Physician identity: who you are vs. what you do [PODCAST]

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“‘Hi, my name is Kristin Yates, and I am the OB/GYN doctor.’ This is how I greet most patients for the first time.

It has never really felt natural to introduce myself as ‘Dr. Yates,’ even now that I have been an attending physician for more than five years. To be fair, for the first several years of my career, it felt uncomfortable to refer to myself as ‘Dr. Yates’ because part of me felt like a total fraud. But as I began to make strides to overcome my self-doubt and realized that imposter syndrome was just a normal part of being human, I realized that my aversion to being called ‘Dr. Yates’ was about way more than just awkwardness.”

Kristin Yates is an obstetrics-gynecology physician.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “Don’t call me ‘doctor.’”

This episode is sponsored by Tradeoffs, available on your favorite podcast platform.

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we welcome back Kristin Yates. She’s an obstetrics-gynecology physician, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Don’t call me ‘doctor.'” Kristin, welcome back to the show.

Kristin Yates: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get into the article in a little bit, but for those who didn’t get a chance to listen to our first episode, which was, I think, near the beginning of this podcast, almost a year ago, can you just please share your story and journey to where you are today?

Kristin Yates: Yeah. So I’m going into my sixth year out of residency, and I landed the perfect job as an attending right out of residency, back in my home state of New Hampshire. Despite everything being wonderful, great partners, great work environment, great call life, especially for an OB/GYN, I felt the urge to leave medicine in the first year because of self-doubt and imposter syndrome. So that led me on a several-year journey to overcoming that, and I was able to stay in medicine and really enjoy my job and really find fulfillment. And now I am a life coach for other physicians, to help them have the same results if they want to stay in medicine, or figure out what exactly they want to do.

Kevin Pho: So tell me how specifically you overcame those obstacles so that you could stay in clinical medicine.

Kristin Yates: Yeah, it was actually a little bit of a strange journey. It started through weight loss. I was on maternity leave after my second daughter was born, so I was trying to lose weight, for the 15th time in my life, and I stumbled upon self-coaching and life coaching, and I used it for weight loss. Then, when I had such great success with that, I said, “I can probably use these same tactics of questioning your thoughts, self-awareness, and internal validation to be more confident at work and be more confident in myself as a doctor.” And that’s what I did, and it worked, and it’s continuing to work now.

Kevin Pho: So you mentioned that you’re in your first job, first attending job after residency. And yes, I’m approaching my 19th year, and I’m still in my first job after residency as well, so I think that makes us a relative rarity when it comes to attending jobs. Now, for those residents who are looking for new attending jobs, who may not know the landscape, what kind of advice do you have for them so they can stay in their first job after residency?

Kristin Yates: Yeah, I think it’s having the mindset that you are allowed to want any type of job and balance that you want to have. When I was finishing residency, it was literally like, “I’ll take any job. I will take any job. I just don’t want to be a resident.” And I didn’t really have the foresight to say what exactly I wanted, and I really just got lucky to land a really great job. A lot of my colleagues didn’t get that way, and they’re already on their third or fourth job.

So I think it’s having the confidence to know that you really can carve out a piece of medicine and practice the way you want to. It might be harder to find, but it is 100 percent possible for you. But you have to know what you want, not just in a year but in five or 10 years, to the best of your ability. Think more long term, instead of just anything but residency.

Kevin Pho: So let’s transition to the KevinMD article that you wrote. It’s titled “Don’t call me ‘doctor.'” Now, for those who didn’t get a chance to read your article, can you just walk my audience through it and share the story of why you decided to write it?

Kristin Yates: Yeah, I think it has been an article on my mind for a long time, and I was feeling timid about writing it at first, because, especially for women and physicians, there is this very strong desire to be seen as physicians and not students or nurses or cleaning staff or whatever. So there’s this very strong movement toward, “I’m a doctor. I earned this degree. Call me doctor.” And that always kind of didn’t sit quite right with me, and I couldn’t exactly figure out why. I was scared to put my thoughts and feelings into words, because it was so against how other women felt. And then finally, I’m at a point now where I’m much more eager to lean into that discomfort and maybe stand in whatever my truth is, and just see if it resonates with anybody else.

So essentially, I talk about the fact that I actually don’t like to be called doctor professionally. I don’t introduce myself as Dr. Yates to my patients. I introduce myself with my first name, and I really don’t care that much if they think I’m a nurse or whatever, because what I realized is that ultimately has nothing to do with my ability to save their life in an emergency, or cure them, or heal them, or listen to them. Really, their perception of who I am has nothing to do with me at all and everything to do with them. Once I was able to separate that in my mind, I realized that I was able to feel much more fulfilled and not let the little things bother me as much.

Kevin Pho: You talked about a little bit of tension about being called doctor or being mistaken for a non-clinical staff person. Tell me a little bit about what you did to resolve that tension. Was there anything that you did to feel more comfortable being called a doctor or not?

Kristin Yates: Yeah, I think that initially, when I was a resident, it really would bother me. I think it’s kind of, you’re in that environment, you’re surrounded by it, it bothers everybody else, so I just kind of took on that persona. But I never really did feel comfortable saying, “I’m a doctor,” or telling people I’m a doctor, and I think that’s just me. I think that’s just how I am, and there are certainly some things that I need to work on, maybe, to resolve that completely.

