Building the Life of Your Dreams with Dr. Brittney Bankhead

So we have an insane, crazy story.

From the roller coaster of emotions. Crazy.

So, hi, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie, and I'm joined here by my colleague, Dr. Sarah Davis, who's also my mother. And today we have a very special guest, Dr. Brittany Bankhead.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. It's so fun to do these with women and especially a mom and a daughter. It's really cool.

Well, you were just mentioning before that you also have a daughter. Is that right?

I do, yes. She is seven and spunky and like, every opposite of me and will definitely not go to medical school.

So never know. Never know.

It's true.

Well, backing up. We want to hear about your story and your journey towards medicine. So I like to ask us this. When was the first time that you thought about being a doctor?

Kindergarten. Like, I was literally in kindergarten. And my. My husband and I actually shared this. He's a physician, too. We both have wanted to be doctors since we were in kindergarten. I cannot remember a time in my life where I did not want to be a doctor. I think one year I maybe dabbled in, maybe I'll be a nurse. But then it went right back to, no, I'm going to be a doctor. And what's funny is I even on my, like, elementary school, the art that you make, it was like, you know, what are you going to be when you grow up? And some of them, I would say, well, I'm going to be a doctor half the day and then a teacher half the day. And I realized, actually, like, I do that still. Yeah. I'm associate professor of surgery, so I do still teach. So, yes, you could say all of my dreams came true because I always. In my blood, and I always wanted to do it.

Stephanie wanted to be a celebrity cheerleader, so.

Oh, well, that was my second choice. But I guess. I guess neither of us will ever get there. Although you never know.

Like, never know. Exactly.

Never give up on your dreams.

Never give up if med school doesn't work out.

Yeah.

Celebrity cheerleader still. Yeah, of course. Did you have people in your family that were in healthcare or you just had this idea in your head and you're like, not.

Yeah, not at all. My dad is a petroleum engineer, and my mom was a English teacher, an elementary English teacher. And I. Yeah, literally no exposure to medicine, no exposure to, like, science, nothing. It just was what I wanted to do. I even. I even asked for, like, Christmas presents. Like, I want an anatomy coloring book, and I want A. I saw a little heart pump model in like a science magazine and it would like, you know, you'd make it red and it'd like, you'd pump something and it'd go through. I'm like, oh, yeah, I want that for Christmas. And it just. Genetics, you know, Crazy. I don't know.

Well, I love that and I love the idea of you just saying that you. All your dreams came true, but obviously you made that happen. You had this idea of like, this is what I want my life to look like. Be a teacher and a doctor, and you made that happen. Do you feel like there's other aspects in your life or other parts of your personality where you're like, this is something I'm going to do and I'm going to make it happen?

Oh my gosh, yes. So I'm, I'm kind of doing that. I'm 39, so I'm almost to this like 40 year old mark where something innate in you is like, okay, wait, now what? And after being faculty now for five years, it's like, wait, okay, now what? Because we can't just, I mean, not, not we can't. Me and my ocpd, Ness. I can't just, you know, achieve everything and then be good and coast. Now it's like, well, what's next? And you know, as I started to get into this part of my life, it was like, wait, I love what I do, but it's, it's not super challenging anymore. Like, don't get me wrong, trauma surgery, there, there are times that are challenging, but I'm not, I'm not as challenged as I used to be. And I realized I really enjoy helping other women and especially women physicians, women who work outside the home, like, you know, that kind of thing. Because I felt like I struggled a lot as a new mom as a medical student. I was a mom as a medical student for the first time and then as a resident was when I had my second baby. And so I feel like I, I have kind of grown up along with them and learned a lot along the way and had to be very honest with myself. And so I kind of started this company where I am now of trying to help other moms and trying to help them see that life doesn't have to be conventional and you can do this and be this and not enjoy this. And like, those are all okay. So that's, that's kind of where I'm now in that same, that same mentality of grind and make it work and make it happen and it doesn't have to be conventional as where I'm living again.

I'm sure that being a mom as a medical student was a huge part of that. Can we talk a little bit more about that? You had a child during medical school or before?

