’s also going to include an anti-bullying program for the kids and school children and also for the parents. That came out of a conversation with my mother right before I went to medical school. Because I was in College Station, I went to Texas A&M. I was kind of skittish about going out of town, but I got into med school in Houston, and I was really scared then that, “Hey, you know, I’m still badly scarred from all this bullying, and now I’m going to go to the big city, and it’s going to be worse.” And my mom just said, “Yeah, you’re different. So now go make a difference.”

And that stuck with me forever. My mom, all of a sudden, she’s so soft, and she just said, “Now go out there and go get ’em.” And so I was just like, “Yeah, OK, let’s start making a difference.” So that’s kind of the crux of what I’m doing right now. And that was what led to sending in the article.

Kevin Pho: So in your article, you talk about compartmentalizing some of this unprocessed trauma that you just described to us now. How did you go about doing that? Because it’s clearly influenced you throughout your life, certainly up until today. How did you go about processing some of that trauma that you experienced as a child?

Kenneth Ro: Well, I think the first part of processing it was to just sweep it under the rug and kind of internalize it. You know, it’s like I mentioned that the body always keeps the score. I think, compared to most physicians, I’ve probably seen the time of death more than most physicians. You know, ER doctor, you do the codes on the floor, you pronounce the DNR patients. So I’ve seen that last agonal breath and the bradycardia to the asystole more times than most and more times than I probably had expected when I started my career.

But I would reflect on that and say, “You’ve seen the time of death.” The one thing, Kevin, that was so surprising is that every time it finally happened, that death came, and I pronounced the time, the patient looked so peaceful. I mean, I was just floored by that.

But you would think I could use that information in some sort of constructive way. You know, you would think I’d be very, more fate or stoic or, you know, really memento mori, that sort of remembering death and looking at life from death’s point of view. But no, I just compartmentalized that as well and just moved on. And over time it became more, I just kind of questioned myself because I was like, “Am I becoming more of a machine to this rather than a human being?” And I would say, “Well, you can’t just cry your eyeballs out right in front of the patient’s family. You have to be the voice of calm, the voice of reason, and you have to maintain that.”

But I guess over the years, all those times and everything that I saw in the ER, from AIDS to COVID and everything in between, it definitely affected me personally because I really didn’t look at it in an introspective way, and I probably didn’t, well, I know that I didn’t process it in a healthy, constructive way. I would process it in my shame shield. And instead of growing from it and learning from it, it would just make my shield armor harder and bigger. So that’s the way I look at it until maybe about three or four years ago when I started processing things a lot more efficiently and kind of understanding that, hey, this sideways emotion really has a central theme of everything that you’ve really tried to compartmentalize and keep in rather than share it with someone else. And allow the power of conversation with people in your inner circle and people who love you, allow that to for you to have compassion from other people, you know, allow that to come in. That was the big change.

Kevin Pho: So it sounds like you carried this trauma, this baggage for decades, right? And you said it wasn’t until three to four years ago when you were injured and you didn’t like who you saw in a mirror, where you had that epiphany, that realization, and that self-compassion to inspire you to process that trauma. Did you have any help during this journey? Did you just read books or did you have a counselor, a therapist, anyone who helped you along that journey? Because after so many decades of compartmentalization, I could only imagine how difficult it is to come out of that.

Kenneth Ro: I had all the above. I had a fantastic therapist who he actually—I knew Brené Brown. So the therapist, and then I started reading Kristin Neff’s self-compassion, and I went to one of her conferences, retreats. I got to know her personally as well. Coincidentally, in one of her intake tests, I scored so low on self-compassion. It was just, it was horrendous. And I was like, “Wow, you know, you really have to take a look at this because you are not being kind to yourself at all.” And that was showing up in other ways.

But yeah, definitely trying to white-knuckle this wasn’t the way to go. I mean, I got a lot of help, and I’m very grateful that I took those steps. But my therapist, I’ll mention his name, Phil Ginsburg, is just an amazing person, an amazing man, and he’s just helped me so much.

And I’ve had a lot of people help me throughout my life. And as I become more aware and I start processing my trauma better, I start realizing that, you know, something, it wasn’t those guys that bullied you in school. You’ve had so much help in your life, from all your professors, from your fellow doctors, colleagues, and all your patients. So you’ve had a lot of love that you’ve pretty much foregone to rather settle into your more comfortable emotional state of protecting yourself and survival mode. So that was kind of the gist of that part of my article.

