Awakening Doctor
The Awakening Doctor podcast explores the personal stories of those who work in the medical and health professions. Each episode aims to highlight the humanity of an individual doctor or healer, and thereby challenge and transform social perceptions of the profession and the individuals who practice it. Join Dr. Maria Christodoulou as she meets with colleagues, leaders, and educators in healthcare to reveal the human side of being a medical professional.
Awakening Doctor
Dr Rosemary Pitsi, A Heart for People
Dr. Rosemary Pitsi is a dedicated young doctor currently working at a tertiary hospital in South Africa's North West province. She is also the founder of Book Buddies, a literacy initiative for underprivileged children, and the co-founder of Medtimes, a medical rostering platform designed to streamline scheduling for healthcare workers and institutions.
In this episode of Awakening Doctor, we explore Dr. Pitsi's journey of being and becoming a doctor - beyond the long hours and technical expertise - to the heart of the human connections and responsibilities that define the profession.
As we reflect on her commitment to service, the role of emotional intelligence, and the intersection of literacy and healthcare, we learn about her love for medicine and surgery, the challenges of an unexpected and delayed community service placement, and the ongoing struggle to balance personal wellbeing with the demands of a medical career.
Join us for an inspiring conversation about resilience, advocacy, and the power of faith and family in staying true to one's purpose - both within and beyond the hospital walls.
If you enjoy these conversations and would like to support our work, please consider donating to our podcast fund using the link above. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and keep bringing you great content. No amount is too small and your support means the world to us. Thank you!
Credits:
Hosted by Dr Maria Christodoulou
Produced and edited by Amy Kaye
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Thank you for listening!
What do you know today about being a doctor that six-year-old you didn't know?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:There will always be somebody that needs help. There will always be somebody whose mom has just passed away and maybe in our naivety we think we can fix it. But with a certain maturity you come to know that there will always be help that is needed. A lways. There will always be somebody that needs aid, intervention, surgery, counseling, guidance, a suture. That'll always be there.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:What I am surprised about or that is new information to me is that I just didn't know how bad it was for our community in South Africa Just looking at our healthcare system, and how much it reflects the state of our community. For varying reasons, we have a lot of our burden and what we see is because of the way we live. You wouldn't have kiddies having hot water burns if the moms didn't have to turn away for a second to just get cold water for the hot water that they're pouring into a tub to bath. It's such a small example, but it happens so frequently. We wouldn't have patients having paraffin exposures if they had a stove. I don't think everyone needs to have all the amenities possible to have a good life, but we need to have a safe life. Just to bring back my passion in education, w hat I would add to that is that grassroots literacy is so important, because that is what shapes how you interact with the world. If you don't have a sense of comprehension of what you're reading, you're never going to know which aisle to go to for family planning i n the clinic. Y ou won't even want to go anymore. Just that anxiety of navigating t hat must be so difficult for a young individual who has the intent to do better for herself because she knows she cannot afford to bring another life into this world and is trying to further her studies, but she's got no way of navigating and accessing health for herself.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Where do we say the fault lies?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Is it that it is an access thing? Is it a resource thing? And I think sometimes not. I think it's just what our community and our population has to work with to navigate this world, and it's not always that easy.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Welcome. I'm Dr Maria Christodoulou and this is the Awakening Doctor podcast, a space where we discover the personal stories of those who work in the medical and health professions. Join me as I explore the hopes, the fears, the aspirations and the real-life challenges of those who carry the title, responsibility and privilege of being a doctor. Joining myself and producer Amy Kaye today is Dr Rosemary Pitsi, a medical doctor currently working in general surgery at a tertiary hospital in the North West. She is the co-founder of MedTimes, a medical rostering platform, and the founder of Book Buddies, a non-profit organization that aims to improve literacy in children from underprivileged backgrounds. Welcome, Rosemary.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Thank you very much, Maria. It's also a pleasure to have Amy as well.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Lovely to have you with us and I'm looking forward to our conversation. So you tell me, where do we start? Where does the story of Dr Rosemarie Pitsi begin?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Right at the very beginning. I always start with my mother's and my father's love story. I never knew how many times I find myself sharing it, so I thought let me bring it as an introduction to this conversation. So my mother is originally from Zambia and my father was exiled to Zambia in the times of the apartheid era. They happened to find each other, developed a relationship and then found themselves coming back to South Africa after 1994, once things started to settle down. It was then that I was born in 1995 in South Africa.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:One of my first or my earliest childhood memories was something retold by my mom, a ctually. It was a time when her mother, which was my grandmother, had passed away and she wasn't able to be there. She had hypertensive heart disease and I think there was so little understanding of the management then and it was such a sore point for the family. I found myself consoling my mom by telling her that you know what, don't worry, I've got it all under control and I'll become a doctor and I will alleviate the pain and the suffering. And I think from that age, which was six at the time, the love for medicine developed.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:The love for medicine or the desire to alleviate pain and suffering?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh, that's a good point? I think so. Maybe the desire to be of service probably spawned from there. From there that was always in the back of the mind, on the oven burner. And I attended primary school in Centurion. I t was Springvale Primary School. Went on to a common co-ed high school, Sutherland High School, and also some of the best times of my life was there. I found myself engaging in a lot of leadership, a lot of sports. I think very early on I knew that my key to success was being an all-rounder, as opposed to being particularly good at something, and so that saw me to the success that I have now.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:And then I found myself having to revisit the thought in grade 11 about what to pursue and when to pursue and where to pursue this, and so I brought it up again in prayer and I thought to myself, okay L ord, if this is something that you would like me to pursue, provide me with the path. And that's when I started with the applications. Being in medicine, you have to apply to all of them and hope that you do get entry in. And we got accepted into Stellenbosch and... It wasn't really on the radar. I wasn't really planning on leaving the province, but they offered us the opportunity to come and sightsee and get to know the campus as part of their welcome program. A lso made quite a few friends in that time that continue to be my friends til today. And I think there is where I got the passion or the desire to come and specialise, or study rather, at Stellenbosch.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Where were you hoping you would end up?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:At Tuks. I remember I was one of the very first people to apply to Tuks and used to follow up on a weekly basis. They knew me by name at that point and I think it was a bit of a sore point that I didn't get in. But it was also at the time where we got the invitation to go to Stellenbosch for that campus visit and I think I got distracted and it must have been a serendipitous opportunity that helped me transition from that disappointment.