48. How Dr Jana Pittman Reinvented Herself from Olympian to Doctor

What happens when the identity you’ve built your whole life around no longer fits? In this episode of It Takes Heart, Jana Pittman shares her extraordinary journey from world champion Olympian to doctor, mother of six and passionate advocate for women’s health. With honesty and warmth, Jana reflects on injury, public pressure and the moments that pushed her towards reinvention and a new sense of purpose beyond elite sport.

Jana opens up about how missing the Olympic Games led her to pursue medicine and eventually specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology. She also shares what working in women’s health has taught her about trust, empathy and having the conversations many women still find difficult.

This episode is for anyone navigating a career change, rebuilding after disappointment or searching for meaning in a new chapter. Jana Pittman’s story shows how reinvention can open the door to a life that feels just as meaningful as the one you first imagined.

Content warning: This episode includes discussions of miscarriage, stillbirth and pregnancy loss.

Jana's organisation of choice is the Australian Gynaecological Cancer Foundation (AGCF), a national not-for-profit organisation that focuses on funding laboratory research into all 8 gynae cancers.

It Takes Heart is hosted by cmr’s Samantha Miklos and Kate Coomber and recorded at cmr’s head office in Brisbane.

We Care; Music by Waveney Yasso

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Transcript

Who is Jana Pittman today?

Sam Miklos 0:00

For years, being an elite athlete felt like the most important thing in Jana Pittman's life. Then she found something that meant even more.

Jana Pittman 0:05

When I lost the Olympic Games for the third time in a row, despite being world champion, Commonwealth champion, and undefeated for almost three or four years in a row, I just unfortunately got injured right before the major championships, the Olympics. I was beside myself and I didn't know what that next chapter was going to look like. And then mum reminded me that I wanted to be a doctor as a kid. And she said, well, that's much harder than running, so give it a crack.

Kate Coomber 0:28

So make sure you leave a review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you'd like to see more about Jana, pop over to It Takes Heart on Instagram for all the behind-the-scenes fun.

Sam Miklos 0:41

So today we're joined by Jana Pittman, a two-time world champion, four-time Commonwealth Games champion, and the first Australian woman to compete at both a summer and a winter Olympics. But Yana's story reaches far beyond sport. She's also an author, a keynote speaker, a mother of six, including twins. And she's now a doctor specialising in obstetrics and gynecology. Across every chapter of her life, Yana has stepped into pressure, reinvention, and purpose with extraordinary courage. And today we want to hear about the woman behind the milestones, the things that have shaped her and challenged her, and who has she become along the way. Jana, welcome to It Takes Heart.

Jana Pittman 1:18

Thank you very much. Probably need my mum for that, because she is my inspiration, my backbone, and everything that got me to where I am. But unfortunately, she's not here. She's looking after those six children. So is mine.

Sam Miklos 1:28

Mine wanted to come and I was like, no, someone needs to watch my series. Exactly.

Jana Pittman 1:31

Exactly.

Sam Miklos 1:31

She is my hero. Absolutely. Jana, like author, athlete, mother, doctor, if someone says to you, like, what do you do? Who are you? What feels like the most true response?

Jana Pittman 1:44

Well, I think now it feels like I'm a doctor. For a long time I remember actually I m even remember the first time someone said, Excuse me, doctors, and I was like, Oh, oh, oh, they mean me. So that identity is now very much um ingrained, and that's what I feel like I am. I still do feel like it was only yesterday that I was competing for Australia, but it also could feel like a different person, like I could be watching someone else's life rather than it actually having been mine. Um and obviously mum is I've been a mum for 20 years. Like that is a long time. Stupidity in that big gap. Like a lot of my friends say, Oh, when's the best time to have kids? Yeah, how do you think? Yeah, not like I did it. Um my eldest is 19. Yeah. Uh he's just actually uh applied to join the army, so he's really at that end of life in terms of being out of the nest kind of thing. And my littlest are twin four-year-olds. So there's a huge gap between the oldest and the youngest.

Kate Coomber 2:29

Oh.

Jana Pittman 2:29

And then scattered in between. And then scattered in between. We had there was a ten-year, unfortunately, I've had a couple of marriages that didn't go to plan. Um, and so I had a big gap between my first son and then the next five came fairly quickly after that. Are we ready for like another one? Do we have to do that? No.

Kate Coomber 2:46

So I guess when you've had all of those identities, I guess, with with so many different careers, do you ever think who is Jana Pittman?

Turning Disappointment Into Reinvention

Jana Pittman 2:57

No, I mean that's a good question. I haven't I I do call myself the chameleon of change. Um Most of the times when things have taken a huge sidestep, it's because something's gone really badly in a previous chapter. And I don't see that as a negative. And obviously I have the privilege of talking today as well for an audience here. Um and that'll exactly what we're going to talk about. Because for me, every opportunity has come through a disappointment. And it's so interesting that you have a choice, don't we, in life when something doesn't go to plan. You can either sort of sit there, let it hurt you, let it become who you are, in some ways look in a mirror and think, I am so bad, I am woe, I can't do things, and it becomes almost a shield as to why not to try something harder. My mum taught me as a kid, as I said, she used that backbone, that when something hard goes wrong, try something even harder, because it wipes away the disappointment of the thing that seemed at the time to be tough.

