People-Pleasing, Perfectionism, and Boundaries with Dr. Megan Melo

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,860 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills 2 00:00:05,860 --> 00:00:11,260 to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. 3 00:00:11,260 --> 00:00:17,340 As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. 4 00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:22,380 When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find 5 00:00:22,380 --> 00:00:27,780 that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research 6 00:00:27,780 --> 00:00:29,200 program. 7 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:35,480 Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. 8 00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:40,580 However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs. 9 00:00:40,580 --> 00:00:46,200 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians 10 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:51,800 the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. 11 00:00:51,800 --> 00:01:01,100 Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. 12 00:01:01,100 --> 00:01:03,340 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. 13 00:01:03,340 --> 00:01:07,780 I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a pleasure to be here talking with you 14 00:01:07,780 --> 00:01:15,260 today because I have a special guest, an absolutely super awesome physician coach who specializes 15 00:01:15,260 --> 00:01:21,620 in how people-pleasing perfectionism, lack of boundaries intersects with burnout. 16 00:01:21,620 --> 00:01:25,100 It is none other than Dr. Megan Melo. 17 00:01:25,100 --> 00:01:27,700 Megan, welcome to the show. 18 00:01:27,700 --> 00:01:28,700 Thank you so much for having me. 19 00:01:28,700 --> 00:01:33,500 I'm really pleased to be here and chat with you because that's always a good time for 20 00:01:33,500 --> 00:01:34,500 us. 21 00:01:34,500 --> 00:01:35,500 Absolutely. 22 00:01:35,500 --> 00:01:36,500 Okay. 23 00:01:36,500 --> 00:01:40,820 So, Megan, clearly you're a physician and you're a coach. 24 00:01:40,820 --> 00:01:42,460 Tell me about that journey. 25 00:01:42,460 --> 00:01:43,460 Yeah. 26 00:01:43,460 --> 00:01:47,060 How much time do we have? 27 00:01:47,060 --> 00:01:54,000 So I'm a family and obesity medicine physician in Seattle, Washington, and was in practice 28 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:59,940 for about 10 years before I started really sort of jumping into sort of more coaching 29 00:01:59,940 --> 00:02:00,940 frameworks. 30 00:02:00,940 --> 00:02:06,900 Initially, I became certified in Brene Brown's work through the Certified Daring Way program, 31 00:02:06,900 --> 00:02:14,220 being able to facilitate some of her programs, and then also added on a life coaching certification 32 00:02:14,220 --> 00:02:18,900 when I was trying to do more work with my patients struggling with obesity. 33 00:02:18,900 --> 00:02:25,060 So I wanted to add coaching tools and be able to blend sort of both coaching and medical 34 00:02:25,060 --> 00:02:26,060 care. 35 00:02:26,060 --> 00:02:31,940 But what that led me to was becoming familiar with the literature on coaching and physician 36 00:02:31,940 --> 00:02:32,940 burnout. 37 00:02:32,940 --> 00:02:38,780 We had statistically significant benefits to using coaching tools to help relieve physician 38 00:02:38,780 --> 00:02:39,780 burnout. 39 00:02:39,780 --> 00:02:44,420 I had been involved in physician wellness for a long time without having a lot of tools 40 00:02:44,420 --> 00:02:45,420 or skills. 41 00:02:45,420 --> 00:02:47,940 It's just something that I was passionate about. 42 00:02:47,940 --> 00:02:53,420 But being able to get trained as a coach and use these tools now with physicians has just 43 00:02:53,420 --> 00:02:57,900 made a tremendous difference for my life and the people that I serve. 44 00:02:57,900 --> 00:02:59,860 It's about relieving the stress. 45 00:02:59,860 --> 00:03:03,620 That same thing applies to my obesity medicine patients, right? 46 00:03:03,620 --> 00:03:08,140 We're relieving distress and bias and all the things that people struggle with. 47 00:03:08,140 --> 00:03:12,740 So it's really been quite a gift to the work that I already do. 48 00:03:12,740 --> 00:03:14,220 That is really beautiful. 49 00:03:14,220 --> 00:03:17,100 And your work is a gift to my audience. 50 00:03:17,100 --> 00:03:22,380 And so I have clinicians who are trying to make this transition to becoming researchers 51 00:03:22,380 --> 00:03:29,740 and a lot of people pleasing, a lot of perfectionism, and definitely a struggle with boundaries. 