The Worthy Physician

What I wish I knew a long time ago, particularly when it comes to medicine: Leading with self-awareness

• Dr. Sapna Shah-Haque MD

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We explore the essential yet often overlooked foundation of physician leadership: knowing yourself. Dr. Maha Mohamad and Dr. Sapna Shah-Haque dispel the "I was born ready" myth that permeates medicine, discussing how physicians are expected to lead without formal training.

• Leadership must begin with self-knowledge about personality type, communication style, and values
• Online assessments like Myers-Briggs can provide valuable insights into how you naturally process information 
• Medical culture's traditional "do as you're told" hierarchy undermines effective leadership
• Creating psychological safety and judgment-free environments leads to richer collaboration
• Unlearning ingrained patterns is essential but challenging for physicians
• Cultural diversity and exposure to different perspectives expand leadership capabilities
• Even 15-20 minutes of self-reflection can significantly improve leadership skills
• Leadership expertise extends beyond clinical settings into all aspects of life

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Though I am a physician, this is not medical advice. This is only a tool that physicians can use to get ideas on how to deal with burnout and/or know they are not alone. If you are in need of medical assistance talk to your physician.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of the Worthy Physician. I'm your host, dr Sapna Shah-Hawk, reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine. With each episode, we bring you inspiring stories, actionable insight and expert advice. Get ready for another engaging conversation that could change the way you think and live as a physician. Your income is your greatest asset, protected with Pattern Life. The easy, stress-free way to find the right disability insurance, with unbiased comparisons and no jargon. Pattern helps you to choose the best policy for your needs. Secure your future today at Pattern Life. The link is in the show notes. Let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of the Worthy Physician. I am your host, dr Sapna Shah Haque, and I am happy to present my co-host. I'm Dr Maha Muhammad, reigniting your humanity. Why bring on a co-host? Because she's awesome and this definitely gives a different perspective. Because, maha, you've been in practice post-fellowship for how many years now? That's my second year, okay, so we're going to be looking at this from two different lenses. I've been practicing post-residency for 12 years now.

Speaker 2:

I'm really excited to be here. This is a platform where women with expertise like yourself lots of life and medicine experience will be sharing their stories and their experience for showing how medicine and medicine and life would be intertwined, sometimes in a very complex way.

Speaker 1:

It is complex, isn't it? Different seasons in life they're going to be, we're going to show up differently, but then we also have different things that become priorities, not just our professions, and then at times there are different professional goals than what we initially came into medicine with. But he had a great idea for a series and tell us and the listeners about this series.

Speaker 2:

I've been always brainstorming about how the phrase I was born ready is just not valid at all, and it does not apply to any single aspect of one's life. Most of the times, we're just thrown into one thing, one situation, one life experience, without a previous preparation, previous knowledge, and it just finds yourself having to go through this. So I was thinking about this idea of theories that I would like to call. I wish I knew this a long time ago, particularly when it comes to medicine.

Speaker 1:

Where did we come up with this conversation, this phrase of I was born ready? Humans were some of the most fragile. When we're born, we're so vulnerable.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and readiness is definitely, just like you said, not one of the.

Speaker 1:

No, we can't even walk for the first good year of our lives. We're completely dependent on our parents and at some point in time we lose that ability to be vulnerable. And you brought up a good question when you were designing this series, and it was.

Speaker 2:

We weren't really taught how to lead in medical school or residency or fellowship, but as soon as we become attending physicians, here we go 100%, and it always starts with July 1, where everybody starts as an intern or a resident, and then a senior resident, then a fellow, and this is the crazy day where you find yourself responsible for teams of interns, med students, sometimes international students, who are visiting nurses, social workers and other staff, and so it's really interesting to think about that. We have no formal training to have to approach this, but I think if we start by breaking down this huge goal into smaller chunks, I think this would be the best way to go.

Speaker 1:

So walk us through that, break it down for us.

Speaker 2:

Initially, what I'd like to go, I'd like to talk about is leadership and oneself. That would be the first section of our talk. The second would be leadership and your team member, and the third would be leadership as a woman physician.

Speaker 1:

Walk us through point number one. What does that mean to you? What would you wish you would have known?

Speaker 2:

I would start with do you really know you before you start leading others? Do you know what are your preferences? What is your personality type? How do you communicate All of those details? You need to tap into yourself and start learning that about yourself before you start approaching others. So one of the really interesting personality quizzes available online and I encourage you to check that out that's called the Briggs-Myers personality type, and there are too many personality types and it breaks it down to as you are an individual who has a special aspect of creativity, a special aspect of communication, a special aspect of dealing with hard situations. So it's really nice and asks you a lot of questions trying to narrow down your personality type. So it's a very interesting place to start with. Why do you think that matters personality type? So it's a very interesting place to start with.

Speaker 1:

Why do you think that matters?