During. So my, yeah, so my. I went to Texas A and M for undergrad. I, we like to say I majored in having fun because I did not. I did not have a good gpa. I did great in high school, just did not. I didn't know how to study well. I went to college a year early. I think I was just not mature enough to be there, but still didn't give up on the dream. So I went and did a master's kind of relearned how to study and. But you know, every action has consequences. So I did not get into a US medical school. I got into a Caribbean medical school. And so I, my husband and I both went there at the same time. We were students together. We went through together and had asked around and said hey, when, you know, we're both doing this, when is it? We're from the south. So like all our friends are married and have kids and it's, you know, we're like what, 24 and we feel like life is just getting away from us at this young age of 24. And people were like, well there's not a really good time. It doesn't really matter when. Just do whatever's good for you. And we're like, well yeah, third year of medical school seems like a perfect time to have a baby. Right? Right. So, so we did. We had a baby in our Ms. 3 year and I was a first time mom with a newborn on my internal medicine rotation, like that was the first thing. I came back after five and a half weeks of maternity leave and got there the. I was breastfeeding at the time and I got there the first day and they're like, oh, you're on short call too. And had. I had no means of like pumping or doing anything with. And so I like leaked through my dress and so I wore an extra white coat so that I wouldn't like show anything. And I was just bawling at the end of the day because I hadn't seen my child. I was so uncomfortable and it was rough. It was really, really rough. I think I started studying for step two like a few weeks after that. Like it was tough. Wow.

Wait, and I want to know more about this. So where. And you were in the Caribbean. Like where. Where were you?

So we did our. For these Caribbean medical schools. And Ross, especially at the time we were on the island of Dominica for our basic sciences. And they basically, at that time, I think we started with almost a thousand medical students, and by the time we graduated, there was like three or 400. So it was like just zero. Mentorship. Yeah, sure, we'll let you in, give it a shot. But like, we want our numbers of who gets into residency and who passes sports to be great too. So, like, it's gonna be tough. Figure it out. Yeah. And which again is like a consequence of the choices in the GPA that I had done before. Right. So this, this is where like real grit and real resilience really started to happen because it was like, you make it for yourself or it's not gonna happen. So we did the first they kind of group, because you're in the Caribbean. They group all your first two years in just a 16 month chunk. And then after that, place you in a United States site for all of your clinical rotations. And so at the time, believe it or not, Michigan was like this very highly coveted place to go because you actually got to stay in one place and didn't have to move around the country every six weeks. So that was highly desirable because we were doing well. We, my husband and I both got placed at that place in this small part of Michigan. And so our son was born in January of 2012. Yeah, well, Michigan being, I guess, like.

An unconventional mother having a child, third year of medical school, you're looking at what you want your career to look like. And I mean, we've talked to lots of women surgeons on this podcast and just they have all sorts of stories about them being told that they need to give up other aspects of their life in order to pursue this very intense career path. What did that decision look like? And like, did you tell. Were there people telling you that you couldn't do it?

Such a good question. And, you know, isn't it sad that even now our medical students still get told the same things and are always constantly told you have to choose one or the other. And yes, I was no different. I was told you can either. You know, I don't think it's. And now maybe it's evolved a little bit to where it's not so much, well, you have to choose, but it is very much told to you. You can only be good at one or the other. Like, you can do both, but you're not going to be good at both. If you choose to be a surgeon, you can be a great surgeon, but you're not really going to be a great mother, or you can be a great mother, but you're not going to be a great surgeon. And so I kind of just said, forget you. And I don't, I don't care what you say. I know myself and I know what I can do and I know what I'm capable of. I actually wanted to go into medical school to be a family practice doctor. So it's not like I thought I was going to be a surgeon. And even when I had him, I didn't know I wanted to be a surgeon. But as I went along on my rotations, it was kind of the classic story of, I love this. I don't love anything near as much as this. And I tried really hard not to like it because it is a longer road and more hours in some ways, not always and tough. And so I, but I just, I didn't like anything else as much. And I remember many actually nights walking with a baby in our neighborhood and my husband saying, we will support you no matter what you choose. We know you, you can do it. And you know, when you, when you wake up in the morning every day, we want you to be happy to go to work and we want you to feel fulfilled and like you're doing what you want to do and, and we're not holding you back and we'll be there to support you. And so that, that kind of voice of support from him and was, was really what gave me the, the courage to, to keep moving forward and to do it well.