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:What was it about that Stellenbosch welcome meeting, because a number of previous guests have spoken about that and I know that colloquially amongst the students it was often known as Black Camp, but so many of the people that I've spoken to who attended that orientation meeting and opportunity to visit the campus were motivated by that to sign on and stay at Stellenbosch University. What do you think it was?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think we became quite privy to what they were trying to achieve with the invite and the program that we also became guarded in the beginning. What I would say was a particular influence to our decisions respectively is that in and between the formal proceedings of the program, you would chat to Sivu, she was one of the fourth year students at the time. She was one of the seniors who had volunteered or other people that were part of the facilitating of the program and they would say, ok, quite frankly, this is what the program's intention is, but it doesn't speak to the kind of experience you're going to have. And you know that you are all coming from different backgrounds, but the aim and the desire to become a medical professional remains the same. They s poke from their experience and how far they were able to come, and it really felt like something that we could also partake in and we could also find fulfillment in. So I think for myself in particular, that's what gave me the desire to come through and, if anything, it exceeded my expectations. I loved varsity. It was great. I would recommend it again. I'd say I'd do it again.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I do know that I had a different undergraduate experience in comparison to my colleagues of colour. I also am aware of the advantages or the privileges that I have that allowed me to have a different experience. I think I was just very actively involved in the academics, actively involved in the societies, actively involved in sports. I tried to have as much of a full and balanced life as I could. It wasn't always easy and I think it was very different to the norm that was the culture on campus, and so I found myself doing a lot of things alone, but not necessarily feeling lonely. I think I created quite a few communities outside of my intimate friends and I think it gave me such a full experience of varsity. So that was the best part. And getting the degree. That was the cherry on top.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:When did you graduate? [Dr Rosemary Pitsi"I was class of 2019. And when you look back now, your perceptions or assumptions of what medical school was going to be like versus your actual experience of it?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Ooh, that's a difficult one. So I do think I had a very different or an alternate path. I think up until the point of fourth year, f ifth year, when I started coming into clinical practice, it predominantly became the focus in the clinical setting, and I think that speared me on to focus on finishing the journey off and ending off well and strong and then becoming a medical professional, because functioning in the capacity of a student is very different. You think you can take it all on and you think there's time for this and that. And as a medical professional, our work is our priority and the service that we deliver is our priority, and it doesn't always look like ending off at four o'clock and being able to go home and stop thinking about a patient and switch off entirely. Even to till today there's still some patients on my mind that I've left at work, and so that shift or that sensitivity or that awareness or that level of responsibility is something that I can say I didn't have as an undergraduate student, and I think it started to develop as I was going along.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:So I find myself torn. I want to ask you about patients that stay with you, and then I also want to ask you, because you've said twice now that you had a slightly alternate path or you had a different experience to some of your colleagues. Do you want to tell us more about that? What was different?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I do know, in particular for students of colour, being at Stellenbosch, we didn't all have the same experience in the clinical space and that sometimes afforded us a varietal of opportunities, in that some were afforded more opportunities of exposure and some not so much.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:For myself, in terms of what gave me the added advantage, I think I would allow myself to vouch for my work ethic first, but coming from the nursery school that I attended, my understanding of Afrikaans and the way in which I'm able to speak Afrikaans is actually very good and I think that helped me connect with my patients. It helped me connect with my seniors and the consultants as well. I try to be sensitive, not to use that as an opportunity to help me stand out, but just to facilitate a mode of communication. And it really does go a long way, and I find myself doing exactly the same now, being in the Northwest and Setswana being the predominant language, that is the medium I'm trying to bring out to be able to better communicate with my patients. So I was a little worried about that in the beginning, but now I see I'm doing it predominantly for the benefit of the patient.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Did I read somewhere that you've done quite a bit of public speaking in the Afrikaans medium and that you actually, at school, were a debater, a 'redenaar'?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Wow, your research is impeccable. Actually, some of the most exciting times was attending the ATKV Redenaars programs, and my mom would come, not understanding a word of Afrikaans, but I think it's almost as if she could follow the speech of the conversation, as my delivery was very charismatic, and so she loved that, and she would tell me OK, work on your posture, work on the non-verbal cues, so as to improve your delivery, because that was all she was privy to, and so I think the combination of the two really did make a difference.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I'm so impressed. What is it about that that's taken you by surprise?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think I do a lot, I have had a lot of experiences. I just don't know who is privy to all of that, who knows of all of that, and whether it will be of any particular interest. That I find interesting.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Well, I suspect that one, that experience of being able to communicate effectively in a different language is critical to what you bring to the clinical domain now, and I think that your efforts to reach your patients in their primary language are an essential skill for health professionals. If I'm not feeling well, I really don't want to have to explain it to somebody in my second or third or fourth language.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I agree. I agree, you wouldn't be able to articulate yourself in that way, so true.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:So you finished medical school and then.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I finished medical school. It was at the time that I had also started Book Buddies, and I think I was coming into the confidence of doing more and allowing myself to be involved in more, while still pursuing something that I told myself was important to me. Obviously, my mom and my dad had all sorts of reservations about me going to the US and spending time in Chicago in my week of my final exams for final year, just to be able to gain some skills and acumen to start Book Buddies. Nevertheless, they paid for that opportunity and I'm forever grateful for that. My parents have been betting on me since the beginning and that has honestly given me the confidence to and the motivation to say you know what? I'm going to prove them right and I'm going to give them something to continue to be proud of, because this is important and I'm passionate about it.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:So that, in particular, was how I almost ended off final year, graduating and then being placed at New Somerset Hospital and then also saying, okay, how do I continue to facilitate Book Buddies, but in a professional manner now that I'm working? And so that took on some time once a month on a Saturday at the end of the month, and I would take a group of eager medical students and some consultants. I don't even know what made me think I could just invite consultants to an informal settlement to spend time with children, and the reservations about how do we get there? Will it be safe? I think it was a superficial level of that, but I remember Prof taking his very fancy car, and actually Prof Baatjes as well, taking her fancy car to Khayelitsha, and it was not even at the top of our minds when we got there and it was such a fulfilling experience.