But I think for me, why I’m more comfortable now admitting that I don’t like to be called a doctor is because I feel like it really limits me as a human being, like doctors were put in a box: If you’re a doctor, you should behave this way, you should work this hard, you should do this. And I just feel like there’s a lot of tension, not just from society but from other doctors, to behave a certain way or do a certain thing, and it felt really limiting to me. So that’s why I shifted from saying, “I’m a doctor,” to “I am Kristin. Doctoring is what I do. It’s not who I am.” And that really made me feel more expansive and whole than trying to shove myself into the box of a doctor.

Kevin Pho: Have you noticed any change in your relationships with patients, or how patients respond to you, by how you introduce yourself, whether you’re Dr. Yates or whether you’re Kristin?

Kristin Yates: I don’t think I’ve noticed a difference, really, because I never really bought into the whole Dr. Yates thing. I mean, if there was some sort of emergency where I didn’t have time to explain my role, and they needed to know that I am the doctor who’s going to be taking care of them, then I will use that terminology for brevity’s sake. But for the most part, for a patient coming into my office for an annual exam or something, I just want her to know, so that she can talk to me. I think it makes my patients feel like I’m just here to listen to them, and if they have questions, to answer their questions, and to have their best interests in mind. So I think it makes patients more comfortable and willing to open up to me sooner, especially when we only have 15 minutes to see patients. I think it kind of gets us one step closer to really getting to the root of a problem in the short time we have.

Kevin Pho: So you’re right that there are plenty of articles on KevinMD where physicians take affront if they’re mistaken to be a non-doctor. What would you say to articles like these on my site?

Kristin Yates: Yeah, I think that it’s all fine, and I think it’s important to know where you stand. There are women, and men certainly too, who feel very strongly, “I earned this degree. I want to be called doctor.” And I think that’s fine, to own that. My thought about it is, if there is any discomfort there, or if you feel like there’s ever a time in your life where you’re feeling like you don’t know what your identity really is outside of being a doctor, then just question that a little bit and ask yourself, “Am I getting my full identity from being a physician?” Then you at least have this awareness of, “Yes, I do,” or, “No, I don’t,” and, “Do I like living like that?”

I think everyone has their own journey. There’s no right or wrong, but I do invite everybody to ask themselves that question: “Do I want to be called doctor? Does it make me uncomfortable because I don’t know who I am outside of this role?”

Kevin Pho: So you mentioned it did take a little bit for you to put your thoughts into words. Now that this article has been published for a few months, have you received any response to it?

Kristin Yates: I have gotten so many emails and messages about how much it has resonated with doctors, and not just women, women and men. I have had people reach out to me who have no idea who I am, saying, “That’s exactly how I felt, and it really resonated with me.” And that was surprising. I thought I was going to have to kind of put a shield up, and there was some of that too. There was some of that, “I earned my degree. I want people to call me that.” And I think that’s fine. But I was actually very surprised at how many people went out of their way to reach out to me and say, “This really resonated with me. Thank you for writing it.”

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Kristin Yates. She’s an obstetrics-gynecology physician, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Don’t call me ‘doctor.'” So, Kristin, take a step back. I understand you do some coaching along with your clinical work as an obstetrician-gynecologist. Tell me about your journey in those dual roles.

Kristin Yates: Yeah, at first it was, “I want to help other doctors who feel a lack of confidence, who feel like they’re suffering from imposter syndrome.” And I just followed each little crumb to see how I would next best serve other doctors, and it has now culminated in the coaching that I do now, the courses, and the retreats I have. That’s what it looks like now, and I think it’s still evolving. But actually, the more that I’ve stepped into this role as a coach, the more that I’ve been able to really enjoy my job. It’s almost like I can appreciate both of those roles and how together they can fulfill me in ways that each of them couldn’t do alone.

Kevin Pho: There are a lot of physicians who are a little bit burned out from practicing clinically, and they want to step into a part-time coaching role. How do you manage both, and how difficult is it to juggle both roles?

Kristin Yates: Right now I’m still working full time, and I coach on evenings and weekends, and it really hasn’t been a struggle. I mean, there are certainly weeks where I have a ton of coaching calls and I feel a little bit overwhelmed, especially if I’m post-call and dragging a little bit. But it really hasn’t been that difficult, because I have done a lot of work with figuring out where my time belongs. And so it does mean I make sacrifices. I don’t really watch TV anymore, I try to stay away from social media, and I’ve really kind of pulled in my circle of friends, and those are all just for my own personality. But once I was able to realize how much joy I was getting from coaching, then it was like a no-brainer for me: This is what I wanted to spend my time doing. So it hasn’t really been a challenge. I don’t know that I’ll continue to work full time and do it, but right now it’s going well.

Kevin Pho: And my final question: What’s your take-home message that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Kristin Yates: I think the take-home message is a repeat of the earlier question and the thought of, “Do you get your entire identity from being a doctor? And if so, is that serving you in your life?” Do you feel stuck? Do you feel like you want more? I encourage you to see that tug, or feeling stuck, as an invitation to explore how else you can show up in this world, or serve, or find fulfillment.

Kevin Pho: Kristin, thank you for coming back on the show and sharing your time and insight.

Kristin Yates: Thank you so much for having me.

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