Kate Coomber 3:41

Yeah, wow.

Jana Pittman 3:42

And so, classic example, when I lost the Olympic Games for the third time in a row, despite being world champion, commonwealth champion, and undefeated for almost three or four years in a row, I just unfortunately got injured right before the major championships, the Olympics. Um, I was beside myself and I didn't know what that next chapter was going to look like. And then mum reminded me that I wanted to be a doctor as a kid, and she said, Well that that's much harder than running, so give it a crack. And I thought, yeah, no, initially. But she was right, because I remember when I took on that career, it really wiped out so much of the disappointment from from not finishing at the level I wanted to in sport. And so I I guess I look at it now and it's become my my motto is that when things don't go to plan, find a neck find a new a new door to open. Um so it's synonymous with change, but you know, you had to take that first step that first time to say, okay, God, that hurts. That really didn't go to plan. I feel very low in myself, but the best way out of that is to succeed at something else to make that blow feel a little less.

Sam Miklos 4:36

Do you think if um like your mum obviously was a huge influence in, and I'm thinking about my eldest daughter, things go wrong, it's like the world is ending. Was that innate in you though as well to be that high achiever, to keep pushing through like that resilience, or do you think that came from the things that your mum instilled in you along the way?

Jana Pittman 4:56

Well, that's a hard one to unpack because there's a few things in that. Um, yes, I do think there has been I have a naturally robust personality. You can't not. But I don't think I was always like that. I am a marshmallow on the inside. I'm very sensitive to people's opinions. So when I had a lot of negative media, for example, in my teens, not as much in my twenties, and certainly I get amazing media now. I I'm very lucky, but as a young athlete, I got a lot of really harsh criticism. Um, and so out of that my self-esteem was quite low, and therefore I felt like, well, if I'm better, people will like me more. It's actually not the case in Australia, but yeah. When you're young, you don't really know that. And so I tried harder to be better, to be better, to be better, thinking I would wipe away some of the negative at the time. Um and look in hindsight, I look and think, oh, it's kind of a blessing, isn't it? Because I got to do all these amazing things with the wrong reasons at that time. Um, but eventually that's where that resilience came from, is because if you try lots of hard things, you're gonna fail regularly. Um and I I feel like I'm one of those little pincushions that lots of little things go wrong, like all the time. But because you just kind of get used to it, you just keep going.

Kate Coomber 5:53

You keep rolling with it. I mean, you always say, don't you, when I met you, probably your thing that always rungs true to me is there's opportunity in every crisis. Yeah. And every single, every moment. I'm like, it's a lot of people. And that's hard, like you know, when you work with you, because they're crying. I'm like, no, this is definitely.

Sam Miklos 6:12

But you don't want to be toxically positive. And that's it. There's a real fine line there. Yes. With I've also been taught, oh, you can be too too positive, but it's it's what's where how do you know when you're being too positive?

Jana Pittman 6:23

Well, I'm the opposite, I'm a complete pessimist. So, but through what I do with it with any situation is I look at what is the absolute diabolical worst possible outcome that could come out of this. Yeah. Can I survive it? Yeah, actually I can. And so then I do it anyway. And so it's one of those I'm probably not very positive. So if something comes like for example, my exams, my final specialty exams were last week, and I was beside myself with nerves. Like I could barely eat, I couldn't sleep, I was so worried about the opinions of others if I fail it, the impact on my children from the last year of pretty much being locked in my room from seven o'clock every night. Um, and then I sat there and go, well, what is the worst case scenario? Well, the worst worst case scenario is I don't become an obstetrician, but I'm still a doctor. You know, I'll find a recruitment somewhere else. And I know some people that might be able to help me there. Um the best case scenario is you, you know, you you sit it once and and you move on with that next chapter. But sometimes I think we spend so much time trying not to think negatively and to always think about you know, being optimistic and thinking about the positives that we act our brain is always going to go to some of those negatives anyway. Or if you're quite positive, it's it's it's I guess addressing who am I as a person and how do I deal with pressure and fear and go with that. So if you're naturally positive, fantastic. If you're a naturally a bit of a pessimist, like me, go with it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Kate Coomber 7:36

But I think it uncovers opportunity, right? We talk about the what-if brain, which which I certainly have. But we do you know, that can uncover great opportunity that people haven't thought about.

Jana Pittman 7:46

Absolutely. And it's also, as you say, it's knowing that that's okay to have a what-if brain. Yeah, yeah. Whereas a lot of people get told, Oh, you've got anxiety. And I'm like, yeah, really negative. It's very uh it's but it's very functional. So thank you. I have functional anxiety, and I'll take it any day because it's it works.

From Personal Loss to a Purpose in Women’s Health

Kate Coomber 8:06

I'll send that to my husband. Um I guess uh you're talking there about all the different things that have gone wrong. What do you feel was the hardest season looking for?