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:You can see light bulbs coming on when you spend time with the children and that was a big part of my internship outside of work, as well as getting a clinical acumen. From a professional point of view, I did start investing in my professional journey at New Somerset Hospital as an intern coordinator.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I organized a funded program where interns could have most of their courses that are aligned with certain rotations, funded by the hospital, and then that would become of benefit to them then going into the community service and their career going forward. So that, for me. also solidified my intentions to continue along the academic journey and to see where it takes me and also again helping others up. There was always the principle of being in service was always coming into play. What that has transformed into is continuing my academic journey here in the North West. I'm currently also studying for intermediates, which is T minus 27 days away, and I've got a lot of support at work and I'm very grateful for the position that I've had in terms of this experience that I've gotten. And Book Buddies is still there and it's still on my heart. But I've also become involved with the North-West University Medical School that will be coming up with its first intake in 2028. So again also finding myself in another platform of service.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:What was the inspiration for Book Buddies?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:The inspiration was that I enjoyed reading quite a bit. I think that was my best and most loved form of procrastination. And I one day had this thought that I'm exchanging books between myself and my friends because, you know, we couldn't afford all these expensive books. So between us there are four or five books that are always in circulation and that's almost exponential amount of knowledge that is being shared. And I thought to myself can we not take this concept being used by very broke undergraduate students, ca n we not take it to a community that actually needs it, where it will translate to bigger benefit or more of an influence for people from an underprivileged background? And so, as I started developing the idea and as I spent some time in Chicago, that is where I started to formalize okay, what does literacy and education look like? How do you develop literacy programs for the sake of comprehension? And that's how Book Buddies was born.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I remember I took this very napkin- based idea to Prof Volmink, and I said you know what, this is what I want to do, and I don't have a community at the moment. I've just come back from Chicago, the blinkers are on, the electricity is flowing, and he's like OK, let's see what community you can bring this to, and he was involved with the Emmanuel Centre in Khayelitsha and he has quite a good relationship with the guardians there and he said, you know what, they cater to the community in different ways. Adults, faith-based service, and there's a community of kids that actually do have a gap which you can fulfill, and I thought, okay, that's my chance. So we took one drive one Saturday afternoon. It must have been 10 students that were there, ranging between three years old and 14 years old, and I just spent the afternoon reading to them.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Even that, just by myself, was so fulfilling. It grew to over 70 kids any given afternoon and my biggest dilemma was how do I structure my resources? Am I getting enough, because you never really know how many kids are going to come on a day. Do I have enough of this resources? Have I printed enough? Did I buy enough snacks for this and that? I remember for the first two years of internship, my boot was just a traveling library. It was a library on wheels. There was big containers full of books ranging from age three all the way to high school students, and I was so happy to be functioning in that capacity.
Amy Kaye:Can I ask a question? My question is, do you remember what the first book was that you read to them?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:To be honest, I can't quite remember, but what I do remember about the book was that it was a picture-based pop-up book, and so I would turn it and share it with the kids and then help them identify okay, what animal is this? And so now for the younger kids, it's now in Xhosa, where they would mention what animal that is, and I'm my Xhosa is terrible. So I would look to the older students and they'd be able to answer, and then it would be a communication that goes around in that way, but it just it was interactive and that was the key part for me. And so a child who then learns okay, now, well, this is the English version of this particular animal, that transition and that comprehension was grassroots level of what I was trying to achieve.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Amazing and the opportunity in Chicago. I know that was a global engagement summit in Illinois. How did you find yourself there?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I was looking for an opportunity just to gain the skill, just to become a little more well-versed with how do I go about starting something like this? I had all these ideas. Do I register it as a nonprofit? How do I go about scaling this idea from four or five books to where it ended up as a success?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:And so, at that time, and it's also something that I used to do a lot in undergrad, just go pop my eye out on social media, see what opportunities there are, what networks there are, what conferences there are to attend, just to increase my exposure of the world and just my understanding of the world and ways in which other people are being of service around the world. And that is how the opportunity came together. And so I also then went to Prof and I said this is also what I want to do. Would you be able to give me a little bit of money to go and do this? And that was also somebody who took a bet on me as well, which I'm also very grateful for.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Amazing. So let's come back to medicine and career choices subsequent to graduation. Tell us what that's been like. I know that you've shared in the past about grappling with what direction to take your career in and how one figures out what the path is, because it can be confusing to know. W here are you on the path right now and where do you hope it's taking you?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Before I even go there, I think I would start by saying that as I came to know myself better, as I grew in maturity, I realized how I've come to define my life is broadly based on service, and I think the first seed that was planted was that of wanting to become a doctor, and then it has found so many different avenues in terms of its expression, its delivery and its influence on the community that I've developed. Where I find myself is that it's still the first love. It's still where I want to continue to pursue my life. What I will say is that the way I'm shaping it is in a manner that will allow me to still be actively engaged in all the other extracurriculars I enjoy and that I'm passionate about. It is not always very easy, and I will speak to an experience or an episode that I had this... R ecently, in December, and I got a bit emotional. I also think I was premenstrual at the time, but I got a bit emotional because I was studying for intermediates and I'm preparing a document of welcome for the new CommServs and I'm thinking about the interns. I'm also thinking about my contribution to the medical school, and I must still exercise as well. I am irritated because I cannot do it all, and that, for me, just made me realize that I just still need to find a way to fashion my career in such a way that I can continue to do it all but still have medicine remain the primary love and that which I'm contributing my effort to, as the main focus. It doesn't help that I also happen to love surgery more than any other specialty, and so coming to the North West and working at the Klerksdorp Tshepong Hospital Complex was a dip of my toes in the big well. To kind of see, will I be able to settle into this? Will I enjoy the experience? Will I be able to manage in the capacity and the demand that it has? For the first six months of working here, I was completely flabbergasted as to how does one work so hard and still remain functional, and that was definitely a difficult transition that I had to undergo.