Good Neighbor Podcast North Atlanta
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of North Atlanta
Good Neighbor Podcast North Atlanta
EP #124: myfriendMD with Dr. Sarah Friend
Dr. Sarah Friend, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer, introduces her innovative cancer coaching service called My Friend MD designed to provide personalized support throughout the cancer journey. She created this service after recognizing that traditional 15-minute doctor visits don't allow enough time for patients to fully discuss their concerns, fears, and questions.
• My Friend MD offers personalized one-hour coaching sessions tailored to individual needs at any stage of the cancer journey
• Services include preparing questions for doctor appointments, analyzing treatment plans, or developing health and wellness strategies for survivors
• Dr. Friend serves as an advocate working with medical teams, not replacing them
• The service helps patients make informed decisions rather than fear-based choices
• Coaching sessions provide a safe space to address concerns that might not fit into standard medical appointments
• Family members of cancer patients can also receive guidance on how best to support their loved ones
• Dr. Friend plans to expand services to include resources and networks for the cancer community
Visit myfriendmd.com to learn more about personalized cancer coaching services.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, north Atlanta, where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, stacey Risley. Hello friends and neighbors, welcome to North Atlanta's Good Neighbor Podcast. I am so excited about today's guest. Today we're here with Dr Sarah Friend. She is a medical oncologist who specializes in breast cancer and she's the founder of my Friend MD. Welcome, dr Friend. I'm so excited to have you on.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Stacey. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, we just had the listeners don't know, but we just had our pre-interview, which we have with all of our guests. I am just so excited to introduce you to my Friend MD, and Dr Friend herself, because she spoke to my heart just through the pre-interview. This is such a great mission and I'll now turn it over to you, Dr Friend, and tell our listeners a little bit about your business. Tell us about my Friend MD.
Speaker 2:So my Friend MD is a cancer coaching service that is going to offer personalized coaching to fit the needs of anybody going through their cancer journey, and it could be from a new diagnosis. After a diagnosis is made, we can do a session to help you prepare a question list for your doctor's appointment. That's upcoming, or we could analyze a treatment plan that's already been made. Or, if you're in survivorship, we can go through a health and wellness and exercise plan that fits your needs. So it's really going to be tailored to the needs of the individual. One-hour sessions allows us enough time to really go deep and offer the time to explore all of your fears and concerns and all of the other things that patients may not have the opportunity to discuss with their medical team just due to time constraints.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I loved everything that you shared with us prior to this interview and I really am excited about you telling us your journey, because this is you're going to be impressed with this folks. Her journey into this is just one led by passion and a desire to help others, and I am I'm just, I admire her already. I am I'm just, I admire her already. So tell our listeners about your journey from full-time you know, a practicing medical oncologist, you know into doing this coaching aspect of this part-time.
Speaker 2:So I've been a medical oncologist and I absolutely love my job. I love my patients, I love my staff, absolutely love my job. I love my patients, I love my staff. But what I realized is that I tended to spend a lot more time with each individual than was allotted, so as I became more efficient and more busy, I didn't have the amount of time that I wanted to explore really important issues that patients were having.
Speaker 2:On the flip side, when a relative or loved one or a friend was diagnosed with cancer, I had the opportunity to go on really long walks with them and give them, you know, hours upon hours of time where we really analyzed all the different options and we explored their concerns, their fears and all the things that they didn't have time or space to discuss with other people.
Speaker 2:And when I realized that my loved ones would find our sessions extremely helpful, I realized there was a real big need for this for someone to have an advocate and an ally in their court who could help them to really explore those issues that the traditional 15 to 20-minute office visit just doesn't have time for. So it's not a substitution for the traditional healthcare system. It's really supplementing it and giving the time and space to unpack their diagnosis in a safe space and with someone who you know understands what they've gone through and understands the treatment options. And I feel like from those conversations with friends and family, I really recognize that I wanted to make a service that allows me to have those deep connections that I love so much, but also allow me to extend the um, extend myself beyond just my medical community and my friends and family and really and really start a website for anyone who wanted to reach out and have this in their back pocket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just I can't even imagine just how valuable that service would be. You know, because those, those loved ones of yours who are fortunate, fortunate enough to have you as a loved one or as their best friend, or as their family member, they are getting, like you said, so much more of you that you're able to provide them. That don't necessarily fit into the 20 minute window that you're allotted to have with this patient before it's on to the next. You know and that's a very I'm not, I'm not at all trying to downplay the importance of that you know diagnosing. You know diagnosing physician, but in this role you're not really acting as a physician. You know, as you know their physician, you're acting as their friend, who also happens to be a very qualified, experienced.