Jana Pittman 8:17

Um I look, that's now r retrospectively changed so much. Um as a doctor now, I mean what we see on a day-to-day basis is I can't even imagine as an athlete thinking I would ever go through some of the things I've now watched. And obviously it's not happening to me. As in, I'm not the person going through that pain, but I'm sitting with a woman most often and a family these days, going through the most profound loss you could ever, ever comprehend. Um, and I've certainly been pr the had the privilege of now being with women in birth who have unfortunately had to birth a baby who's stillborn or who have lost their life soon after birth, and there is not nothing like it. Um and it is it is a privilege in in our line of work, but it is also s it takes an enormous toll. But it's so interesting because you know, ten years ago I would have said losing the Olympic Games was the worst thing ever, or having the miscarriages myself was the worst thing I'd ever been through, or the divorces, and you just look like I could stack you up with all these things that went wrong in in life. Um profoundly all gone when I walked out of that for the very first time where I was the the the main um training, obviously, obstetrician in that room and and the outcome didn't go the way we hoped it would. And it it the impact was enormous. And so it's so funny now that you look back on those experiences and think, if only I'd known what real loss could be like, I probably would have handled things so differently. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Kate Coomber 9:30

But as you said earlier, when when something doesn't go to plant, do something harder. Correct. That's exactly what I think. That's what I did going to specialise in the area.

Jana Pittman 9:40

Couldn't just, you know, find something a little bit less uh time-consuming and tricky with work with six kids on my own. Yeah, no.

Sam Miklos 9:47

Why did you choose then obstetrics and gynecology? Because uh you said earlier your mother said you always wanted to be a doctor. Did you always want to be an obstetrician?

Jana Pittman 9:54

No, I thought I wanted to be a sports doctor. I think this is a bit logical. Most people say GP or sports doctor, they would have thought I would love the community health or or or sports. Um the first time I had my my first child, I loved my midwife. She was the most amazing human out there, and then my obstetrician at the time was Norman Blumenthal, who has still been someone I loved. So the two of them as a pair made me fall in love with women's health initially. And so I actually did a year of midwifery first before I did medicine and loved that. But then I hated how the doctors came in and stole all the cool berths. Like I thought that is so unfair. Like you know that you've been there with woman the whole time and you really locked eyes, you're working together so beautifully. Yes. Something doesn't go quite right, and in comes someone she's never even met before. Now that's me. Um, and as a part of that journey. So I uh I changed across to medicine with the whole the whole plan of always being um in obstetrics. And a couple of times in medical school when I saw what they actually did, obs and gyney doctors, I'm like, oh that life is awful, like really hard. I tried to waive to other areas and see other things that I liked. Um, and then I had more miscarriages, and then I had incontinence on national television, and then I had really bad periods at one point, ended up being, you know, very heavy menstrual bleeding. And I felt like it was just like whoever runs the world was just saying, no, no, no, no, no. You're staying in your lane. It's women's health. And I'm just going to give you every little women's health issue there is to make sure you recognise that you're supposed to stay in this.

Kate Coomber 11:17

And how does that then impact the way you treat patients? And I think it helps. The sort of medicine that you do. I I I think it helps because I think women's not all aspects.

Jana Pittman 11:27

Some aspects of women's health are tricky to talk about. It's tricky to talk about pap smears, it's tricky to talk about vaginal odor, it's tricky to talk about miscarriages, um, painful intercourse. They're all things that are really hard to have an open discussion with. And because one, two things, I guess one, having been through a lot of it, I often will hold a woman's hand and go, I hear you, Delan. I I was I was you. I've had four miscarriages. This is one of the hardest things you're gonna go through, but one day you'll wake up and it'll feel less. And and I've even had the privilege recently of being with a woman who'd been through two miscarriages and then being with her at the birth of her child just by chance. Because I'm trainee, obviously, so I don't get this wasn't I just had that luck of continuity, but it was I just when I walked, I'm like, oh my gosh, and we were like so happy and then I got to come back. It was a mid-wiffree birth, but I'm like, I'm coming, I'm sorry. They're just like, yes, please. So it was really it it's beautiful. Like it's a pretty amazing experience. But yes, having gone through it yourself, um and like I joke about it, you know, I'll when I do a lot of public speaking, I now offer pap smears to the room and things like that. But I offer it because I had sin three high-grade dysplasia and I'm almost had to have a hysterectomy or a tracholectomy at the time because of the the changes in my cervix. So I want to use my experiences to educate women around what they can avoid if they um look after their own health, which none of us do. Because we're always busy with kids and husbands and it was always that thing that no one talked about. Exactly.

Sam Miklos 12:45

When we're thinking about women's health? Everything.