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I feel very fortunate for the consultants that I have, because they're also very supportive of each of us in every stage of development that we were in.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:They are the kinds of consultants that will have very high expectations of the service that you need to deliver to the patients, but they will equally come out at 3am when you say you know what, this appendix is making my eyes swell up with tears, and they'll be right there with you, and so I think that has also allowed me to have the confidence to say I have an approach to a patient that I need to take to theatre and this is how I'm going to go about it. But they're a pocket dial away and I think that has helped me grow. And so how I do see the rest of my future unfolding is I would like to specialize. I do think that where I want my influence to be in the professional space, as well as to all the ad hoc activities that I'm involved in, I think it would be best found as a consultant, and I have a particular interest in breast and endocrine, and I think I would need to fulfil the obligations of general surgery first before I branch into that subspec.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:What is it about surgery that you love so much?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I'm good with my hands. I know my tactile experience of the world is very good. My visual perception is very good. I can make sense of things through the way my hands interact with my mind, and I find myself being able to teach that to the new CommServs coming in. For very basic cases, I'd stand behind them and I say, okay, okay, this is what you're seeing, this is what you're supposed to be feeling. Can you feel that? Okay, if you're not feeling that there's something else that you need to explore, and just being able to walk through that affirms for me that is something that is a particular good set of skills for myself.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Do you remember your first surgical procedure?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:It was an I+D. It was the most satisfying incision and drainage of a perianal abscess that is known to man. The first surgery I felt very accomplished was below knee amputation and formalization of that stump and it looked beautiful. I remember sending the picture of the wound to somebody and in the background you could see the patient was having breakfast tea and he's like anyone that can have tea after a formalization is a candidate to go home, so that was quite nice to hear.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I'm sure. Y ou're taking me back to some of my surgical experiences. I was a terrible surgical intern. I'd get dizzy at the sight of blood. I passed out in theater a couple of times. I disrupted sterile theaters because I needed to get out. I'm always intrigued by people who love surgery so much. Endocrine surgery specifically, w hat is it about that that appeals to you?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:It started with, I was assisting one of my consultants with a mastectomy. I think it was very early on within the first six months of that time and he's like you know, if you would like, there's always opportunities to take up breast and endocrine as a particular niche that you would like to explore. We could put you in touch with different people that would help you set up the department and improve the expertise in that way, and that excited me. I think I didn't. I couldn't focus on any other particular academic knowledge about the mastectomy. All I could think about was the opportunities that could come out of it for the rest of the surgery. And then I slowly started to build on that interest and just sharpening my skill and my experience, and I think my consultants were also looking at the back and just seeing where I'm taking this on my own.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I've hosted quite a few workshops with one of the surgeons at Helen Joseph, Prof Jenny Edge, and she's come over to have some outreach sessions with us, which have been incredibly helpful for our department and the service that we're giving to our oncology patients, specifically those with breast conditions. So that, I think, has been where the passion has started. I also do think that, particularly in the North West and as my complex functioning as the tertiary service for breast and endocrine, we do need to have a bit more of a robust sub-discipline of surgery that caters towards this, and I have been making strides to formalize that. So I enjoy building infrastructure and improving systems in that way, as well as having the interest in breast and endocrine. I'm not a particular fan of oncology, so this in particular surprises me. I'm still trying to find what else other than this intrigues me particularly.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:You've alluded to some of the challenges that go with surgery and maintaining a balanced life, maintaining your extracurricular interests and activities. I've had a couple of colleagues on the podcast talk about the real struggle of that and I'm curious about what you are learning about how to do that. Is there a way to do that?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Sure. Another little thing that I'm involved in. I'm also part of the Doctor-Mentee program started by Stellenbosch, where a third-year medical student will be paired with a doctor who's actively in practice and just to help them facilitate understanding what the transition is and knowing how to forecast their medical journey and how to put things into perspective for them at that point, and one of the conversations that we had as we regroup and share what our respective experiences were, is that we noticed that the students themselves don't have a great balance of how to navigate going through the program as well as having a full, balanced life. I said to them, this will be your life for the rest of your life and it's very important that you have to determine what are the things, what are the characteristics of life that are important to you, that you'll need to see into your future. How do you put that into context with your profession?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:One of the students said, you know what, the end of block exam was coming up for this particular rotation, and it also happened to be a very important time for my family as they were celebrating something that was quite significant to them, and they were like, I have put in the work. I'm also okay with maybe not achieving the particular result that I want to, but it's also important for me to be actively engaged with my family in this time and we were speaking about it and saying that's actually such a mature observation to make. T o say that I can forego that aspiration for excellence, because that's what we all have as type A personalities in medicine. I can forego that aspiration just to remain active and intentional and present in my life. Taking from that, I've also tried to maintain that balance, to see how do I prioritize the
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:responsibilities that I have with the things that are equally important to me in my life, and it's not always easy to do that. I have had to start studying months in advance because I knew all these projects were on the table. And I'm not on any social media because I cannot afford to take that time away from things that are important to me. I run a very tight schedule. We're up at five in the morning, exercising and getting a good rest so I can remain sharp. So there's little things that I've instituted in my life that I'd like to think are helping me maintain the balance and helping me defer burnout for as long as I possibly can.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I noticed the emphasis on the word defer.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh, I think I've seen with different people ways in which burnout has manifested, and not to say that it's a point of weakness, but you would hold certain people in a particular regard and it's difficult to walk that journey with them and try to make sense of it, seeing that you hold them in such a high regard. So that made me feel like I am not immune to that, especially that our profession is very demanding. Our patient burden is high, our system is fraught with faults and things that are beyond our control, and I find myself even having to have these conversations with the interns to say, how do you manage your frustration and still remain passionate about what you do? Because this is where we lose people, and I'm having to continually have that conversation with myself as well, and so that's why I'm saying I feel blessed to be able to have deferred it for as long as I can, but I'm not particularly sure that I might not be victim to that going forward.