52 00:03:29,740 --> 00:03:33,500 And so I feel like you're the perfect person to come on the show. 53 00:03:33,500 --> 00:03:36,540 Let's start with people pleasing. 54 00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:38,020 How do you help us with people pleasing? 55 00:03:38,020 --> 00:03:40,140 I feel like it's just in our DNA. 56 00:03:40,140 --> 00:03:41,140 What are we going to do about it? 57 00:03:41,140 --> 00:03:42,140 How can we win? 58 00:03:42,140 --> 00:03:43,140 Yeah. 59 00:03:43,140 --> 00:03:49,220 And it really kind of is in our DNA because for so many of us who have been on the path 60 00:03:49,220 --> 00:03:55,340 to becoming physicians, clinicians, we have been high achievers for a very long time. 61 00:03:55,340 --> 00:03:59,660 And the road to high achieving is filled with external validation. 62 00:03:59,660 --> 00:04:02,980 We have been seeking prizes. 63 00:04:02,980 --> 00:04:05,580 We have been trying to be the tops in our class. 64 00:04:05,580 --> 00:04:09,020 We have been trying to be amenable and polite. 65 00:04:09,020 --> 00:04:14,060 And if you think about medical school and the rotations that we go through, yes, you 66 00:04:14,060 --> 00:04:15,900 needed to know medical information, right? 67 00:04:15,900 --> 00:04:19,540 You needed to be able to do sort of medical skills and do that. 68 00:04:19,540 --> 00:04:25,500 But you also had to be the good one, the nice one, the smart one. 69 00:04:25,500 --> 00:04:29,940 And you had to restart that every four to six weeks, depending on how long your rotation 70 00:04:29,940 --> 00:04:30,940 was, right? 71 00:04:30,940 --> 00:04:36,500 And so, we've always got very good at being able to show up and be polite and pleasant 72 00:04:36,500 --> 00:04:39,500 and do whatever was necessary of us, right? 73 00:04:39,500 --> 00:04:43,140 We've built that habit over many, many years. 74 00:04:43,140 --> 00:04:47,620 And when we transition into our attending roles or if we're trying to do anything else 75 00:04:47,620 --> 00:04:52,100 professionally, no one tells us that we could turn that off. 76 00:04:52,100 --> 00:04:57,580 No one tells us that we no longer have to go seeking the gold stars. 77 00:04:57,580 --> 00:05:02,180 We still want to do high quality work, but the higher achiever we are, right, the higher 78 00:05:02,180 --> 00:05:07,780 we are on the ladder, the less of the little stuff that we have bandwidth for, right? 79 00:05:07,780 --> 00:05:10,300 We need to be much more focused. 80 00:05:10,300 --> 00:05:15,860 And so, when I'm working with someone, it's really about recognizing the discomfort that 81 00:05:15,860 --> 00:05:18,620 happens when you consider saying no, right? 82 00:05:18,620 --> 00:05:24,460 When you consider setting boundaries, when you are trying to advocate for what you need 83 00:05:24,460 --> 00:05:29,220 and want and getting all this pushback, because that's very real. 84 00:05:29,220 --> 00:05:31,140 So how do we turn it off? 85 00:05:31,140 --> 00:05:36,820 Because when you start to talk about not being that person anymore, are you saying we should 86 00:05:36,820 --> 00:05:40,060 no longer be team players? 87 00:05:40,060 --> 00:05:45,500 That is often the language that is used against us and often the language that keeps us stuck. 88 00:05:45,500 --> 00:05:52,820 So me saying to someone in a kind of polite way, I'm not going to be able to help you 89 00:05:52,820 --> 00:06:00,180 with that, or being able to say, well, you know, if I'm going to take on that project, 90 00:06:00,180 --> 00:06:03,060 then what is coming off my plate, right? 91 00:06:03,060 --> 00:06:07,820 Being able to sort of negotiate and advocate for yourself, making it clear that you're 92 00:06:07,820 --> 00:06:14,260 not trying to be mean or rude, but there's only so much bandwidth we have, right? 93 00:06:14,260 --> 00:06:19,580 We have to wrestle, though, with our own discomfort of saying no, because we have been trained, 94 00:06:19,580 --> 00:06:20,580 right? 95 00:06:20,580 --> 00:06:26,860 Being a team player means you always say yes, but you're not going to be effective in any 96 00:06:26,860 --> 00:06:30,540 place that you are, really, if you're always saying yes, right? 97 00:06:30,540 --> 00:06:35,580 Even if you are working at, I don't know, a clothing store, right? 98 00:06:35,580 --> 00:06:38,500 If you're always saying yes and always being interrupted, you're never going to complete 99 00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:41,500 any projects, right? 100 00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:44,300 We have to be somewhat focused. 