Speaker 1:You know medical oncologist. You know like, so that's, that's a very distinct difference that now they have a friend who's going to behave as a friend and in a friend role and, like you said, you can go and you can analyze their treatment plan. You know, if you think that they might need a second opinion, you could recommend you. You, you have the network to recommend great doctors, but you're not actually having to act in that role. You know with within this position. So I understand it's two very distinctly different roles, but one is very integral to the other. It's just a wonderful thing that you're doing and, as someone who doesn't have a medical doctor in my family, if I were to get the diagnosis tomorrow, I you know I would just absolutely take advantage of this service, and you are among the only that I am aware of, you know. That's part of why I was so super excited to have you on. This is this is very unique and such a great service that you're offering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for understanding it and getting it almost immediately, because you know even when, I'm able to explain the way a traditional chemo day would be or what they can expect if their loved one is diagnosed.
Speaker 2:So I mean, in addition to offering services for people going through their journey, I'm also happy to provide services for families. So if your loved one is diagnosed with cancer and they're in another state and you don't know, do I need to quit my job and go move in with them? Like, what does this mean? I'm happy to go through the algorithms with you and offer alternatives like, well, maybe on really important days, maybe just block your schedule and offer a Zoom call or a phone call at the same time as your loved ones in the visit, but also explain whether it's really important that you should go be there right now. So just every question that, um, that we that can be answered, that's not doesn't maybe make your top five list. Maybe your top five questions regarding the diagnosis will be left for your medical team, but there's probably another five, 10, 20 questions that you might have, but they may not make that 15 minute visit, and so I'm here for those 15 questions. You know the ones that may not be the most important questions you know.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to not be the most important questions, you know. I'm happy to try to answer those as well, but if you really want to know, is it okay for you to work on chemo or do I really have to do the chemo? What are my options and how about diet nutrition Like? What else can I do that I can't control?
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to go down any you know sort of you know rabbit hole with patients who tend to want to really think through what, the what if scenarios, and I'm happy to do that with them, and that's where this platform will give us the time and space to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when, and you know, when you get a diagnosis like cancer, you know and you know that this journey is ahead of you and you don't know anything about what that journey looks like. I mean to have someone who can help you navigate not just someone, but you know, to have someone with your qualifications navigate through them. And it's coincidental that her last name is friend, but it fits very well into her business model and just having met her a couple of hours ago to now, she truly is. I can tell you it's going to feel like you have your best friend that's there to help you navigate through the most difficult and challenging journey that maybe you've faced in life so far.
Speaker 1:And and I just I am so happy that you're doing this, dr Friend, this is she's so easy to talk to y'all, she's so nice and she knows everything. So that's like really all aspects of the cancer journey. I mean you know she's been on on all sides of that. So like I just I am so excited that you're you're doing this. And I think we've kind of touched on the next question. But the next question is telling us about or clearing up any myths or misconceptions that people may have about your business.
Speaker 2:No, thank you so much for that. And I agree, the biggest misconception is that in the cancer coaching role I would serve in the traditional doctor setting. I'm going to be serving more as a coach and more as a friend, just like you said. So someone who's going to help work with your medical team. I'm certainly not going to be someone that's working against them. I'm going to be your advocate and their advocate. So you know, I'm going to help explain, maybe, a plan that they put into place and explain why it's the best thing for you. So I am certainly supposed to be. I'm intending to work with your team and to help make your life easy and to help you navigate your decisions and empower you to make treatment choices that are to help you navigate your decisions and empower you to make treatment choices that are great for you and your care. So I'm going to be working with your team. I will not be the one prescribing medications, I will not be the one you know being your primary physician, but I will be a physician that's serving in a physician advocate role to be behind the scenes, helping you to make treatment choices that are great for you.