Jana Pittman 12:49

It's so tricky that things like breast cancer, for example, thanks to the Glenn McGraw Foundation and his wife going through that chapter and then exploding the market in that area, we need the same thing in a lot of women's health. And it's getting there. Like, you know, there are really good campaigns around endometriosis and pelvic pain. You know, miscarriage campaigns are coming. The Australian government, New South Wales government are pushing really hard in this space to try and get that education piece up. But it also comes down to us women, we have to feel comfortable with our bodies, comfortable talking with about pain and loss and things that aren't normal. Like, you know, that itch in the vulva that's not going away, you have to tell a friend. Yeah. And that friend will hopefully say, you need to go to your GP. And then the hardest part as doctors is we need to not turn them away if we don't know what it is. We need to say, look, I'm not really sure what that little plaque on the vulva is. I think you need to go and see someone who can specializes in that in that area. So it's it's just tricky. It's all a thing.

Sam Miklos 13:39

Even we talk a lot about perimenopause, maybe it's now with the age that we're in, but like that was never a conversation. Still not that our mothers really spoke about, you know.

Jana Pittman 13:46

But I'd be lost without those conversations. Like, but did you my mum doesn't talk about it? My mum just said, Oh, I got that, I got through that. You'll be fine. I'm like, yeah, no, but how what what did you go through? You know, I just remember you being a little bit cranky, but she didn't seem to have any symptoms.

Kate Coomber 13:58

And I think it's that whole just because it's common, like Anthea Todd was saying, it just because it's common doesn't make it normal. No, exactly. And so we all have these things, so it's like, oh well deal with it.

Jana Pittman 14:08

Deal with it exactly, just like most other things we deal with period pain, deal with heavy bleeding, deal with the occasional leakage. It's not the way it should be. But I think it is changing. Like I feel like these conversations are starting to happen, and I'm hoping that I'll be a big mover and shaker in that space as I become a specialist.

Speaker 3 14:22

Yeah.

Jana Pittman 14:23

Um but I think it is important at the moment that that that voice stays with women and not women, with uh practitioners who have that knowledge and have done that research already. And I have a few years to go still, so still though, you're definitely making waves.

Sam Miklos 14:34

Do

Being a Public Figure in the Birthing Suite

Sam Miklos 14:35

you think your um your public identity has certainly helped you to push some of those conversations forward? And has that made that challenging as well, stepping into the medical profession which colleagues as well as patients very tricky.

Jana Pittman 14:51

Yeah, it's very, very tricky. Meeting you and how you are, and it's yeah. Um it's been a really s tricky space to navigate. Getting easier as I'm getting s I mean, don't get me wrong, my bosses at work till still tell me I'm incredibly junior, which I am, I appreciate, compared to the 20 years of obstetrics they've done. I'm still a very junior. I still have to call them when you know I've got a fully dilated Caesar on the table to come in and help me. Um it's hard. It's hard on a few levels. It's hard because I was so successful in my last career, and then all of a sudden you're the bottom of the food chain in medicine, and you have to accept that. Like, you know, they earned their stripes just like I did, but I'm not in sport anymore. So you need to calm your farm. So how did that feel? Like, take us back to those. I was fine. I was fine with it because I had the same. Like I remember as a young athlete, I'm very disciplined when it comes to mentorship. So I've always put people on a pedestal, rightly so. Not not someone who doesn't deserve it, but like I loved wholeheartedly head over heels in love with Kathy Freeman most of my life, and Debbie Lintoff King and Melinda Gainsford, and I'd follow them around like puppy, like you know, just like these are the most amazing. And I'm a little bit like that with my consultants. It doesn't matter if they're younger than me, if they've earned those stripes and they're amazing at what they do, then they deserve that accolade, which I think I've always been very mature about. It is tricky in a in a patient room, though, when the patient looks at you and your senior consultant is standing next to you because she's younger or he's younger, and they think that you're the most senior person in the room, and I have to and all I do is just turn my whole body and look at my consultant, and so it's very obvious I'm directing that energy towards there. Um the media stuff's hard because I want to be an advocate in these spaces. I definitely ru rub a few noses at times just because I will and I and I have to accept that I want to be that person and that other people want it as well, and I get it, I get an easy road.

Sam Miklos 16:26

What do you mean by that?

Jana Pittman 16:26

Well, I think it's more that you know I can ring up Channel 9 and say, I really want to come on tonight and talk about heavy menstrual bleeding. One of my professors might have done 20 years and PhD in that space and can't get an audience with it. And that's not fair, but we need the message out there. And so for a long time I battled with that. And and for example, when I wrote for New Idea for many years, I would interview. Yeah, and I'm still writing for them. I love it. I would get in Jason Abbott to talk about endometriosis, or I'd or or or um um Dr Dr. Chow to come and talk Jason Chow to talk about pelvic pain. Or um, you know, if it was a menopause topic, get someone who's really researched in that area to be the main voice. Lately I'm starting to do a lot more of it more on my own because I recognise well I am getting a little bit more senior senior. Um and I'm careful with my research, and I have done a lot of research because I I I've paused it at the moment, but I had started a PhD, so I know how to research well and make sure the information is accurate. And the bottom line is no one's gonna love you. Like everyone's gonna have someone who doesn't want, you know, doesn't want you to do what you're doing. But I think the foundational message is that we need to help women. And if I can do that, if it means I rub a few noses, then I I hope those who know me stand up and go, yeah, but she's a good doctor, she tries hard, she works hard, and ultimately the goal is in the right place.