Kevin Pho: If all the physicians took that intake form from Kristin Neff, I bet you that so many of them would score low in self-compassion. And I talked to a lot of physicians on this podcast, and a lot of them have to deal with unprocessed trauma and compartmentalize, just as you did. Tell us some pieces of advice that you could share with these physicians who may be in a similar situation to where you once were. How can they begin to move forward?

Kenneth Ro: I think it comes with the self-realization and the self-awareness that what you do is tough, you know? I think what happens is over the years we kind of dismiss all the hard hours, all the sweat equity, all the studying, all the night shifts, and that leads to one of the biggest blocks to me, which was actually imposter syndrome. I think that just created more shame. And I just said, “You know, one of these days somebody is going to find out that I’m not as smart as my record reflects.” And I think a lot of physicians have that. And that kind of ties into shame as well.

But one thing that turned me around was Adam Grant’s book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Which, of course, that sort of knowledge is just so important, you know, knowing your blind spots or having somebody counsel your blind spots.

But his spin on imposter syndrome completely changed my mind. It just completely changed my life because I was struggling so much with it. Where he stated in his book was that imposter syndrome is actually a sign of humility. If you’re not really having self-doubt, then you don’t have any opportunity to improve or for self-introspection. Essentially, if you don’t feel like you have imposter syndrome, you’re more on the narcissistic scale. You know, everybody should have a little bit of it, and that’s healthy. And when you put it in that framework, I was just like, “Wow.” That really, because I was really struggling with that, imposter syndrome’s not a bad thing; actually, it can be a productive thing. So when I read that, that really changed a lot of outlooks and changed a lot of my shame.

I would counsel or recommend for any doc that’s going through it, first of all, be very gentle with yourself. Give yourself a lot of kudos. I want to give all the physicians a lot of kudos and that, you know, what we do is hard. This is not easy work. We could have chosen to be in a lot of different fields, probably made a lot more money, and also had a lot more headaches. But we chose to take care of patients, and in this era of micromanagement and actuarials and numbers needed to treat, we’re kind of losing focus of that patient-physician connection. I call it more of a connection than a relationship because we sit in front of that person that really trusts us and needs us in that moment.

Really, really be gentle with yourself. One of the exercises that Kristin does is she’ll say, “Pretend that you’re receiving a letter from your best friend. What would the language be in that letter as opposed to a letter that you’d write yourself?” You know, that would be full of self-deprecation and full of criticism that you wouldn’t accept hearing from anybody else but coming from yourself. You know, that’s just how you live 24/7.

So, first thing, just a lot of compassion and empathy. You know, what we do is hard. What we do is impactful, and what we do is important. But yeah, definitely take that first step with maybe taking that test. And think about getting, there’s a lot of physician counselors that are out there. Usually, whatever medical consortium you work for or work with will have resources for you. Because the other physician counselors, man, it’s almost like I got in the wrong business. These guys make $500 an hour or something. I’m like, “Well, I don’t know.”

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Kenneth Ro, an emergency physician. Today’s KevinMD article is “From survival to sovereignty: What 35 years in the ER taught me about identity, mortality, and redemption.” Kenneth, let’s end with some take-home messages you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Kenneth Ro: Well, what I really wanted to reinforce was that you be very gentle with yourself. I mean, we talk about burnout like we wear it like a badge of honor. It’s not a badge of honor. And I would really encourage everyone to just kind of look at both your patients and yourselves with the type of lens that really looks deeply into their souls and looks deeply into your souls. I mean, we’re all here to try to make the world a better, kinder, nicer place, and talk things out with the people who really love you.

I do want to leave one recommendation. This is from my friend Amit Sood; he was with the Mayo Clinic. Now he’s independent. But one thing that tends to suffer with us physicians is our relationship. So he has this two-minute rule, which I think is just amazing. When you get off of work, greet your spouse, significant other, your partner, and just either look at them or hug them or just be with them for two full minutes. Eye to eye. It just makes such a difference in your life. You know, honor them, and you’ll be in a much better place because of it.

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

Kenneth Ro: Thank you very much, Kevin.