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:How do you measure balance? Because often we talk about making sure that we live a balanced life. What does that mean for you?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Balance. I think it has chopped and changed as I've become more mature. I think in the beginning, as an undergrad, it was based on physical health. H ow do you find yourself in your best physical capacity? Eating correctly, moving and flowing and being active and then, obviously, engaging, keeping your mind engaged. As I've grown older, it has become more important to me, number one, spiritual health. For me, I have come to prioritize my spiritual health and wellness a lot more now than I have before, as well as family, family and friendship. I think I've been blessed with very wonderful family and a very wonderful set of friends that I've been friends with since primary school almost, and some that I've picked up along the way, and it was just so effortless and there's so much sincerity in the relationships that I have that I am only starting to appreciate now that I'm older.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I also see for myself that I can run the risk of going too far, too fast because it is easy to do it alone. You have to be aware of the fact that you need people around you and that isn't always the most efficient method of moving forward. Relationships and people and its dynamics. Those are not only linear, they're spread horizontally and they're malleable, and they move forward and they move backwards, and there's pain and there's disappointment, and there's passion and there's love, and all of those things are important to how you experience your community and so you can go out of your way to create all these levels of service for different people, because that is what is within your heart. But your cup also needs to be filled, so that has become important to me. Coming back to your question, those are the two pillars that I've added to balance.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I think that, like you, I have also learned over the years how important both of those are, and I'm curious about what spirituality means for you. I know that in our initial meeting, when we spoke about being on the podcast, you asked me if we could talk about faith, and I'm wondering what that means for you.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think that was a point that I wanted to introduce because it is something that I'm coming into with a lot more intention and so, naturally, I want it to be at the forefront of how people perceive me, how I show up in this world, because it's where everything starts and begins and ends. That is why I wanted to bring it up. I grew up in a Roman Catholic family and it's everything by the book and to the T, and we're standing and we're kneeling and we're going for first confirmation, second confirmation and following things to the T, and I think that was how my upbringing was to date. And then I think there was a bit of a lull through varsity when we were eccentric and we thought we were immortal, and then the mortality starts to creep in, post-CommS erve, and you think the world is going to end when you don't have a post and you don't have a particular trajectory that you're following.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:And so in this time, I think for the last three years, I've been challenged by how life can unfold and in the time, I think I've spent a lot of time praying, a lot of time developing my sense of awareness and my relationship with God, and that, for me, has not necessarily promised me that there won't be disappointments and setbacks to come, but in that we won't have to endure it alone and there's a peace that comes with that.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:And in all the things that I have lined up to do and to have myself involved in, it is also something that I need to carry and bring to the Lord and say, okay, is this something that I need to be involved with? Because you come to learn that you're not always meant to be involved in every possible good thing out there, and he knows what is to come in the future, and so you have to surrender that to Him and he will create the most efficient, far better than you could possibly do within your own capacity. Sometimes I only learn that in retrospect. Now I think I settle into the pace of learning that and being led a bit better now.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:You spoke earlier about experiencing some challenges in terms of how life unfolds. Would you be willing to say more about that?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Just post-internship. We are of the cohort that only found out our placements in December of that year, two weeks out, and I think I was not in the position to accept not being placed in the Western Cape, and that was detrimental. It's something that I shouldn't have done and it came with a lot of disappointment that hit me quite hard. I think up until that point my strategy to life was you know, you put in the work, you show up, you be present, you give of your best self and for the most part it'll work out in your favour. And that is not necessarily how life works. And so I got placed in Kuruman in the Northern Cape. That was nothing short of a baptism by fire, and a cultural shock for myself. It was a district hospital with 13 medical officers working there and then servicing quite a big population, it was about between 60,000 and 100,000 people, and then, just being way out there in the Northern Cape, no family in the Northern Cape. I actually had to look up Kuruman on the GPS to be able to chart my way. It was a very difficult transition, namely because I was coming from the Western Cape and I was going to a different healthcare system. As well as being in a level one hospital, there are constraints on what service we can deliver, and then our referral hospital then being two and a half hours away, and then also just being away from family, just being away from so many different people that are known to be my support base. One of the toughest years that I have encountered in that community service in general is very difficult, because you are transitioning to an independent practitioner in almost in exponential ways. It's a very significant jump, even for those in some of the better resourced centers in South Africa, and so that was particularly difficult. But everything, as is with everything, you see the best benefit in retrospect, and I was able to make one particularly good friend and I grew to be able to service my patients very well. I had a very good rapport with the community there. I found a way to maintain the standard of my work ethic through the challenges that came with that and I think I'm very proud of myself for that, because I am able to show up and I'm able to be present and you need that kind of validation coming out of internship and I think that solidified it for me. And then just being closer to my family as well just allowed me opportunities to be able to come home to Pretoria and see them, which was important.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I spent a few months post community service waiting for the position that I'm in, so that was about four or five months, of which I only came to know that I was coming here within the two weeks before I came, and I think that anxiety, that uncertainty, oh that was very difficult to manage. I don't think I do well with not knowing what is next. I think I have become more lax in what is particularly needed to go forward. I don't need to know every single detail, but at that time was too much uncertainty for me. That is still also something that I'm working on. I think I need to do that to be able to slow down and accept things for the way they are and then just to continue to deepen my peace. So that was particularly difficult and then being able to ask for help.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:When I graduated, I said to myself this is the last time I'll ever need my parents. I am now the child that pays for all the dinners and, what do you need, I've got it, and I thought that would be the rest of my life, and I did not know how much I needed my parents, other than the time that I spent being unemployed i n those four months. T hey showed up for me in ways that I cannot have imagined, but exactly the way in which I needed, and they continue to do so, and that's how I know that I will continue to remain an adult child, and also just the affirmation that they're happy to continue to be adult parents to me. I think a support base is invaluable.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:[Dr Maria Christodoulou: Tell me about the tears.]