Kate Coomber 17:37

Yeah. And we need those passionate people in healthcare, don't we? I think in the specialist space, you know, there can be a um it varies from the people who love their profession and and um private practice versus public and all of those things. I guess where do you see yourself fitting within the system?

Jana Pittman 17:54

Well actually this kind of continues with the previous question. The hardest part is when things don't go to plan, but the patient knows you. And so in a public setting, when the outcome is I you know, you you got we we're we birth trauma is all over the place at the moment. It is the most the the hardest thing actually, if you say what's the hardest thing you deal with in in the moment is the unknown walking into a birth unit if that woman is gonna want you to be there or not. Because currently the way the media is going, we are no longer like I love my obstetrician. I thought he was the most amazing person on the planet. Women often don't want us in the room. They think we're gonna medicalize the birth or we're gonna take away something from them that that that they do that they they've planned, they've wanted, they've dreamed about, yeah. And in walks an obstetrician and puts a pair of forceps on and pulls a baby out. Now, the problem is that is true. We do. We walk into rooms when things are really going badly. I don't know any obstetrician that walks into a room and does an instrumental birth unless it's absolutely necessary to save a baby's life.

Speaker 3 18:52

Yeah, of course.

Jana Pittman 18:52

You know, so and and it's so it's really hard reading those reports and things. And so my original plan was to be a because I was obviously I was a dueler first, then I did midwifery and then I did obstetrics, was to be that hypno-birthing, home birthing obstetrician. Breach birth, twin birth, you name it all, all the right outliers around. And my favourite current doctor is uh a a man called um Dr. Andrew Bissitz, who I love and follow his ethos. But when you're well known and things don't go well, it's Jana Pittman who caused me to be incontinent from a fourth degree tear.

Kate Coomber 19:23

Yeah.

Jana Pittman 19:24

And I'm not sure I can live with that, which means I'll probably do more private because I want to have this, I want to have a relationship with my woman and her family rather than walk into a room where they have no idea who you are. In fact, may have read something horrible about you in the media, don't like you, and all of a sudden you're there trying to beg them to let you save the baby's life. And come to your own. I want them to come and say, I trust you, I like your ethos, I want to work with you. And so when I'm there locking eyes with her saying we need to do a cesarean now, she's going, absolutely. I trust you, I'm with you. And that's hard because I always thought myself as I was a public doctor. I thought there's no way I'll do private practice, it's only public. But lately I've been like, or when it's just not necessarily gonna help. It's not gonna work. I don't know. I'm still too junior to make the decision. Yeah.

Sam Miklos 20:06

It's interesting. Because I I'd I'd thought that when I was researching for you. I was like, yeah, if when you're in those moments coming in and if it goes bad, you're so public. Absolutely. One day someone's gonna say, Yeah, out of hitman, dah da da da da. Yep. Yeah.

Jana Pittman 20:19

And it's just a sort of like a facial palsy or it's got a cut on it. Like, I don't know.

Sam Miklos 20:23

Yes.

Jana Pittman 20:24

It could happen. And and I know in my heart of hearts I'll have done the best job that I could have, but that's but you're dealing with people in the worst times in their lives when they're looking for answers and you know So I don't know. And that's what's made me fearful in the career that I'm in lately, which is a really hard space to be in when I love it so much. But I'm like, oh maybe I'd maybe I'll be a gynecologist and not do as much birthing. She at the moment would probably agree. Yeah. I'm gonna be honest with you. And I think that's where we're sitting at at the moment in our chapter, is that she's like, but you can do so much powerful work in perimenopause and incontinence and all of those m key messages where women really need a voice and the risk is so much less because I remember one birth outcome when the little little one didn't make it, and I was like a rock for six weeks. I could barely communicate. I was so sh shaken up by that in that experience. And my kids miss out. You know, I've got five little ones, obviously one older one, but five little ones who don't understand my mummy's a bit sullen and looks like she's depressed and um and that's not fair on your family.

Running, Motherhood and Finding a Way to Recharge

Jana Pittman 21:26

So What do you do to look after yourself? I just think. Like I try I train like a proper athlete. They're doing sprinting to look like you train like an athlete. Yeah. But it came out of that last yeah, but you it's a good topic. It came out of one of my one of those birth experiences, one where it didn't go to plan. And it's so interesting, I've you know, don't laugh, but I've I've counted, I've done over five hundred births now. Um, and I've had like six or seven go poorly, and everything everyone else has been beautiful. So but of course we always focus, don't we, as humans, on those ones that don't go to plan. Um but it came out of one of those where I'm like, right, I've got to have a I've got to have a buffer. And I hadn't run for like nine years at seven, like well probably seven years actually. And I'm like, no, I'm going to get back into it. So I started practicing getting ready to race again. Like I've got it I've got it I've got an in the outlet.

Kate Coomber 22:12

Day one are you doing 10 K's?