101 00:06:44,300 --> 00:06:50,700 And in order to do that, we have to, you know, kind of tolerate that discomfort of saying 102 00:06:50,700 --> 00:06:51,700 no. 103 00:06:51,700 --> 00:06:52,700 We have to sit with it. 104 00:06:52,700 --> 00:06:53,700 We have to practice it. 105 00:06:53,700 --> 00:06:55,740 It's as silly as that sounds. 106 00:06:55,740 --> 00:07:01,940 Yeah, I'm, as you're speaking, already feeling uncomfortable sitting with that discomfort. 107 00:07:01,940 --> 00:07:06,340 So tell me, how do you help physicians to sit with the discomfort? 108 00:07:06,340 --> 00:07:10,580 I mean, okay, so from my audience, your mentor tells you to do something. 109 00:07:10,580 --> 00:07:15,700 You're depending on your mentor to be, you know, to sign your letters of recommendation, 110 00:07:15,700 --> 00:07:19,020 to support you in your projects. 111 00:07:19,020 --> 00:07:23,860 And when you say, hey, sit with the discomfort of saying no, I'm thinking my career is about 112 00:07:23,860 --> 00:07:24,940 to be over. 113 00:07:24,940 --> 00:07:26,580 I'm about to say no to my mentor. 114 00:07:26,580 --> 00:07:31,940 So help me talk to my audience about how do they handle this with mentors who have actual 115 00:07:31,940 --> 00:07:35,660 hierarchy over them in this journey? 116 00:07:35,660 --> 00:07:38,060 Yeah. 117 00:07:38,060 --> 00:07:44,860 How do we feel now when we're being asked to do too much? 118 00:07:44,860 --> 00:07:49,300 Frustration, resentment, overwhelm. 119 00:07:49,300 --> 00:07:50,940 How am I ever going to get this done? 120 00:07:50,940 --> 00:07:51,940 Right? 121 00:07:51,940 --> 00:07:55,980 We have a lot of negative emotions and they aren't pleasant to feel, right? 122 00:07:55,980 --> 00:08:00,660 Obviously we don't like feeling them, but they are familiar. 123 00:08:00,660 --> 00:08:03,680 They're sort of comfortable in their own way, right? 124 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:05,700 This is just the way it is, right? 125 00:08:05,700 --> 00:08:07,460 Everybody has to go through this. 126 00:08:07,460 --> 00:08:10,260 You know, this is the cost of having this career, right? 127 00:08:10,260 --> 00:08:16,420 We have all these ideas that we just have to suck it up and deal with it. 128 00:08:16,420 --> 00:08:22,780 If we want to move forward though, we're going to need to tolerate the discomfort of a different 129 00:08:22,780 --> 00:08:28,620 feeling, the discomfort of saying no, the discomfort of being able to advocate for yourself, 130 00:08:28,620 --> 00:08:31,220 you know, in order to be successful with the other thing. 131 00:08:31,220 --> 00:08:37,900 So in the instance of a mentor or a boss of some kind coming to you and wanting you to 132 00:08:37,900 --> 00:08:44,180 take on a project, if you know that you're already too busy, you probably already have 133 00:08:44,180 --> 00:08:50,060 too many things on your plate, you might need to ask for their help to decide which is the 134 00:08:50,060 --> 00:08:52,420 most important. 135 00:08:52,420 --> 00:08:58,580 Because sometimes they are simply looking for another human to take over whatever that 136 00:08:58,580 --> 00:09:01,500 task is that they probably don't want to do, right? 137 00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:06,340 Because they're probably also overburdened with things to do. 138 00:09:06,340 --> 00:09:08,820 But that doesn't mean that it's a good fit for you. 139 00:09:08,820 --> 00:09:12,940 It doesn't mean that it's in alignment with your interests. 140 00:09:12,940 --> 00:09:14,420 We're going to have to say no to things. 141 00:09:14,420 --> 00:09:19,020 And again, you know, kind of the higher on the ladder we climb, the more skills and expertise 142 00:09:19,020 --> 00:09:22,220 that we have, the more opportunities we get offered. 143 00:09:22,220 --> 00:09:25,700 But again, to do good work, there's only 24 hours in a day. 144 00:09:25,700 --> 00:09:29,420 We're going to have to be focused on what's important to us, what helps us move forward. 145 00:09:29,420 --> 00:09:35,220 You know, where can we use our gifts and talents, but do that in a bounded way. 146 00:09:35,220 --> 00:09:36,220 I love it. 147 00:09:36,220 --> 00:09:38,660 I love two things that came out of what you said. 148 00:09:38,660 --> 00:09:41,040 One is that, wow, this is a skill. 149 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:44,980 And that means you can practice it, you can develop it and get strong in it. 150 00:09:44,980 --> 00:09:46,220 And that is real. 151 00:09:46,220 --> 00:09:50,380 It's like you may not be good at it now, but you're going to practice and get better. 152 00:09:50,380 --> 00:09:54,940 The second thing is I love the way you talk about sharing with your mentor. 