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think, again, a part of being an immortal, lively undergrad student.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:You never really appreciate or know how much you need family, and I think I... M y family is very small and intimate and close-knit and so I've never been a very big family person. But I think that period, it took on more significance in that I was able to appreciate the ways in which they can continue to show up for you, or what is the particular depth of value of having family in whatever capacity it shows up, whether it's blood relatives or the family that you come to develop for yourself. There's something about having people in your life that can't say no to you, that cannot decide today I'm not yours or today you are not mine. There's something about that that I think we try to distance ourselves from by creating ourselves more successful, more efficient, more independent, and we can do that to ends that make us think we can do it alone, and I may have gotten stuck in that a little bit.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I have some notes here in front of me that I made when you and I met to chat not that long ago. The date at the top of my notes say the 2nd of December, and I think I began our conversation by asking you what you hope that people might take away from your story, and one of the things that you said was that it's a path walked alone and that it's not easy to find a path where you can do what you love, and it feels like six weeks later there's a lot about family and on not doing this alone.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:That's a good point. That is a very good point. I think, in that, again, it was me just alluding to how do I continue to navigate prioritizing the curricula and the extracurricular of my life. It does make me realize that my life is very different from the friends or the colleagues that I have, and it is also challenged by people that have found particular focus in different ways, and I always have to bring myself back to say it's okay, this is also equally important to you. That is just their approach to the same thing. These are all projects that are important to you, so how do you make time for them? How do you give them life?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:There aren't that many people that can answer that, and actually there aren't that many people that should be able to answer that. I think that's why I've struggled to find a mentor. I don't have a mentor, but there is somebody that can sit and listen to you, and there is a mom that will wish you good luck three minutes before the podcast is to start, and there is a dad that will check in on you and ask how your cases are going and how you're feeling, and there is a sister that's rooting for you somewhere as well, and they don't need to know the details, they just need to know that it is important to you. So I would say both exist.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Right, but you reminded me of is something I often talk to clients about, because I so often hear this thing of.. like, I have to do this alone and I didn't realize how important family or friends were and I've neglected community, or I've neglected support, or I find it difficult to ask for help, is that in a patriarchal model of human development, we consider someone to be more high functioning the more independent they are, and we view adult development as, you become more and more mature in being less and less dependent on others, and I think that that model has created a lot of problems for the world. W hereas in a more feminist perspective of human development, the more mature you are, the more you recognize and acknowledge the interdependence that we have and how much we need not only each other but also this planet, and you start taking care of relationships.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:And so the hyper focus on independence and doing it alone and the achievement orientation of the singular individual who strives for success is a model that I don't think serves us very well. We have many examples in the medical system.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Absolutely. That's true. I think there are too many incentives that continue to drive it as the particular gold standard we're expected to achieve, and I'm hoping that us, as the youth coming into the medical space, are going to debunk that or to break down those expectations, but not have it be at the expense of our service delivery. I think people still associate that level of functioning that we are known to exhibit as being able to give the best to our patients and we're finding discrepancies between the two.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:So what was it like to finish medical school, finish your internship, do two years of CommServe and find yourself without a job?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh, that was tough. That was really really tough because you know what you want to do, but it isn't particularly obvious how you're going to get there, and I found myself surrounded by people that were just finishing off their post-grad and becoming consultants at the time and it was, ja, back in my day. It should have been easy to get into a reg program. Heck, we didn't even have to do an MMed. And I'm thinking to myself, I've gotten all the courses. I've written primaries. I am so glittering on paper that I don't understand how I found myself in this predicament.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:At the time, I think we weren't aware of the crisis that we're coming into, and it is becoming more evident. That was 2023. It's now two years later and every cohort of community service doctors are having the same challenges, but the number is more significant. We are trying to find ways to support different people that we've worked with and trying to find ways in which to recommend. How do you buffer yourself against the system? I recently heard of a medical practitioner who's sending their undergraduate son to go do the international standard exams while they're in their undergraduate program, just to be able to give them the option after completing undergrad, and that was.. yoh, it just made me quite aware of the extent to which people are finding themselves challenged by the gap between demand and supply. I have been asked when am I going to become Minister of Health?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:And I always come back to say I don't think I could be functioning at that level, because what I would come to understand is just how complex the system is, just how much is lacking in terms of expertise at that level, just how much people are working with very limited constraints, of those that are really doing a great job at that level, and I think that would be too much for me. So I cannot even begin to say where the solution would come, where it would start, how it would be implemented. What I can say is that I am grateful for where I am. I continue to facilitate conversations with people about how we make this go forward, how we make this work for the next 40 years of our career, and hopefully some of the really bright people that I call my medical friends will be the ones to step into that position.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Not so sure you wouldn't be cut out to be health minister.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:But oh goodness, Maria, I think I'd lose more weight.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:So I'm very aware that there's a cohort of young doctors who've just finished their CommServe and are anxiously waiting to hear, and many of them don't have placements and are likely to sit around for three or four months or more waiting to hear. What advice would you have for them based on your experience?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I initially would have said go to an institution that is close to home. See how you can spend that time in a more productive way. But I've also come to learn that that is feeding into this monster that is raising its head in that our expertise are being called upon without remuneration and we don't all come from the same background to be able to afford that, and I think it hasn't been so obvious until now, and I would not want people to be in the position to do that, and unfortunately it will come at the expense of the progression of your career by the standards of your timeline. But more than anything, you need to be able to sustain yourself. You need to be able to be independent. So what I will say is that find a way to get employment within either the private sector or the public sector. Be open to positions that are not necessarily within your particular line of interest.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think we don't need a million surgeons, but our healthcare landscape in South Africa does need primary care service, whatever that looks like. Whether you are the family physician who's servicing at a primary healthcare level or you are the surgeon. W e need grassroots practitioners that are able to deliver the service. I will say that you don't always need to be in a particular institution to further your studies. There are levels of study, for example, your primaries in whatever speciality that you can take on and continue to develop yourself i n that way. I think no opportunity in the medical space is wasted because you have already defined for yourself years ago that this was something that you wanted to do. I think we should be more open to the alternative ways in which that is going to unfold, and I look upon that and I say that to myself as well, because I do find myself finding an alternate path and I have been intentional about the way that I've structured it, about what opportunities are out there, and I think I'm happy with my trajectory.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:If you could fast forward time and if I'm still around or having this conversation when you're 70 or 80. And I say, gosh, Rosemary, what would you rate as the thing that made your career a peak experience for you? What is it that you celebrate about your career? What are the things you hope to be able to say?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Wow, I have not thought about that. Particularly in a career sphere, I will zoom out and say I would look back and reflect on the ways in which I was able to be of service. I would probably be amazed at the ways in which that unfolded or how that manifested, and I think that's where the memories lie for me. I am currently being challenged to allow myself to not focus on the details so that I can give myself the experience of being open to other opportunities that will ultimately give me the sense of being in service, and I think the more I continue to do that, the fuller this life is going to be.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I love that. Tell us about some of your other extracurricular activities. I know tech and Medtimes is one of your projects. Tell us about that.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh goodness, that is one that's currently on my mind. It wakes me up at night because I do know that I have come into a bit of a pause in terms of its development. Also, one of those random moments I had in internship and I thought to myself, my goodness, my intern coordinator is putting me on call the whole time. There's surely some way to remove this bias. There's surely some way to automate this so that there is a sense of transparency and also not some poor intern who's out there being lambasted by everyone else because they're coming into challenges with the roster. So, wanting to create a platform where we can input our requests for our core roster and then almost have surety that by the system standards, we are more likely to be able to achieve what we want. I t also, on an individual level, i t gives you a sense of agency over your time.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:It's not nice to think three months in advance oh, I've got that particular important engagement to me and I'm not able to attend it because I just have no sense of whether I will be able to do so because it's not in my control and I think where technology is going and what it's able to offer us...