Jana Pittman 22:16

I didn't catch to 10 K's like catch potato is fantastic. How long did it get you to 10K? How long the two weeks I did it properly. Like it says to run three times a week. I did the app. I literally followed the app in like a little textbook. You'd be in the masters soon. That's what I'm hoping. Yeah exactly. I want to run the 200. Not 400's anymore. Anyway. It's too far the 400 hertz too much.

Sam Miklos 22:35

What are the yeah what are the goals are there for you? So you want to run the 200?

Jana Pittman 22:39

Well I just want to compete. I miss the camaraderie of the other of the of the the I just love the smell of the stadium and the the speed in your legs and things. Do the kids run? Some of them do. They run for fun but certainly not competitively. I'm not sure I'd want them to but if they did that absolutely I'd support them but it's not I don't necessarily think elite sport is good from a healthy healthy mindset perspective unless you've got a really really robust strong personality it can be quite a tricky space. How so? It's very lonely. Like in a s team sport like AFL or you know women's rugby like you've got your girls or your guys around you to be part of that team. And you win together you lose together. And I noticed that in Bobsled because obviously I've done Winter Olympics as well and I was a team. Like you know there were two of us together. So when and it was actually third there was always the two in the sled and a a spare person who'd swap in and out. Yeah and so there was always the three of us so when things went badly there was the three of us and it was just so nice to have someone to commiserate with and also celebrate with you have that with your coach obviously but when you let that when you run badly you let that coach down. All that work and effort that they've put into you and sacrifice their family time for you and it's quite tough. So it's quite a lonely space at times. So if it was if they pick a team sport I'd be very happy. How did bobsledding come about? Very lucky pure luck. So after the it's a little bit of my um can't wait for anything I'm a bit too got to have it now. It's got to have it now so 2012 winter Summer Olympics I I just lost with injury and so I was like right I want to do another sport. So I was I'm too actually too big to do track and field, too too heavy, too tall. And so I thought okay I'm going to try something else and so the AIS was recruiting for different sports I said why don't you just try out for different things to see if you could do something. I was only 28 I think at that point. And so I tried rowing and I tried boxing and then because one of my friends who I'd run with as a kid said oh here you're trying some different sports do you want to come and give give Bobsled a go? And I'm like Bobsled? And she says yeah I've been to two Olympics in it already. So she was already a seasoned bobsledder. She's like just come and have a go and I'm like yes do you know why? Because it's two years earlier than the Summer Olympics so I didn't have to wait four years for Olympic games. So like done I'll give it a crack. So and it was a it was so much fun. I mean we we were we were competitive in that we made the games we were sort of top ten in most of the races came I think we came I can't even remember we came at the Olympics 11th or 13th something like that. But it was ne it wasn't about that. It was about getting there and representing Australia and and and obviously being the first woman, Aussie woman to to do both the winter and summer was was my goal. And it was so much fun. So did it so cool.

Kate Coomber 25:19

So like you were incredibly busy you've achieved so much like so high achieving with six children.

Sam Miklos 25:27

Six children very ambitious obviously very driven studying keynote speaker, author, all the things how you know there's a lot of talk I guess and and pressure around women in particular to you know make sure that you're supporting the family and and to be ambitious can sometimes be negative.

Kate Coomber 25:46

Yeah. How do you have you had to battle that and I don't listen to it to be honest.

Jana Pittman 25:50

So you I mean my mother guilt's pretty high every day of the week but like I have a super king extra super king bed and at the moment we sleep one, two, three, four and I sleep along the bottom because all the kids sleep with me at every night and I get told that's terrible too and they'll never move out of your bed. Well my 19 year old doesn't sleep with me. So I just think they need mummy time and so rarely if one of them comes to want to sleep with me will I say no. So I've often got a horde of children in my bed. I bought a three bedroom house at the farm and people like how are you going to manage that I'm like I don't think it really matters guys.

Kate Coomber 26:25

But even that as a mother you know the pressure on you to get your kids to sleep and just do all the things you know it's crazy to see someone in the area who's like that's been my kids go to bed when I'm ready for them to go to bed.

Jana Pittman 26:35

Sometimes they take themselves to bed I'm tired mummy off they go into mine. And then you know I appreciate that at times you need to like for example my exams that made it tricky because when I'm trying to study at night time I'm like guys you need to go to bed. So we had a bit more TV than I would have liked for the last 12 months. So what? Yeah you know what like you know a lot of people have it's a season. And that's how I see everything in life everything is a season. And yes my mother guilt can be high but you know my parents sacrificed a lot for me to be able to put me into this position to be able to be the advocate that I am and and the doctor that I am now. And I do remember one time saying to mum oh I can't do this anymore mum's I'm just gonna I just want to stay at home with my kids she goes I'm that's my chapter. I'm there with them. You know like my mother was there when I was working so it's not necessarily an Australian tradition but you know I have a quite a few friends who are have a Chinese heritage and it's and it's quite common that the grandma stays home and she goes to work.

Speaker 3 27:22

Yeah.