Speaker 2:So I think in the coaching role, yes, I'm a doctor, but I'm a doctor that's working for you as a coach, in the same way that you might need a coach for various things in life. You know, a counselor, we need hour-long sessions when we do our counseling sessions and that's why I think an hour is needed. You know, we can't shortcut this, because this is we're going to try to go deeper and really unpack some of your fears and concerns and anxieties that naturally come along with a diagnosis of cancer, because it is scary. It is scary and I think that sometimes having the knowledge and the power and the understanding of the disease and being able to have a safe space to unpack it may hopefully make it a little bit less scary or at least empower you to make treatment choices that you won't regret later. So before you, you know, make any decision that maybe you'll regret, whether it be nope, not doing that, you know, maybe. Well, let's talk about it more.
Speaker 2:you know, let's go deep on this and really explore your concerns, and often, when we give you the time and space to have those important conversations, it does lead to better care, because people are able to make decisions that are right for them and really not just make decisions based on fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and fear-based decisions are just never good, you know, and I love what you said about that you were serving, you know. As for patient advocacy and doctor advocacy, you know, like you're you're there. You're a part of the team who's there to support, but that's just a great.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I'm happy to work with the doctor. You know I'm not taking their patient from them. I'm working with them to help support their patients so they can continue doing certain serving great care and the capacity that they're doing it, because they're the. The doctors are really doing great things in the community, so I'm here to support them.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, and then you being one of them as well. So that's fantastic. So we're going to shift gears because part of our purpose with this podcast is to get to know the person behind the business, you know. So when we're not talking about Dr Friend MD, like, we're talking about my friend MD, but Dr Friend, in that regard, let's talk about Sarah Friend. So what is Sarah doing when she is not working?
Speaker 2:my favorite things yes, no, it's great. My favorite things to do are spend time with my family. I have two girls and an awesome husband and I just enjoy spending time with all of them, and we love to go to the theater and watch their shows. They're both in performing arts and it's just a lot of fun. So we have a great time together.
Speaker 2:And the other hobby I have that is more alone time is gardening, although lately my youngest daughter has been joining me, so we love to go to the plant store and to pick out the latest plants and grow them and just, you know, determine which ones are going to come back every year and which colors do we like. And so gardening has been something that has really been a way for me to practice self-care, where I can sort of clear my head from a very, you know, sad day or a very intense day of practice and just allow me to connect with nature and just have that time to think and the space to try in my own world to grow something. And sometimes I fail, which is okay, because I just find out which plants like our Georgia soil, so Love it.
Speaker 1:I find you are not actually the first physician that we've had on the show. Who who has had a love for gardening? And I think that's a piece of that nurturing, you know, like that, that nurturing something and watching it grow and watching it, yeah, so I think that's so rewarding it's so rewarding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you said get back to nature after an intense day. I share some of those same needs living in the city and working in the city, and not medically, but getting back to nature just really helps ground, ground and it's, it's something for everyone who has like stress or intensity.
Speaker 2:You know it's, and this is something important that I always tell you, know, my, my clients, is just the importance of self-care, because you know you really want to try to keep yourself full and complete and at your best in order to help others and, you know, even get through your day and and make the best decisions for you. So self-care is so important and that's been something that has been easy for me, um, to pick as my go-to. You know some people enjoy exercise. I, I like it. Okay, I mean, I do exercise, but I don't know that.
Speaker 1:I would say enjoy it.
Speaker 2:It's mandatory and it's really important to do that. But I find I really, I really just do enjoy my garden.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, so shifting gears again into something a little more serious, but describe a hardship or a challenge that you have faced and that you can say, for having been through that, you feel stronger or better for that today.