What about the other aspect of just matching in surgery? Coming from a Caribbean medical school?

Yeah.

I mean, how many people really do that?

Totally. And we were trying to couples match at the same time in surgery and emergency medicine, which were both not, not easy matches and especially as Caribbean medical students. So we, again, because mentorship was so lacking for us, we were just piecing together what we could find and figure out and did not have the best advice. But we interviewed everywhere we could. We had a decent amount of interviews actually because of our step scores and because of what we had done. And literally we're filing all over the country sometimes with our baby, like exchanging our baby in the airport, like nuts. Nuts. And then when we made our rank list, again, not smart, we made them as if, okay, we'll match all these categorical places together. And if we don't do that, then here all matches a prelim year and you just don't match. You'll find something to do that year and then we'll just reapply together, which was awful. Like I would never tell someone to do that now, especially as a Caribbean medical student. And that's the one that we got. And so we were in a hospital parking lot, we opened our things. It said, you've matched to a preliminary surgery position. And his said, sorry, you didn't match. It was like, okay, well this is really not great. So we called the NRMP and said, hey, no, you don't give out any more information till Friday. But we kind of need to know where my prelim spot is because we would really like to try to soap him into something in the same city. And they said, okay, this is not conventional. And yes, we'll tell you where. And so you're in the city of Dallas and that's what we'll tell you. And so he tried to soap all week. I mean, very high stuff. Brian is incredibly smart, very high step scores, very high everything, but just could not get into anything, tried anything, didn't happen. So we made arrangements for me to move to Dallas. Then I think a couple weeks later he found out that one of the places he had interviewed for emergency medicine that they had someone end up going into something else. So they called him because they heard he was looking. So he got a categorical spot for emergency medicine in New York. So then I moved to Dallas with our son after graduation, lived in my parents house as a prelim surgery resident. He moved to New York. We flew back and forth on like a 24 hour, you have this off. And then, then I found out I was standing in the ER one night as a surgery intern and heard that UT Southwestern Dallas had someone not show up on July 1st. UT Southwestern is where my husband's grandfather had done his residency. It's like the best ER residency in the country. And he, they had an open spot and so I said, well, would you want to apply for this spot? And I mean, he had just gone across the country to a place who had taken him out of like, you know, and he said, I guess I'll talk to my program director, which is also a gamble, right? You're like, you're going to be there for three more years and. But I guess I need to ask. And he did. He applied for the position. They had like 30 applicants because of course everyone wants to come and be here. He was offered the job on the spot and showed up at my hospital and said I got the job. We were so excited. And then, oh no. And then, so he moves across the country Gets there in July, then. Okay, I'm a prelim, remember? And they only take two categoricals a year. I'm still a Caribbean medical student at the end of the day. And I did not match at this institution, and I did not match anywhere in Dallas. I matched at a place in Michigan. So then I. When our son turned 16 months old or so, I moved away to Michigan. He stayed in Dallas with Brian at that point while Brian finished up his last two years of emergency medicine, which he ended up being a chief resident for, I might add. Like, went from not matching to being a Chief resident at UT Southwestern. Just so proud. So I finished my two years of PGY1, PGY2, kicked butt. Did research with my other institution that I had done stuff at before. I got a call at the end of my PGY 2 year and a institution in Texas, which was my dream institution, said, hey, we have an PGY3 opening, and we've heard great things about you. Would you be interested in interviewing? We happened to be in Houston at the time. I said, I can come tomorrow. And that's like it. Because then I go back home to Michigan. They said, fine. I went and bought a suit. They hired me on the spot, and I went back home and quit my job before I had signed a contract, which at the end of the day, I'm like, oh, what was I doing? But I did. We moved to Austin. I did a lateral transfer and went to the University of Texas at Austin at this, like, amazing academic surgery program and was the academic chief there my PGY five year. And so we have an insane, crazy.

Story from the roller coaster of emotions.

It's a lot. It's a lot. And our kids have just been along for the ride, and they don't know any different. And our son especially is like, oh, yeah, like, this is totally normal. Like, no, it's really not.