153 00:09:54,940 --> 00:09:55,940 Oh, great. 154 00:09:55,940 --> 00:09:57,620 This is a great opportunity. 155 00:09:57,620 --> 00:10:02,820 And what of these other things on my plate do you recommend I take to take on this work? 156 00:10:02,820 --> 00:10:05,820 Which is awesome, because what you're doing is putting yourself on the same side of the 157 00:10:05,820 --> 00:10:10,100 table and saying, I know you care about me and I know you want me to succeed. 158 00:10:10,100 --> 00:10:12,060 And how can we move forward together? 159 00:10:12,060 --> 00:10:16,340 And so I think it's a really great way to do it without being confrontational or feeling 160 00:10:16,340 --> 00:10:21,200 like you're being mean or being rude in some way. 161 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:25,900 And when we're feeling overwhelmed and taxed and burned out, we often fall into black and 162 00:10:25,900 --> 00:10:26,900 white thinking. 163 00:10:26,900 --> 00:10:32,780 So we think either I say yes and just go along with it, or I slam my hands down on the table 164 00:10:32,780 --> 00:10:35,500 and say, hell no, and I leave. 165 00:10:35,500 --> 00:10:37,420 There is in between. 166 00:10:37,420 --> 00:10:40,580 There is a lot of middle ground there. 167 00:10:40,580 --> 00:10:48,980 And practicing and learning the skills of being able to say sort of no, but or yes and 168 00:10:48,980 --> 00:10:53,860 I'm going to need some help in deciding which of these things are priorities. 169 00:10:53,860 --> 00:10:57,660 Using those tools really helps us to be able to keep it collaborative. 170 00:10:57,660 --> 00:11:01,340 Yeah, to sit on the same side of the table, as you say. 171 00:11:01,340 --> 00:11:02,340 I love it. 172 00:11:02,340 --> 00:11:03,340 I love it. 173 00:11:03,340 --> 00:11:04,340 Okay. 174 00:11:04,340 --> 00:11:05,340 You also touched on boundaries. 175 00:11:05,340 --> 00:11:06,820 I think this is a good segue into boundaries. 176 00:11:06,820 --> 00:11:07,820 Okay. 177 00:11:07,820 --> 00:11:11,660 Tell me about boundaries and should clinicians who are trying to succeed as researchers have 178 00:11:11,660 --> 00:11:12,660 any boundaries? 179 00:11:12,660 --> 00:11:16,460 I mean, maybe when they get to the top, they can have boundaries, but why are boundaries 180 00:11:16,460 --> 00:11:18,100 important and how? 181 00:11:18,100 --> 00:11:19,820 How do we enforce them? 182 00:11:19,820 --> 00:11:20,820 Yeah. 183 00:11:20,820 --> 00:11:21,820 Yeah. 184 00:11:21,820 --> 00:11:24,940 And enforcing them tends to be kind of the biggest challenge, right? 185 00:11:24,940 --> 00:11:27,860 Because it's much easier to say, oh, I need help. 186 00:11:27,860 --> 00:11:28,860 I need to say no. 187 00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:31,180 But when you get that pushback, right? 188 00:11:31,180 --> 00:11:34,980 When you're sitting in that discomfort, when you feel it in a sort of coming on, being 189 00:11:34,980 --> 00:11:37,900 able to hold true to yourself, right? 190 00:11:37,900 --> 00:11:41,300 In that moment, you know, it doesn't all happen at once. 191 00:11:41,300 --> 00:11:45,600 When I think about boundaries, I really love Brene Brown's sort of guidance on that. 192 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:50,780 She talks about living big, boundaries, integrity, and generosity. 193 00:11:50,780 --> 00:11:56,820 What boundaries do I need to have in place for me to stay within my integrity, making 194 00:11:56,820 --> 00:11:59,300 the most generous assumptions of other people? 195 00:11:59,300 --> 00:12:05,020 So if we think about that in the clinician research or space, right, the integrity piece 196 00:12:05,020 --> 00:12:11,060 is about producing high quality scientific progress, you know, clinical research. 197 00:12:11,060 --> 00:12:17,700 The generosity is assuming that everybody is doing the best that they can and trying 198 00:12:17,700 --> 00:12:22,780 to say with what I've got, with where I am, what am I able to accomplish and what do I 199 00:12:22,780 --> 00:12:24,820 need to say no to, right? 200 00:12:24,820 --> 00:12:30,220 If I've got some kind of a big project that I'm working on, then I'm probably not going 201 00:12:30,220 --> 00:12:35,140 to be able to, you know, take on other little tasks, especially ones that don't require 202 00:12:35,140 --> 00:12:36,140 my expertise. 203 00:12:36,140 --> 00:12:41,820 Maybe when I'm not working on a big project, I would pitch in, but, you know, during that 204 00:12:41,820 --> 00:12:44,140 time, I'm just going to have to say no, right? 205 00:12:44,140 --> 00:12:46,940 And that might be, that might be social engagements, right? 