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think we are able to do that better than what the human interface can do, and so I've been able to do the market research, I've been able to pilot the project successfully, and I've been able to create a MVP, a prototype that I am also still trying to find the balance in terms of getting it out there and just something that can grow. I'd like to see it used at a national level, and so I spent some time speaking to William Mapham from Vula and I'm like, how did you do it? How did you do it as a registrar? And he said it did come at the expense of health and, again, community, which are things that I'm trying to prioritize, and so it coming into fruition is a little bit slower than I would have anticipated, but I still have hope. I think the optimist in me, there's something about it that I still have a big belief in, and so I hope that maybe when I come back to you in a couple of years, I can give you feedback and say, hey, we've been able to get it right.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Fantastic. Well, maybe someone listening to this podcast will have some ideas about how you can get that right. Just to clarify what I understand about Medtimes, it's that it's a medical rostering platform that handles all the manual HR functions, like creating call rosters and producing time sheets.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Exactly that. So it can, over and above catering to the medical professional themselves, cater to the healthcare institution as well, from an HR and a time-capturing function. It also has the ability to do so for the private sector as well, who then bill per hour. Q uite credible and dynamic record of one's time in service. So that has been the way in which I can appeal to both the individual as well as to the institution. So I do think that it'll take root in that it's an easy system that can be disseminated. There is no particular cost to it and it's for us and it is made by us. It will continue to develop by our own expertise.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:So when I asked you where the story begins, you said it begins with the love story of your mom and dad, and you talked about your dad having to leave South Africa. I was chatting to Amy earlier today about how our guests have often highlighted the pre-dismantling of apartheid experience of the medical professional and then a new generation of young doctors, post-apartheids dismantling, who are navigating a whole host of new challenges. A combination of opportunities on the one hand, but also some of the existing inequalities and injustices of the past. What's it like to be the daughter of an apartheid activist who was exiled?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Somewhat underwhelming. No offense to my dad, who will be listening to this, and I say that because he has been witness to so, so much. We hosted his 60th birthday in 2024. And it took on an afternoon of going down memory lane and we had my gran there and we had the siblings, his sisters, there. He's telling a story and then they're telling the perspective of that one time where they had to sneak this one thing into that and then it all just came together.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:It was such a surreal moment just spending time with the family in that way, but obviously it cannot fully reflect what that experience must have been like for him. And so it makes me realize that he has had to come to terms with so much about that experience, and he's had to develop a lot of peace and a lot of acceptance for the things that he could not change and possibly for the ways in which his life maybe has turned out differently. I think we don't always look back with the lens of that was either a success or a failure. We look back and we accept or we don't accept, and I think for him he's come into a lot of acceptance and that has come with peace and he has been able to afford his children opportunity and that for him probably makes him sleep better at night, and for myself, as his daughter, I'm very happy that I was able to give him that. We are building good memories off of that pain.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Right. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you would like to talk about?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:No, no, I think it came out. It all came out. Maybe not in the way I thought it would. I feel less anxious. I'm not as nervous as I was when I started.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Great. What do you know today about being a doctor that six-year-old you didn't know?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Maybe not didn't know, but just a reiteration. T here will always be somebody that needs help. There will always be somebody whose mom has just passed away and maybe in our naivety we think we can fix it, but with a certain maturity you come to know that there will always be help that is needed. A lways. There will always be somebody that needs aid, intervention, surgery, counseling, guidance, a suture. That'll always be there. What I am surprised about or that is new information to me is that I just didn't know how bad it was for our community in South Africa. J ust looking at our health care system and how much it reflects the state of our community. For varying reasons, we have a lot of our burden and what we see is because of the way we live. You wouldn't have kiddies having hot water burns if the moms didn't have to turn away for a second to just get cold water, for the hot water that they're pouring into a tub to bath. It's such a small example, but it happens so frequently. We wouldn't have patients having paraffin or other exposures if they had a stove.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I don't think everyone needs to have all the amenities possible to have a good life, but we need to have a safe life. Just to bring back my passion in education, w hat I would add to that is that grassroots literacy is so important because that is what shapes how you interact with the world. If you don't have a sense of comprehension of what you're reading, you're never going to know which aisle to go to for family planning in the clinic. Y ou won't even want to go anymore. Just that anxiety of navigating. T hat must be so difficult for a young individual who has the intent to do better for herself because she knows she cannot afford to bring another life into this world and is trying to further her studies, but she's got no way of navigating and accessing health for herself. Where do we say the fault lies? Is it that it is an access thing? Is it a resource thing? And I think sometimes not. I think it's just what our community and our population has to work with to navigate this world, and it's not always that easy.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:What advice would you have for a teenager in high school who's thinking about a medical career?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh, I think I've had this conversation very recently. What I would say is that you have to have a heart for people. There must be something about you that wants to be around people. There must be a curiosity to why they show up in the world in that way. What afflicts them? How is that related to the way we live? There must be some sense of curiosity towards that. You must really want to spend time with people, and I say that because when we're unwell, we're not particularly nice.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Yeah, I always add that qualifier. You've got to want to spend time with people who are at their worst or who are suffering or in pain.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Yes, a hundred percent. I think the depth of your compassion is going to be challenged by that and it will grow in that way, but there must be something. You must be starting off with the baseline. So that is what I would say. You can be the smartest smarty in the box, but emotional intelligence and acumen doesn't correlate very well with your IQ, and so you can actually see that coming up in a lot of the new medical schools as they're challenging, do you really need to have all the smarts in the world? And maybe not. I think just sufficient enough to carry the load and the burden that we have in terms of what we need to gain academically, but there needs to be some humanity that is willing to work with people in suffering. I don't know what... W e're still trying to develop, how to assess that, how to quantify that. It's very difficult, but not impossible, I think.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Absolutely. Well, i t requires a shift, I think, in how we think about what makes a successful health professional.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Absolutely. I think somebody with whom I enjoy having conversations about that with is Prof Julia Blitz. She's leading the curriculum development for the North-West University. I spend a lot of time with her speaking about that and she's also bringing that perspective into that... the development of this. So that for me, is exciting.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Amy, is there anything you want to ask? You've been very quiet.
Amy Kaye:I have something to say, but before I say my say, Maria, you were going to ask the question at the beginning of the conversation about patients and patients' well-being and patients staying with you?