Jana Pittman 27:23

And so you know I think we just need to label it less. Don't get me wrong it doesn't change my mother guilt because I actually love my kids. So they're here in Queensland with me. Did the drive up yesterday because whenever I can they'll come. Yeah. Um and they miss too much school.

Kate Coomber 27:36

Yeah.

Jana Pittman 27:36

Way too much because if mum gets a day off so do they. Yeah. And that's probably not ideal from an education perspective.

Kate Coomber 27:42

But But I think that's the challenge isn't it? Because I feel that like I I love being with my kids but I also really love working.

Jana Pittman 27:48

Yeah. And so it's And there's nothing wrong with that. There there's lots of different people that have different ideas of what makes them happy. And I know I have been home and I'm cranky and I'm not as nice at home and it and all I end up doing is finding other things to do anyway, like going out and redoing an entire garden or you know buying a new horse or something that takes the time away and a hobby farm as well now. Yeah that's my slowing down chapter that's not slowing down. I thought it was going to be but it's all work. Why is that? I don't know. But yeah so I think you need to you need to give yourself a break in that space. So and and and again if if someone decides in life that they want to hang up the boots from work and and stay at home that that is also a very valuable my my sister-in-law does that. She's a stay at home mum for my um for my for my son my brother's um son uh kids and she's amazing at it and she loves it. She loves it. Yeah and she loves it. And talking about I love it in small moderated amounts and I don't want to be a grump for my kids and you know and I want to set an example for them that you can't have it all but you can get very close.

Sam Miklos 28:48

Yeah.

Healthcare Burnout and the Fight for Better Rural Training

Sam Miklos 28:49

So you're here tonight speaking to our team we've got uh an event for our healthcare clients tonight and you're speaking about leading through pressure building a healthcare workforce that stays. From what you've seen in elite sport and then in healthcare what kind of leadership do you think makes people want to keep showing up even when the work is hard?

Jana Pittman 29:10

That is a really tricky question that I should be careful in answering, but I never am so I think one of the hardest things that we need to change in medical leadership is that how we were treated doesn't need to be how we treat the people coming after us. And it is slowly changing and I have some certainly got some bosses at work who I know got treated poorly by their seniors who are the most kinderous incredible people to work with and boy do they make a difference. Those leaders lead by example through the kindness and the gentleness and the ability to walk through the difficult days with you and there are others that you could do something tiny tiny something so so minuscule wrong and feel so small about and in doing so it takes leaps and bounds to get over that. And I think in medicine that's one of the hardest in in lots of areas with where success and sport was the same. The great coaches build you up and recognize the days when things aren't going to plan without having to ask too many questions. My coach would call me angry aunt like he would literally say he'd watch my language when I was warming up and be able to go and he would literally say to me today's not a day to train. Let's go have a coffee and I'd be like no no no he's like I can tell you either hormonal, which is probably not the right thing to say, but he could recognize it. And say you're gonna get injured today because you're too tight, you're too taunt, something's up often it'll be a fight with the partner or whatnot, we need to walk this off today. And then the next day you train so fast and so well because you gave that breathing space. And I feel like if we could carry that into medicine where we actually could recognise that we're all really valuable team members at every level of medicine no matter which level that is and we have so much to give and bring and foster that we could we could really change the way medicine is received because it's all as you've already mentioned it's so hard.

Kate Coomber 30:49

If we're thinking about trying to build that happier, healthier workforce they're tired, they're stretched they're stretched but they need to feel not even just valued. They need to feel valuable and valuable I totally agree.

Jana Pittman 31:04

And you're often not and there's also you remember which you know it's decades you've put into it. Like I'm already eleven years into my training and so how could you possibly think about changing career pathways when you've put eleven years of hard earned work into being a doctor and there's also the I think there's the pressure of a doctor is seen as being someone who's sort of you know high in society. It's a great it's a prestigious job but it's actually a really hard rough and ready job. The pay is not very good depending obviously where you work and what industry you're in. Certainly not as a junior doctor it's not yet you're expected to to withstand so much pressure and such hard hours and such a a rigid roster that sometimes cannot accommodate mental health day. And a lot of people need a built-in mental health day.

Kate Coomber 31:51

Yeah. And do you think that's why a lot of people are leaving?

Jana Pittman 31:55

I mean I've considered it and I've I feel like I'm one of the most resilient people around but there's definitely been days when I look at it and I think this is just not enough. Like there was too many as we were discussing too many things at home wait waiting to cuddle me and be patted and ridden nowadays. But I don't want to be standing there, you know, worried about whether this day is going to go how I hope it plans or worrying that I'm gonna make a mistake that's going to cost me, you know, my reputation and my and my and my my mental health. So it's it's but how how do you navigate that? We need doctors, we need nurses, we need midfives, we need allied health like there is we're needed people, firemen, policemen, they're all of we all go through something very similar. And it's interesting one of the most powerful people I've ever met has just stopped working due to s s severe PTSD and like he is extraordinary but cannot go to work anymore. And you just think where could have we caught that along the way to have to have stopped losing someone so valuable? I mean don't get me wrong 25 years is a long time in you know in a career but you think they're still what they could have given in terms of mentorship to the next coming generation or how to navigate burnout or how to you know I guess not do not get to the end of your career and look back on it with hatred, look back on it with wow I contributed.