206 00:12:46,940 --> 00:12:53,740 That might be, yeah, I don't bring cupcakes to the birthday party, you know, or I don't 207 00:12:53,740 --> 00:12:57,900 bake, you know, my own, you know, something like, you know, it can be that life stuff 208 00:12:57,900 --> 00:13:03,540 too, that I let myself off the hook with thinking I have to do things in the same way that I 209 00:13:03,540 --> 00:13:08,340 always do them in order to, you know, kind of complete this project the way that I want 210 00:13:08,340 --> 00:13:09,340 to. 211 00:13:09,340 --> 00:13:13,620 Wow, you make it sound so easy. 212 00:13:13,620 --> 00:13:14,620 I don't think it's easy. 213 00:13:14,620 --> 00:13:17,620 Let me, let me, let me just say that I don't think it's easy. 214 00:13:17,620 --> 00:13:21,100 I don't think that I think that's, you know, why a lot of us run into trouble, right? 215 00:13:21,100 --> 00:13:22,820 We might try to set a boundary somewhere. 216 00:13:22,820 --> 00:13:24,380 We might say no to somebody. 217 00:13:24,380 --> 00:13:27,500 And we might feel really good for a moment, right? 218 00:13:27,500 --> 00:13:31,940 After we sort of wrestled with the discoverer, that somebody is going to come and ping again 219 00:13:31,940 --> 00:13:33,700 against that boundary, right? 220 00:13:33,700 --> 00:13:35,580 It's not just going to happen one time. 221 00:13:35,580 --> 00:13:36,580 It's that maintenance, right? 222 00:13:36,580 --> 00:13:43,180 That ability to hold your own values, to know what's important for you and to be able to 223 00:13:43,180 --> 00:13:48,060 kind of keep that, keep that fence around and say, no, I'm protecting my time or my 224 00:13:48,060 --> 00:13:49,940 energy in this way. 225 00:13:49,940 --> 00:13:54,940 And because of that, I'm going to need to say no, or I'm going to need to, you know, 226 00:13:54,940 --> 00:13:55,940 kind of ask for more help. 227 00:13:55,940 --> 00:13:58,940 You know, it can look a lot of different ways. 228 00:13:58,940 --> 00:14:03,020 And it speaks to what you said earlier about black and white thinking, especially when 229 00:14:03,020 --> 00:14:04,300 you are burned out. 230 00:14:04,300 --> 00:14:10,460 And the reality is that there are many ways to present your boundaries and to enforce 231 00:14:10,460 --> 00:14:14,100 them without feeling like you're fighting all the time. 232 00:14:14,100 --> 00:14:15,100 Yeah. 233 00:14:15,100 --> 00:14:16,100 All right. 234 00:14:16,100 --> 00:14:18,940 Well, let's talk about perfectionism. 235 00:14:18,940 --> 00:14:19,940 Okay. 236 00:14:19,940 --> 00:14:25,620 So, sometimes members of my audience will say, well, perfectionism is necessary. 237 00:14:25,620 --> 00:14:27,980 If you're trying to submit a grant, it better be perfect. 238 00:14:27,980 --> 00:14:31,900 I mean, honestly, you've got to be really good. 239 00:14:31,900 --> 00:14:37,780 And so how do you let go of perfectionism when you absolutely need it? 240 00:14:37,780 --> 00:14:38,780 Yeah. 241 00:14:38,780 --> 00:14:39,780 I mean, I don't know. 242 00:14:39,780 --> 00:14:40,780 What do you say? 243 00:14:40,780 --> 00:14:41,780 That's another, that's another big topic. 244 00:14:41,780 --> 00:14:47,500 And again, I sort of lean into Brittany Brown's work on this is that there's a difference 245 00:14:47,500 --> 00:14:52,820 between perfectionism and excellence or healthy striving, right? 246 00:14:52,820 --> 00:14:56,100 Of course we want to provide, you know, high quality work, right? 247 00:14:56,100 --> 00:15:01,060 We want to produce things that matter and, you know, are well done. 248 00:15:01,060 --> 00:15:05,820 But perfectionism is really about a fear of shame, right? 249 00:15:05,820 --> 00:15:08,140 A fear of failure. 250 00:15:08,140 --> 00:15:16,500 So if, if I'm in this mindset where, you know, I can't have a typo or, you know, can't be 251 00:15:16,500 --> 00:15:22,260 wrong about something, I'm going to struggle to put anything out into the world, right? 252 00:15:22,260 --> 00:15:27,020 I'm going to be stopped because it's never going to seem good enough because I'm always 253 00:15:27,020 --> 00:15:31,500 going to be worried that someone's going to find a flaw, right? 254 00:15:31,500 --> 00:15:38,380 We know that, you know, kind of in the medical literature and research world, right, that 255 00:15:38,380 --> 00:15:43,420 we will find answers in some studies and then other studies are going to come along and 256 00:15:43,420 --> 00:15:46,660 they're going to debunk whatever we've seen, right? 257 00:15:46,660 --> 00:15:47,660 We know that, right? 258 00:15:47,660 --> 00:15:54,340 We know that, you know, half of what we learned in medical school is obsolete within five, 259 00:15:54,340 --> 00:15:56,500 you know, five years or something like that, right? 