I mean, talk about the grit of doing it and not only having a baby during all of this, too, and just. And being like, okay, yeah, you don't match. And then you didn't get what you wanted. And then it's. But you're just like, I'm just gonna go.

Don't care.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keep moving forward. Yeah, I think that's a great. That's one of the craziest whole match stories that I've ever heard. And I think that's so great, Stephanie, for you and your friends to hear about. Of those kinds of things, because I feel like, you know, in med school, you know, we're. We're Pretty much rule followers, right? And it's like, okay, you know, this is, this leads to this, leads to this. And it's, you know, you're on the path and that's how it works. And it's kind of great to know that, you know, sometimes, sometimes the path changes. Sometimes it's because the person themselves makes different decisions in there.

Right.

And sometimes it's just you have to keep navigating yourself to find that open door.

Yes. Yeah, I. And that's, that is another thing I try to tell med students all the time too, because they, I mean, I'm, I'm at the Medical University of South Carolina and all the, they are so smart and so high achieving, just cream of the crop group of people. And so anytime there's any little one off something, they feel like their world is going to collapse and they feel like it's all over and they feel like, you know, this one test, this one evaluation, this one whatever, like it's over. And I'm just like, girlfriend, no, let me tell you a story. Because they like one and done is not it. And who you are really comes out in these moments. And it also helps you really define do I really want it? And because sometimes these little blips are like, oh, that's, I mean, this was clearly worth it to me. But there's also been other things in life where it's like this little blip showed me that's, that means like, I, I don't actually want to go that way. And that was kind of a sign of, no, this is not it. But sometimes the blip's like, oh, no, you're not going to tell me. No, I'm, I'm, I'm going for it. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think that that is really huge because it's one thing to, to have the grit and do it, but then having the self reflection to be able to be like, okay, do I want to do this and what's the life that I want to build? And it's just so impressive that you knew that and you continued to know that and continued to, to make the life that you want. How did you end up choosing to do trauma and then, then how did you end up in Charleston?

Yes. So trauma, I mean, so I talked about the surgery journey, but then I was just so grateful to have gotten a surgical residency that finally around tgy three or four years, like, oh, now, now I get to decide, like, what I want to do within surgery. Trauma, for me was, it was literally the perfect mix of all Worlds in that it was very much a shift work job. And I realized as much as you say a surgeon is not shift, like we, you know, before and after and all these things. But I. In residency, I was not a good mom when I was at home on call. Like, I just. I was really not good at balancing those two, but I was really great at being all in when I was there and like, just if chaos was ensuing and, you know, fires everywhere, like, I am good and I'm all in. I just was not good at the home call thing. So I knew I needed something where it could be kind of a really good split. Now I still take backup home call, but it's. It's not the same. And so I felt like that was a good fit for me. I also, funny enough, when I first decided I wanted to do surgery, it was like, but wait, like, I still want to be a doctor. Like, I want to do doctor things. I don't want to just, like, do things with my hands. And then it was like, I. I did my ICU rotation and I worked with some. Some trauma surgeons who were directing these crazy resuscitations and realized, oh, you can. You can do very high level cerebral thinking in a surgical ICU and still get to flex that part of the being a doctor thing and how all the systems, you know, coordinate. And so that felt like a really good mix to me of that less home call and getting to flex my brain, since those two things kind of overlap. So. And I love doing a little bit of everything, and I love not knowing what I'm doing that day, which would drive some people crazy. So I love that. So that's how I chose trauma and then straight out of. So I did my fellowship at. At Harvard at mgh, and after that went to Texas Tech. For my first four years of being faculty, I was very, very busy clinically, which was very good. Coming out of fellowship, which was so covet heavy at the time. I was an ICU fellow during COVID so it was very heavy critical care, loved operating a lot, but then kind of realized, like, geography, we wanted to change. And I wanted somewhere that was a little bit different culture than what I was kind of experiencing in West Texas. And I wanted to be able to flex my wings with research a little more. So I only looked at really one job at the time, didn't get that position. It wasn't a great fit. But I think that position called Charleston, around a year and a half or two years before I came here and kind of quietly planted a seed hey, this is who this girl is. This is what she's about. And. And then it finally was like, okay, we actually need this position. You are a good fit. And I interviewed and came here and they kind of created the spot for me. And yeah, I could not be happier. The culture is amazing. Geographically, it's amazing. We have no family here. People are like, why did you end up there? But you can't. Like, you come here and you just know that it's wonderful. And our kids are super happy. And they. They, like, live in a movie here. Like, we always have bikes outside from all the kids at the house, and there's fishing poles, and they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to go catch dinner tonight. Like, what is our life? That I can't even imagine. I grew up in West Texas. I have no idea that you could live a life like that. So it's great. I love it.