Speaker 2:The hardest thing in the most recent future that I've had to go through was make the decision to leave my permanent practice, where I had a group of patients and a group of like just colleagues and amazing staff that I just loved so much, and making that decision to leave them to start my Friend MD because I believe so strongly in this idea. It was really hard and it just it just it came with a lot of pain. I mean I don't like leaving people and so I was very sad to leave them and also to chart a territory that I don't think is commonly done. Most of the time when I hear of physicians doing new things, I mean I don't. I've never heard of anyone that I know who has done something like this, so it's a different path. That's not. There wasn't someone I could follow for this.
Speaker 2:It was sort of deciding what I think is needed based on my experience and based on just the people that I have met in my life and why I thought that this should be a service that exists in the world for people in my life, and why I thought that this should be a service that exists in the world for people, but it didn't currently exist and only now, is existing, and so the idea of how to put it together and you know how am I going to leave to take this risk, to do a new thing it just, it's just hard. It was just really hard for me. And now, you know, I feel this, this strong passion and force leading me forward, but it's internal and it's driving me, but there's no roadmap that has been spelled for me or laid out for me, and I think it was really hard. So the last six months before I actually made the step and, you know, left my job, that was one of the hardest times for me, quite honestly. That was some one of the hardest times for me, quite honestly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well and, like you said there's. So it's. It's kind of the irony of that. You are helping others. You know you're you're helping others navigate through this very difficult journey that they have, but there's not a roadmap for you and there's not really someone to navigate how to best provide that service you know to to. You know honor your, your gut instincts that are telling you that this is something that you need to do. You know and you want to. You want to do that, you want to give back, you want to help people in this, in this capacity.
Speaker 1:There are no guarantees to entrepreneurship at all. Being an entrepreneur is a little bit scary and in your case, I would say you know more than most because you were leaving somewhere that you were so super happy and and fulfilled. I just again applaud you for for taking the leap of faith and and trusting your own instincts. You're going to help a lot of people. I just feel it, and you are still a practicing oncologist, so you do still have that aspect, you know. It's just at a different level, you know. Thank you for taking this on on behalf of the rest of us. So really, we're about to wrap up. Is there anything else that you would like our listeners to know about my friend MD.
Speaker 2:Well, I think just pay attention to anyone in you know, in your world, who is expressing that they have more questions and more time and more needs than they're feeling. So anyone who's feeling maybe this, this pull between um, between the traditional, the traditional medical visits, and is feeling like they really need that more time and space to discuss this diagnosis in more detail. And when people don't have the resources, think of MyFriendMDcom, because as we future scale, we're going to start to create resources for cancer patients and networks for cancer patients that will have the ability to find resources that they need, whether it's not a one-on-one coaching session, which is currently being offered through the platform, but also we will start to grow a network and community, so there will be the support that's needed. So I would just say, to know about this and hopefully no one who's listening will ever need to use this service.
Speaker 2:Obviously, that's not my intention, but if there is someone that is struggling with the cancer diagnosis and really just needs that right person to talk about this diagnosis with and there's nothing that the family or the friends feel like they can offer or they feel like they need more, then that would be the. They just think of the service. So that's what I would say. If it might not be for everyone, especially if there's, you know, if there's, if people feel satisfied, but for anyone who feels like they need to go deeper and they really need to unpack their diagnosis in more time and just need that extra person to run things by, I'm here. I'm here for that, because that's the need I want to fill in the world right now.
Speaker 1:That is so wonderful. Thank you so much for following your calling and answering your calling by doing this. I am really excited about all the people that you're going to help. You are top of mind for me, for anyone I know that will be facing this challenge. Well, if our listeners want to learn more, if they have a friend or a loved one who may already have had their diagnosis but is in their journey and would just like like that extra support anyone who would like to learn more, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
Speaker 2:Dr Friend Visit my website at myfriendmdcom.
Speaker 1:That is an easy one to remember, guys. Myfriendmdcom. Thank you so much for being here, dr Friend. It has absolutely been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Well, that's all for today's episode. Atlanta I'm Stacey Risley with the Good Neighbor Podcast. Thanks for listening and supporting the local businesses and nonprofits of our great community. Thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast North Atlanta. To nominate your favorite local businesses, visit GNP North Atlantacom. That's GNP North Atlantacom.