260 00:15:56,500 --> 00:16:01,060 We know that things are always changing and that includes the work that we're, you know, 261 00:16:01,060 --> 00:16:03,180 doing all the time. 262 00:16:03,180 --> 00:16:07,860 We want to produce high quality work and we want to get it out there. 263 00:16:07,860 --> 00:16:12,180 And so we're going to have to let go of this idea that if I don't have it all perfectly 264 00:16:12,180 --> 00:16:15,420 perfect, maybe I'll just add on this little extra piece. 265 00:16:15,420 --> 00:16:18,220 Maybe I'll just revise it again or maybe I'll just do this. 266 00:16:18,220 --> 00:16:20,980 We're never going to get it out there. 267 00:16:20,980 --> 00:16:23,180 Okay, but the struggle is real. 268 00:16:23,180 --> 00:16:28,180 The struggle is real with when you go present your work at a conference and people kind 269 00:16:28,180 --> 00:16:29,660 of are not very nice sometimes. 270 00:16:29,660 --> 00:16:31,140 They tear it down. 271 00:16:31,140 --> 00:16:36,260 And so when you go to publish the manuscript, you are afraid to put it out into the world 272 00:16:36,260 --> 00:16:38,020 because sometimes the criticism is harsh. 273 00:16:38,020 --> 00:16:40,020 How do you deal with that? 274 00:16:40,020 --> 00:16:41,020 Yeah. 275 00:16:41,020 --> 00:16:43,580 And I think that's true elsewhere in medicine, right? 276 00:16:43,580 --> 00:16:49,020 I don't have a perfect answer for that because I don't control, you know, what people will 277 00:16:49,020 --> 00:16:50,020 say. 278 00:16:50,020 --> 00:16:54,100 But even if I produce something that's high quality that, you know, I absolutely stand 279 00:16:54,100 --> 00:16:58,300 behind, somebody may come along and tear it down, right? 280 00:16:58,300 --> 00:16:59,300 That's also true. 281 00:16:59,300 --> 00:17:04,980 I might provide great care to my patient and they're upset about something, right? 282 00:17:04,980 --> 00:17:07,580 And they think it was a terrible visit. 283 00:17:07,580 --> 00:17:09,920 I don't control what other people think. 284 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:17,380 So what I need to do is to stand behind my own work to know that, you know, I control 285 00:17:17,380 --> 00:17:22,580 how I think about it, that I'm a fallible human, but I work hard and I produce high 286 00:17:22,580 --> 00:17:23,580 quality work. 287 00:17:23,580 --> 00:17:28,980 And I'm going to need to push forward with that, knowing that none of us is infallible. 288 00:17:28,980 --> 00:17:31,420 None of us actually is perfect. 289 00:17:31,420 --> 00:17:36,340 And the people who are being so harsh and so mean have probably been treated that way 290 00:17:36,340 --> 00:17:41,260 themselves and probably would love for it to be different. 291 00:17:41,260 --> 00:17:46,660 But until we start practicing doing things differently, right, if we bring a different 292 00:17:46,660 --> 00:17:51,980 tack to academic medicine, right, to clinical research, until we do that, until we push 293 00:17:51,980 --> 00:17:55,500 for that, the culture won't change, right? 294 00:17:55,500 --> 00:18:00,600 I'm sure that you don't want to be that person who's sitting there tearing down somebody 295 00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:01,600 else's work. 296 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:02,600 You may need to give them feedback. 297 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:10,620 You might want to point out if there's a problem, but we don't need to attack the person in 298 00:18:10,620 --> 00:18:14,060 order to do that. 299 00:18:14,060 --> 00:18:22,060 We can be kind, we can be clear, we can be direct and create a different environment. 300 00:18:22,060 --> 00:18:27,220 Yeah, the environment we wish to see. 301 00:18:27,220 --> 00:18:28,220 Yeah. 302 00:18:28,220 --> 00:18:34,340 You know, one of the things that I feel like you allude to is the need for radical self-compassion, 303 00:18:34,340 --> 00:18:38,560 which I think is a prelude to being able to have compassion on others. 304 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:43,900 And some of that tearing down that we see is people who are struggling with their self-compassion. 305 00:18:43,900 --> 00:18:47,660 And so of course, how can they treat others with gentleness? 306 00:18:47,660 --> 00:18:53,620 Can you speak a little bit to how can our clinicians and our scientists develop more 307 00:18:53,620 --> 00:18:54,620 self-compassion? 308 00:18:54,620 --> 00:18:55,620 Yeah. 309 00:18:55,620 --> 00:19:01,060 And I think often it's very easy for us to have compassion for others, right? 