Speaker 2:

I think it gives you an idea that not everybody is the same and that the universe does not revolve around you.

Speaker 1:

What do you mean? Just because I have my MD or my master's or PhD beyond that, that it doesn't revolve around me.

Speaker 2:

That's in one aspect and I think, just by the human nature, everyone would be very clingy to their own idea, to their own thought, and they want to like seriously fight for it. But there are other opinions and other people and everybody has a right to voice their concerns, say what they need to say and you can always come to an amicable, shared decision. Basically, so you're supposed to approach patients and you can always come to an amicable, shared decision, basically.

Speaker 1:

So you're supposed to approach patients. It's a good way to probably approach teammates, isn't it? Absolutely Not. I'm the chief resident or I'm the chief fellow, so you're going to do as I say 100%.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that unipolarity, I don't think it leads anywhere. Good.

Speaker 1:

But medicine has this culture where you do as you're told and you shut up. Did you see some of that changing in your training?

Speaker 2:

I think it's style dependent. In training you'll have so many attendings that you would work with and this is where you start building your personality and style. I want to be like this role model. I really didn't like this aspect of that attending, so I just don't want to mirror that. It's hard to generalize, but I was in contact with really amazing attendings who just value you as a human being before even listening to other medical decisions or how do you carry yourself, or that just general, genuine, nice behavior that I think the more we delve into science and medicine, the more we detach from it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, at some point it's almost as if we become too cerebral and we forget that the body, heart and soul are really one. But circling back to knowing yourself. But Dr Mohamed, when am I going to have time for that?

Speaker 2:

That's good, because you'll always feel like you're bombarded with pages, with questions, with all of that family-related stuff. I think we have to carve out time for ourselves. This, if it takes anything, it'll take about 15 to 20 minutes, and we always have that. We would sometimes go into the thought that everything is urgent, like your life becomes like an ED art department. This is not true. We need to breathe, calm down, step back and try to prioritize this, because you carry this leadership notion and the skills with you everywhere you go, like in your family, in your marriage, in your communication with friends, in your communication with the grocery shop. It's everywhere, so it's not only applicable to your work environment.

Speaker 1:

So know yourself, know your values and even your personality type, because that can show you your strengths and weaknesses. Absolutely, does it give us anything about communication style?

Speaker 2:

It does, and I think it's not only a. We can't just depend on one resource to develop this communication style. Different people have different personalities, different ways to communicate, so we want to try to be as neutral as possible, try to let go of our biases, to let go of our prejudgment thoughts that we grow up thinking they are right and we're. I always think about stuff that we need to unlearn, to learn how to do things better. Yeah, like in terms of communication, we have to be more flexible, teachable, open, clear. Provide that safe and supportive environment, make sure that it's judgment free, and I think this is where the collision of ideas and expertise starts. And this is this make our environment way more rich.

Speaker 1:

Couldn't agree with you more. And a lot of those things are going to have to be unlearned Because, again, it's at some point the skills that we have learned about standing our ground and dying on a hill for every single piece of an argument has served to some point to get us career wise. Argument has served to some point to get us career-wise, life-wise, to where we are, but at some point it also becomes futile and really dysregulating our sense of peace. Absolutely being that you're within your first five years of practice. That's a huge learning curve because you've learned the medicine and now you have to learn how to implement that into real world. It's completely different in our broken system. How do you unlearn it?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's a tough one. I think the more we get exposed and the more we approach situations with a clearer mind and just think about it as approaching a situation with a blank page. Just try to collect information, be as objective as possible. Honestly, it's very hard to unlearn, but the more you experience this, the more you learn how to unlearn.

Speaker 1:

How did you develop that mindset?

Speaker 2:

I think when I first traveled because it's interesting living in Lebanon. It's a great place to live. I just love that country. Everything about it is just amazing, to start with food, but other stuff as well. However, I noticed that when I traveled that we lacked that cultural diversity, and just living in a space where everybody is homogenous, everybody is the same, speaking the same language, thinking the same way just make you think in a very traditional or stereotyped way. Once I was out of those borders, I'm like no things could be done way differently. Different people react differently, approach things in so many ways, and this all could lead us to success. It doesn't have to be only one way. Just like they say, all roads lead to Rome, it's not just one way that gets you where you want. So learning about others, exploring different cultures, having friends from all around the globe helped me expand this mindset.

Speaker 1:

When you said that it really, I mean like, yeah, that makes sense. There's so much to learn, I think, just by interacting with our fellow human beings and getting out of our comfort zone Do you know yourself? How do you lead and connect with your values, personality type and communication style with your team? Stay tuned for the second part of our discussion leadership and team. Thanks for tuning in to another episode from the Worthy Physician podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who'd love it too. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube, linkedin, instagram for more updates and insights. Until next time, keep inspiring, learning, growing and living your best life.