Kate Coomber 33:10

I was so amazing. Do you think it comes from not talking about it too though?

Sam Miklos 33:14

Yeah I probably agree with you.

Jana Pittman 33:16

How do we change that though?

Sam Miklos 33:17

Someone like you out there talking.

Jana Pittman 33:20

Gotta be more senior for that though though otherwise you ripple too many feathers.

Sam Miklos 33:22

So you'll get there. Do you think it's a generational thing? I don't know that we'll start to or it's part of the system.

Jana Pittman 33:29

It's a broken system if it's like that though but I don't know how to and I don't know how to fix it. I'm probably I I am too junior. I hope that it's something I can tackle when I'm older not older I'm already old when I'm more senior but I have a lot of seniors who I've spoken to this space in and they're all too fatigued by the time they get there. So that that's where it's hard to break that is that some of them try so hard to change things and when things don't change they just get broken by that system. Yeah. And so and then as you say when people are retiring and stopping working or or it's also just the sheer shift for example I want to be a regional doctor. I know wholeheartedly I want to work in regional, rural and very remote if I could once the kids are older but there are no positions in in in my I can't do a my registrar I can't when I'm a consultant, but there's no registrar positions. You have to move every six months. And so I work at a beautiful hospital where I've bargained my way to get an extra six months there but then at the end of that term I have to go back to Sydney and do another six months in town and that hospital gets another very junior person where I'd be two or three years more senior than them. But they have to retrain someone which is great, don't get me wrong because maybe they'll love the regional system but wouldn't it be better to have some type of continuity to for that hospital and for that community.

Kate Coomber 34:38

And we've talked a lot about that haven't we of people who healthcare professionals who actually want to live and work in these rural communities and how do we train them there? How do we keep them there?

Jana Pittman 34:46

Not even just to attract people out there but the people who actually I've gone there to stay there and want to stay the medical schools are getting better like you know even at Port Macquarie where I'm based, New South Wales UNSW is there, they've got a full program there now where you can do five I think it's four out of five or it could be five, someone will know and be able to correct me. But they can do a lot of their medical training in the regional area and they can do their intern in residency. But then if they get onto ONG training they're going to have to move to John Hunter or Sydney. And so don't get me wrong, John Hunter's amazing like a it's a great hospital but it's still three hours away. Whereas it's there's got to be some way to try and do a combined acrime kind of ONG training, which I guess that's what it is rural generalism is that space but I know I work with some amazing GPOs, really amazing GPOs, but again back to that obstetric comment. Yes. Obstetrics is really hard. And when a baby when a breach birth is going wrong or you cannot get that head out of that pelvis, 200 births, 300 births, 500 birth is not enough. Like you need to you you need to have or worse, if you're in the middle of nowhere and she does not stop bleeding and you need to a hysterectomy you need an you need a gynecologist. So it has to be someone who has extensive training and some of the GPOs I've worked at have that because they've done it for 20 years. But some of our younger GPOs who are just finishing with 12 months age advanced training or you know two years, I thought I knew everything of course as you do after two years. By the time I got into third year I realised I know nothing. Like I missed a uterine rupture the other day because I just hadn't seen one before so I didn't recognise it until my consultant the next day or a couple of days later tells me do you know she she ended up having an uterine rupture.

Speaker 36:17

I'm like, how did I miss that? It is such a it's such shocking.

Jana Pittman 36:23

So then how do we train women or guys or you know people who are in cur in wanting to work in that regional setting unless they stay in that regional setting and have someone to support them. It's very tricky. I don't know how recruitment agencies do it to get people out there and stay out there. Good people.

Kate Coomber 36:38

Yeah yeah yeah it's definitely challenging and it's it's finding the right people for the right opportunity right for the right reasons. Which is what we try and do our best. So CMR are going to be making a donation to a charity of your choice today with this episode.

Speaker 36:53

How are we going to choose some beautiful charities?

Jana Pittman 36:56

I do and I guess it's it depends. So I I'm very lucky I've been working with the Australian Giny Cancer Foundation recently which is something close to my heart after going through getting you know having cervical dysplasia and if I hadn't have had that perhaps me or what we call cervical screening test now, then it could have been a very different story. So I think they're an amazing group that are you know researching and doing education pieces in the gyne cancer space which is yet another taboo topic that none of us talk about.

Sam Miklos 37:22

Yeah. Yana thank you so much. It's um it's been such a pleasure to sit with you. You are just um you're just a life force like you have got such beautiful energy you are so driven you are um just so inspirational and then to have the kids the hobby farm all the things you are just so down to earth and and there are some very lucky women who have had you in in the birthing suite with them those 500 births I think they've been very blessed to have you and and we're very blessed to have had time with you.

Kate Coomber 37:50

Thank you thanks guys for the letter we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which we meet who for centuries have shared ancient methods of healing and cared for their communities. We pay our respects to elders past and present