310 00:19:01,060 --> 00:19:05,980 We love our friends, our family, our pets, you know, perhaps our colleagues. 311 00:19:05,980 --> 00:19:09,380 You know, we have a lot of compassion for what other people are going through. 312 00:19:09,380 --> 00:19:14,380 If your friend called you and they told you they were just diagnosed with cancer or they 313 00:19:14,380 --> 00:19:20,740 were really behind on a major project or had a bad outcome, we wouldn't sit there and shame 314 00:19:20,740 --> 00:19:23,680 and blame them, right? 315 00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:24,960 We wouldn't do that. 316 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:29,260 And yet we might do it to ourselves quite by default, right? 317 00:19:29,260 --> 00:19:32,700 We might, you know, say I missed a deadline, right? 318 00:19:32,700 --> 00:19:35,580 Or made a mistake or had a bad patient outcome. 319 00:19:35,580 --> 00:19:39,220 And I sit there in the energy of I'm a terrible person. 320 00:19:39,220 --> 00:19:40,220 I'm a terrible doctor. 321 00:19:40,220 --> 00:19:45,420 I shouldn't be doing this even though I keep doing it probably, right? 322 00:19:45,420 --> 00:19:49,640 Because now I feel obligated to make up for it. 323 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:50,940 That doesn't help any of us. 324 00:19:50,940 --> 00:19:51,940 It doesn't help me. 325 00:19:51,940 --> 00:19:53,580 It doesn't help our patients, right? 326 00:19:53,580 --> 00:19:55,940 It's a terrible place to live. 327 00:19:55,940 --> 00:20:01,740 And you would never do that to your friend or your child or even your pet. 328 00:20:01,740 --> 00:20:07,380 So when we're thinking about self-compassion, you know, when we hear those voices in our 329 00:20:07,380 --> 00:20:13,140 head, when we have that energy going on, you know, taking a pause and saying, would I ever 330 00:20:13,140 --> 00:20:15,700 say that out loud to another human? 331 00:20:15,700 --> 00:20:18,500 No, I am a human. 332 00:20:18,500 --> 00:20:23,180 I am, you know, I do make mistakes because we all do. 333 00:20:23,180 --> 00:20:24,980 You know, it's normal for me to feel this way. 334 00:20:24,980 --> 00:20:29,940 It's normal for me to feel bad about something if something bad has happened. 335 00:20:29,940 --> 00:20:31,380 And I can be here with myself. 336 00:20:31,380 --> 00:20:34,100 I can be here with my feelings, right? 337 00:20:34,100 --> 00:20:38,620 So much of the, you know, kind of the major problems with medical culture is we've been 338 00:20:38,620 --> 00:20:40,500 taught that push our feelings down. 339 00:20:40,500 --> 00:20:45,100 Pretend we don't have them, you know, to be just these wonderful, caring, compassionate 340 00:20:45,100 --> 00:20:47,940 human beings who don't have feelings of our own, right? 341 00:20:47,940 --> 00:20:53,300 But so many of us were sitting on top of like years and years of frustration and resentment 342 00:20:53,300 --> 00:20:55,740 and we're just kind of squashing it down. 343 00:20:55,740 --> 00:20:58,740 That is not benign. 344 00:20:58,740 --> 00:21:02,580 And that includes when we think about sort of our compassion for ourselves. 345 00:21:02,580 --> 00:21:07,900 We need to be able to believe that we are valuable human beings, that, you know, that 346 00:21:07,900 --> 00:21:14,060 we will make mistakes, that we can have our own back, even if we're in kind of toxic cultures. 347 00:21:14,060 --> 00:21:15,140 Wow. 348 00:21:15,140 --> 00:21:16,980 Thank you. 349 00:21:16,980 --> 00:21:18,460 Thank you for sharing that. 350 00:21:18,460 --> 00:21:23,940 And I think that's just a perfect segue into my next question, which is that, well, what 351 00:21:23,940 --> 00:21:27,220 you're describing is countercultural, right? 352 00:21:27,220 --> 00:21:31,340 If this is not the prevailing culture of medicine, even though we're compassionate physicians 353 00:21:31,340 --> 00:21:35,500 with our patients, we're not compassionate with ourselves, and to a great extent, not 354 00:21:35,500 --> 00:21:36,820 with each other. 355 00:21:36,820 --> 00:21:43,260 And so for a faculty member who wants to practice radical self-compassion, who wants to start 356 00:21:43,260 --> 00:21:47,420 to change the culture by changing themselves, how can they connect with you? 357 00:21:47,420 --> 00:21:50,020 How can they connect to do this work? 358 00:21:50,020 --> 00:21:51,020 Yeah. 359 00:21:51,020 --> 00:21:52,620 Thank you so much for asking. 360 00:21:52,620 --> 00:21:58,860 I currently work one-on-one and in groups with physicians, and we do this kind of work 361 00:21:58,860 --> 00:22:00,040 exactly. 