And through those different moves was your husband. I mean, I guess being emergency medicine does give you a fair amount of flexibility with finding jobs, different places, they're always in need and you don't have to worry about, like, in primary care, you know, you have like, panel of patients, and so it's hard to kind of keep moving that. But emergency medicine is a little more flexible that way. But so was he kind of fine with just these different moves and going different places?

He.

Fine. Fine as a word. He. He was extremely supportive. School came a lot easier to him. He helped me through school. Tests came a lot easier to him. He helped me through tests, finding a job. He is so amicable and good, and jobs kind of fell to him easily. And so. And we realized that, you know, yes, there are good and bad ER jobs for sure, but it's a lot easier to find a good ER job than it is. It's a lot harder to find a good trauma surgery, academic surgery job. And so he has kind of taken a backseat, if you will, to, you know, wherever is a good fit for you. Like, I will find something works and has been incredibly supportive in that way. And this, honestly, like, this kind of is our check mark, pinnacle last move for me. And whatever we do after this will be in support of him. I think we're both very happy here. We both love it here. But he has certainly been the one to have to do what I go where I find a good spot. And for that I am very eternally grateful because it helps. Because that helps me be when I'm in a good position, that helps me align my values. I am a Better mom and a better wife. And so you can't put a price on that. And I'm, I'm always grateful. Yeah.

Well, your story is just, again, just this grit of like building the life that you want and making that happen. And now you've done it. You've, you know, you have built this life. And at the beginning of the podcast, you're talking a little bit about now you're not feeling challenged and how do you have I. Because I think a lot of people who go into medicine do have this mindset of either always wanting more or just wanting to grow and wanting to be challenged. How do you balance that feeling of wanting to do more and still continuing to be stimulated in your career while also just enjoying life and being able to appreciate the accomplishments that you've had?

That is such a good question. And like, the fact that you have recognized that so early on in your career is amazing. And you're, you're light years ahead of me and certainly a lot of my colleagues because it took a while to figure that out because there is such a, almost a rival fallacy. And that whole like, oh, if I just, if I just, if I just, if I just. And so you're on this rat race continuum of go, go, go, go. I have learned I thrive on a challenge and I thrive on new and being uncomfortable. And. And yet I've also learned about myself that that doesn't have to mean that those things have to take up this chunk of time. Like my, the time is this resource that is completely finite. And so I can do those things in this amount of time. Then I can do the trauma surgery things. That is what I was trained to do and how I can help patients and help families in this amount of time. And then I can be mama and woman and rest and read and travel in this amount of time. And so I'm, I am a complete follower of my calendar because it does not lie. It tells me how much time I have allotted to what. And I put on the calendar my one on one time with my 13 year old son. Just like I put on the calendar a executive meeting for better bleeding control to discuss our patent draft. I think a lot of my colleagues and myself at the beginning was I would just keep. First I tried to pretend like I didn't need to do it, like, oh, I've arrived, I'm here. Like, I need to just coast and now enjoy things. But like, that wasn't me. I, I still wanted, I, you know, like, I have this inner like and that exists For a reason. Like not everybody in the world has that. So, so let's make it a, let's do it in a productive way and then make sure that we're also balancing that with the time of, of a simple Sunday and of making cookies and, and, and for me, the, the calendar gives me that, that freedom to know I can lay on the back porch and take a nap while my daughter swims. Because I know that tomorrow I'm going to be like grinding on this research project. So it gives my mind the, the piece to know I can, I can do all of those things.