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Oh yes. Ja, you mentioned that e ven today there's patients that you've brought with you, brought home, and I'm curious about the patient stories that stay with you. Can you think of any that stand out?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:That is actually something that I'm grappling with, because I cannot, for the life of me, tell when that is going to stick with me or who is going to stick with me or why they're going to stick with me, because I can have different patients with the same presentation and it will just be part of my service. One in particular is a lady that we lost recently. Young lady, she had a necrotizing fasciitis as a complication of an axillary abscess and she required quite an extensive debridement and inotropic support and admission to ICU. The works. She came out of it beautifully and the person that emerged after extubation was someone with such a wonderful personality. She was making everyone laugh In ICU. We were dressing her wound in high care and you know she's like okay, between you two guys, who of you guys are dating, and we'd chuckle and she'd give us so much warmth that we'd carry through the day and unfortunately she had a neuroglycopenic episode that unfortunately landed her back in the ICU and unfortunately we lost her.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think that for me, that was a significant one. I think it's because they're just so much of their self, more than they are a patient, and maybe sometimes some patients don't always get the chance to show up more than a patient, and so we can deliver a great service even while not being privy to what someone is like. But every so, now and then, when you do spend a bit more time with somebody and you know that they saw you run that one morning and you shop at the same Woolies and this and that, it does bring things closer to home. It is not unwelcome. I don't mind it. It doesn't always happen.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I'm struck also by how it was an encounter with death, when your mom lost her mom, that motivated you to think about medicine or to think about a career where you could alleviate suffering and pain. I'm wondering what encountering death as a medical student was like for you, and are there any stories that stand out there?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Let me think about it. N o, not particularly as a medical student. I think I was aware of death. I think I was a... I was trying to be very aware of my first experience, which I actually don't quite recall very well now, but what I do remember is that I thought there would be more. I thought there would be more experience to it or a reaction to it. What I've come to realize now is that you can do absolutely everything right. y ou can do absolutely everything wrong, in trying to optimize or resuscitate a patient, but it is ultimately already decided, and so we're always going to show up in the capacity of doing right. That is why we're continuing to develop our skill, but I am okay with what happens when a patient doesn't make it, because it is not always in my control or it never really was. I am a tool to facilitate a process and I can only hope to continue to show up as capable as I can b y God's standards. That is how I would place it.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:And I think there's a certain kind of freedom that comes from knowing that it's bigger than you. Your job is to show up and do the best that you can. And then, as you say, sometimes you do everything right and the patient dies, and sometimes you do everything wrong and the patient lives. And then I want to ask about your first experience of witnessing a birth.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I think it was in Delft Clinic. We had waited so many hours... We had waited so many hours for the experience and it was so beautiful. I feel like we had all just come to the celebration. The mom was happy, the sister was relieved, this baby's crying, we're all just so happy and the baby's cute. It was just such a celebration and the husband came and he gave his wife a push present. It was so beautiful. I think that was quite pleasant. I think kids are where the change in the world starts and then somewhat ends, as we become too worldly and too aware. But kids are just so golden.
Amy Kaye:I loved how you gave those details of, you shop at the same place or knowing that you have things in common, that common humanity. It reminded me of something that I read recently where, I don't know who said it, unfortunately, so I can't quote the person, but what they said was that when you fall in love with someone, it's not that you're actually falling in love with them. What you're falling in love with is who you are around that person, who that person allows you to be.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh, goodness, I didn't even think of that and I now can't unsee it, because just the laughter and the joy and you'd be walking out of the ward and you're like, can you believe she said that? You'd come back and hear, this is what she said, and just that engagement. It actually brought us more into conversation and brought us out of our medical hats. It gave us a sense of humanity as well. So you're quite right, Amy, I like that. I really like that.
Amy Kaye:You also mentioned the importance of EQ.
Amy Kaye:You mentioned being heart-centered, the advice that you would give to somebody going into medicine. You've been doing all these incredible projects as well. I'm kind of doing a summary of what I've been just taking in. T hinking about, you came from this international love story, this heart-centered woman, and you seem to have this wonderful way of even though you said you're not here to fix problems, but you are a problem solver. You see something and instead of going, this is a problem, you go, but how can I make this better? Or you see there's an issue and you hone in on it and I just think it's wonderful, and you just have this lovely golden heart and I'm glad that there is somebody like you in the world that, yes, you're saying you have these beautiful patients and they bring out the best in you. But I think you must have the same effect on your patients. I'm sure your patient perks up knowing that you're coming into the room because you bring this lovely golden heart energy, and so, all I can say is how wonderful.
Amy Kaye:And keep solving all the problems with your wonderful golden heart, because...
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Oh thank you. That warms my heart. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:So normally I ask people what they hope that listeners might take away from the story, and I touched on that with you earlier. Is there something that you hope people will take away?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I hope that they will take away the desire to remain committed to all the things that are important to you. I think we need to find a way to prioritise and dedicate effort to all pillars of our life in a dynamic way, and particularly for medical professionals to keep pushing at that. Push that boundary, get your rest, optimize and improve your health. Show up for your patients better. Do you need to be looking at improving your academics? Do you need to be in a better space for that? Foster your relationships. We're all busy. We really are all busy in different ways, but our relationships are really what give this life meaning, and you are trying to restore your patients to a capacity for them to be able to engage with their families and build on their respective relationships. I think we deserve and we owe ourselves that as well. So I would encourage people to want it all. You really can have it all.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:And having had a chance to share some of your stories and experiences today, what are you left with? What are you taking away from the conversation?
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:I am taking away the experience of reflecting on the few months that I have left before the age of 30. And that makes me look at the whole decade and say, ag, you've done well, you are okay, you are having a good life. I am enjoying the experiences that I have and the relationships that I'm continuing to foster. I can only hope to build on that in the third decade.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:I don't want to burst your bubble, but it's actually the start of the fourth decade.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:No. Don't. S low down.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:Rosemary, I want to echo what Amy said about your heart. It really does feel like there's this beautiful, big, open heart in this space with us today, and I love your passion and I love your enthusiasm for the profession and I also love your commitment to maintaining the balance. And I have such a sense of hope for the future of the profession when I hear young people say they know what's important and they actually, whilst they are still committed to service, they want to find a way to do this differently, because I think that's what we need and I'm very excited to see what direction your career will take and what you might end up contributing to the world.
Dr Rosemary Pitsi:Thank you, Maria, for allowing me the platform. I think your energy is just... It allows a person to feel free to share, and I appreciate the safe space that that is. Thank you, Amy. I now realize in greater detail how much it takes to make the final outcome as perfect as it is, so you are doing an incredible job, my goodness.
Dr Maria Christodoulou:She is. Thank you for coming to share your story with us today. I'm Dr Maria Christodoulou and you've been listening to the Awakening Doctor podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with your friends, f ollow Awakening D octor on Instagram, Facebook and Spotify and go to Apple podcasts to subscribe, rate and give us a good review. Thank you so much for listening.