362 00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:07,780 So we are looking at our situations and trying to untangle and unpack all the layers of things. 363 00:22:07,780 --> 00:22:14,020 People can find me at my website, which is www.healthierforgood.com. 364 00:22:14,020 --> 00:22:18,220 And I am a fellow podcaster, and my podcast is all about these topics. 365 00:22:18,220 --> 00:22:21,300 So that is Ending Physician Overwhelm. 366 00:22:21,300 --> 00:22:25,700 And so for anybody who's out there listening to us on their favorite podcast player, they 367 00:22:25,700 --> 00:22:28,740 can certainly find my podcast there as well. 368 00:22:28,740 --> 00:22:29,740 Awesome. 369 00:22:29,740 --> 00:22:30,740 Okay. 370 00:22:30,740 --> 00:22:33,900 And I will put that information in the show notes as well. 371 00:22:33,900 --> 00:22:39,340 Megan, it's been a pleasure to talk with you, and you shared so many incredible insights 372 00:22:39,340 --> 00:22:41,500 and I know I can be helpful to so many. 373 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:45,860 I wonder if you have any closing comments, anything that we haven't talked about that 374 00:22:45,860 --> 00:22:48,300 is important for you to mention? 375 00:22:48,300 --> 00:22:49,300 Yeah. 376 00:22:49,300 --> 00:22:55,700 I think I'd just like to circle back to that counterculture because that really comes up 377 00:22:55,700 --> 00:22:56,700 a lot. 378 00:22:56,700 --> 00:23:01,940 And I think that, you know, I especially see that in the women physicians that I coach 379 00:23:01,940 --> 00:23:10,860 who are working so hard to often fit into these sort of patriarchal, hierarchical systems. 380 00:23:10,860 --> 00:23:16,780 And there's an extra layer there, right, of trying to be countercultural when you are 381 00:23:16,780 --> 00:23:20,820 already others. 382 00:23:20,820 --> 00:23:26,700 Finding safe spaces for you to feel cared for and nurtured, whether that's in a coaching, 383 00:23:26,700 --> 00:23:32,620 a therapy, a group, your family, your friends, right, having safe spaces where you can feel 384 00:23:32,620 --> 00:23:35,660 really nurtured and taken care of is really important. 385 00:23:35,660 --> 00:23:38,100 That isn't weakness. 386 00:23:38,100 --> 00:23:42,100 We as humans need compassion and connection for ourselves. 387 00:23:42,100 --> 00:23:49,180 And so even if the dominant culture where you are is not supportive and not, you know, 388 00:23:49,180 --> 00:23:53,140 kind of conducive to that, please find your space, find your safe space, get the help 389 00:23:53,140 --> 00:23:54,140 that you need. 390 00:23:54,140 --> 00:23:57,820 We all deserve that. 391 00:23:57,820 --> 00:23:59,100 That is beautiful. 392 00:23:59,100 --> 00:24:00,100 And thank you. 393 00:24:00,100 --> 00:24:04,620 I feel like that's a perfect way to end today's show. 394 00:24:04,620 --> 00:24:06,700 Everyone you heard Dr. Megan Mello. 395 00:24:06,700 --> 00:24:09,060 Wow, it is countercultural. 396 00:24:09,060 --> 00:24:13,500 And especially if you are underrepresented in the academy in any way, it becomes even 397 00:24:13,500 --> 00:24:15,180 more challenging. 398 00:24:15,180 --> 00:24:20,260 Definitely seek help, seek community that will support you and reach out to Dr. Mello 399 00:24:20,260 --> 00:24:25,780 if you are struggling with perfectionism, burnout and people pleasing, which I think 400 00:24:25,780 --> 00:24:27,180 is most of us. 401 00:24:27,180 --> 00:24:29,220 So definitely check her out. 402 00:24:29,220 --> 00:24:30,940 Megan, thanks again for being on the show. 403 00:24:30,940 --> 00:24:32,940 Thank you so much for having me. 404 00:24:32,940 --> 00:24:34,940 It's been a pleasure. 405 00:24:34,940 --> 00:24:39,380 All right, everyone, we'll see you again on the next episode of the clinician researcher 406 00:24:39,380 --> 00:24:40,380 podcast. 407 00:24:40,380 --> 00:24:43,220 Please share this episode with someone else. 408 00:24:43,220 --> 00:24:50,900 Thank you. 409 00:24:50,900 --> 00:24:56,260 Thanks for listening to this episode of the clinician researcher podcast, where academic 410 00:24:56,260 --> 00:25:01,980 clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they 411 00:25:01,980 --> 00:25:03,060 have a mentor. 412 00:25:03,060 --> 00:25:09,180 If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. 413 00:25:09,180 --> 00:25:10,900 Someone else needs to hear it. 414 00:25:10,900 --> 00:25:14,960 So take a minute right now and share it. 415 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:20,420 As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation 416 00:25:20,420 --> 00:25:26,100 of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do health 417 00:25:26,100 --> 00:25:41,540 care.