Well, I love that and I love being very intentional with, with it. And I think that's so important. It also gives you that freedom to say no when they ask you to do one more thing at work or they ask you to do something else at your kids school or whatever it is. And, and sometimes, you know, we're kind of like yes people, right? We want to just be like, oh yeah, I can do that, I can do that. But then you. All right, let me take a look at. Well, there's no spot in the calendar for this thing, so I'm gonna have to say no to that. And there's no problem with doing it because if you did do it, something else is going to have to give. And I think so often that's what ends up squeezing that out. Squeezing out, you know, parts of family life or, or stuff for yourself. But if you just are, are intentional with all the choices that you make, then that leads to a much more, a lot more satisfaction.

Totally could not agree more. My, literally, my husband and I were talking today about, he said, because I had a meeting actually with Clemson. I'm doing a research project with a sociology professor at Clemson on academic innovation. And he was kind of watching from afar and I hung up the call. He goes, you are so good at that stuff and it's so cool to watch you be a leader in these kinds of things. I'm so glad that you get to do things in leadership. And then the conversation kind of went to, yeah, I really enjoy this. And yet, you know, chief, old me would have said, oh, yes, chief of the department is somewhere where I want to flex and spread my wings someday. That's where I want that to lead to. But I've also along the way come to realize intentionally, like that's not, that doesn't actually align with what I want over the years. So hey, that's okay. It can mean I want to do leadership things in other ways. And, and knowing that intentionality of knowing this is what I want my life to look like. So I'm going to say no to these things, which I've started doing way more. These things don't align with that. And, and that's okay. That's okay. Is, is the hard part. Like first is being able to say no, and then it's the not feeling guilty for saying no. But when you have that vision of this is where I'm going, it makes it a lot easier to realize what fits and what doesn't fit to get there.

Yeah. And a lot of that is, I mean, that's counterintuitive for us as doctors. It's like, you know, there's just, oh, this is. Oh, that's like the highest thing. Okay, let me, let me try to get to that.

Right, right.

Like you're climbing a mountain and you're like, well, I didn't want to climb this mountain. Why am I up here?

I think that's a huge thing. Like what I'm hearing you saying is just that it's a lot of self reflection and understanding why you're doing the thing. Not just having a list of this is a thing I want to accomplish, but how does this thing and working towards things, this thing align with who I am as a person. And it sounds like you've done a lot of that because you do. There is like, you do like to be challenged and you want novelty. But you know, like, that doesn't have to be this list of things.

Totally. And do I. And just like you said, do I want this or does society want this? Do I want this or was I taught to want this? Do I want this or is this just what my collective group of people usually want? And, and parsing through that has helped me really. Because. And that really started with at surgery conferences, big national surgery conferences when I looked around and I realized I was wearing a very dark black suit because everyone else wore a very dark black suit. And that's what you were supposed to do is, is be straight faced and wear dark black suits and not laugh and not smile and, and keep your voice here. And it was like, that's not who I am. And can I be, can I be professional and good at what I do and wear pink and smile and be nice? Like, it turns out those don't have to be mutually exclusive. Like you can be, you can be nice and wear professional pink clothes and still be good at your job. So I've. That is. Yeah, couldn't agree more.

I bet those medical students and Residents really appreciate that about you, I think.

So. The one of my favorite mentees walked in one day. We were going to have a engineering discussion about a simulator we were going to do. And she walked into my office, the carpet. I have a pink rug. And at the time I had a rose gold pink laptop. And she opened her rose gold pink laptop. I didn't know that other surgeons. Yeah, it's not kind of the right place.

Exactly.

And it's not unprofessional to be girly, like. Yeah, right.

Yes.

Well, you talked a little bit about this at the beginning of the podcast, but just talking about how you do like novelty and new things. You mentioned your business. How did that start? And do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

Sure. Yeah. So I have, I have two businesses. One is called Better Bleeding Control. And that is something I do kind of with the institution that I'm with. It is a company that we are building a biofeedback hemorrhage control trainer for the military, have a patent pending with the USPTO office, have two provisional patents. And it is my like very hardcore engineering project that makes me super uncomfortable. And yet I want to do this good thing. And it's very multidisciplinary and collaborative and grant funding and all this. So that really pushes me and keeps me on my toes and uncomfortable, which is like fun and good. The other company I have is called Modern Mom Lab. And that was born out of kind of everything that we just talked about about being a mom and doing it in an unconventional way. And along the way kind of realizing like that a there was this like stay at home mom, working mom divide. And I had a mom who was at home a lot as a kid and it was like there's needs there and needs here and how can we align those needs and where everybody can be the kind of mom that they want to be at the end of the day, because that looks a little different for everybody. But how can we also not define it by what society or culture says we have to be as a stay at home mom or a working mom or a part time work, whatever it is. And one way I did that was by hiring a woman who was technically a stay at home mom, had had a master's degree and was like full course throttle on her career, but then took a step back, but was feeling a little like she wanted to do something more. So she became my, what I've been titled, family Virtual Assistant, where she, you know, all of these like mental things in my mind that were constantly rolling around that no one else could understand because they weren't in my brain. I kind of just like offloaded those to her and gave them to her. And she, because she is so high functioning and also a mom and totally gets it, she has taken those off my plate so that I can focus on all of the other lovely things that only I can do. And she can take all of those things and run with it. And for her family, that has meant extra income to do things they wouldn't have normally been able to do. That means some purpose for her and how she structures her day. And for me, it has meant I freed up 15 or 20 hours of my week to now hang out with my kids, do the baking. We talked about all these things. And so that kind of was the nidus for creating a company where I'm trying to help moms realize their potential for how their life can look and be structured and it doesn't have to be so bucketed anymore.

Is that. And so how does that work? Do you. So you do you have like a bunch of people that are interested in, in doing this kind of work and you're matching those?

Yes.

Yep. Yep. So currently, Modern Mom Lab has three pillars. The first pillar is called Time Alchemy. So that is kind of moms like me that are super busy, high earning professional women and teaching them how to grab the parts of their life where they could use some better time optimization and teaches them how to do that with kind of a really quick blueprint. And then it also gives them, I think we don't do a great job of outsourcing all the time. So we kind of have this all or none mentality of you have to either have a 40 hour a week nanny or nothing at all, or you have to have a 40 hour a week house manager or nothing at all. And so it really goes through on outsourcing, how to better outsource for your budget. It gives a bunch of outsourcing kits and contracts and ways to structure and template and keep good help and all of these things under Time Alchemy. Then there's the FVA Institute. So where we teach smart, organized women a lot of times who are stay at home moms how to earn a flexible career. And so I teach them how to be a really good family virtual assistant. Because then in pillar three, I have something called the grid, which is where we take those family virtual assistants and then those in the Time alchemy model who found. Oh yeah, I really need some help with that mental rolodex. Because not every, and you know, not every mom needs mental roll X help. Some of them need tangible help. Like I just need someone to fold the laundry. And then some people are like, the laundry is not a problem, but like, my schedule is crazy and it takes me eight hours a day to just schedule my meetings, much less have them. And so for the people who actually need that mental Rolodex help, we pair them up with a family virtual assistant. And in our focus groups, which this is the cool part about the research and the science background coming into the business model is that I knew that the focus groups were going to be really important part of this. I can feel however I want to feel. But how do other women feel too? And not unanticipated. The group of really busy working courier women said, the reason I don't hire people like this is because it takes so long to onboard them. It takes so long I can do it better myself at the end of the day. And this is why I don't hire people. So literally, that's what I teach these women in the FVA Institute to do is how to squish that onboarding time and how to make it so seamless. And I actually tell them a couple of times, you're like an intern. You're like a surgery intern. You're writing down everything. They should never have to say it again. They want to say it once and they never want to repeat it and they just want it to happen indefinitely and they don't want to have to think about it being done. They just want it to be done. So it's, it is really, really fun to see each of these different groups of women be able to kind of expand their wings and do something for their families and for themselves to really build the life that they want to build and not be encumbered by what culture says it has to be.

Yeah, I love it too. I love the women who have a lot of times been stay at home moms and who, I mean, they know how to multitask. They've been doing all of this stuff and now you're taking off these skills and actually putting it to use, to financial use.

Yes.

Because you know, when you hire somebody who like they, they have three kids, like if you hire them in your workplace, you're like, this person knows how to get stuff done.

Oh yeah, 100, 100. And the. Yeah, she just, I mean, my own family virtual assistant, she, she knows all of these nuances. Like, okay, when I'm post call, we don't schedule anything that takes a lot of mental things. Right when I'm post call, we schedule massages. Brittany likes to get a massage every other month, but only do it on post call days because I don't want to waste a good day like where my, you know, but like a post call day is a great time to do that. And so she, she has that on her list of like things and it just happens. It just shows up in my schedule and amazing. It's to take that mental load off. She also knows that like my husband and I like two date nights a month, but we don't want time away from the kids. So she does it when the kids are at school or on an activity and she just makes a reservation and like it's just there in the calendar. So it, it's, it's amazing.

That's really cool. I love.

That is really cool. And I love this idea of just thinking about it differently. Not thinking.

Yes.

And I think these conversations are so important, especially for our listeners and people in women in high achieving careers. Like, it's so important for them to hear this because again, part of your story and part of so many women's stories is just being told that they're not able to do it. Because there's only two ways that people think about being a mom or being in a intense career. And I just really love this conversation of just talking about it doesn't have to be one or the other. And there's different ways to do things and you can make the life that you want.

Totally. And I. Yes. And it's so, I think it's also so important that, because a lot of these, like Facebook mom groups that I'm part of, especially for physician moms, is if, if things aren't going well, if you feel like you're not a present mom, if you feel like your time is just getting away from you, go part time. And that's, that's the only way.

Always the answer.

Yeah, it's always the answer. It's either go part time or hire more help. But we don't like, first of all, the hiring more help. Like, that's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Like, what kind of help do I need? How do I actually make that happen? Because now that just added a whole new workload to my, to my list of to do's. So. So that's why time alchemy was created. And then the go part time. It's like, well, that shouldn't be the only way. Like is There I worked so hard for this career. Is there really not any other way besides going part time? So. And for me, that's what, you know, the hiring a family virtual assistant like, that offloaded me so much to where. I mean, literally one day I came out of the operating room, I had done an AX lap for a perforated ulcer or something, and I walked out and the family virtual assistant had sent me an update of like, hey, I registered Knox for camp and Tinsley's good to go for the. This on this day. And you and Brian have a date scheduled. And I reformatted that PowerPoint and just wanted to let you know it's like, like I can do my job. Yeah. So, yeah, I, we're, we're going to, we're going to figure out new ways. We, yeah, we have to. We're too great to, to not, you know.

Yeah, well, you mentioned that going part time, you know, I don't know if you've seen that statistic, I'm sure you have, that like 40% of female physicians will either go part time or quit altogether within five years of finishing training. Which is a crime.

I know. And it's like, it's one thing if. It's one thing if you, if you need to, if you want to. If, if that is, like, if that is, you know, your dream is to go part time, then like, but for those who, who don't want to, who are like, I would love my job. I just don't know how I can do both. Like, they need, they need more. They. We've got to find a way to, to keep them there and, and just, you know, more yoga isn't going to cut it.

Well, I have loved this conversation. I feel like I could keep talking to you forever, but we know you are so busy, so we won't take up too much more of your time. But I do ask every guest, as someone who's early on in my medical career, and a lot of our listeners are on different parts of their education journey, what advice would you have to somebody who's early on on this long journey towards being a doctor?

I, I tell my med students all the time, have a balloon in, balloon out mentality every so often because when you're in the grind of like, okay, which enzyme does this? Which pharmacokinetic does this, blah, blah, blah, you've got to be there, you've got to stay there. But every so often, give yourself the ability to balloon out and look at big picture, like, where are we going? And, oh, it's because in 10 years, I want to be having a conversation with my daughter about a patient that I saved that day. Or it's oh, because in five years I want to be able to do my own laparoscopic appendectomy, because that would be really cool. And then balloon back down and get back into the enzymes and then this and that. Because it can. It can be really hard to just stay in that, you know, really cumbersome tough spot. So give yourself the ability to dream a little bit, to remember where it is that you're. You're going and why you're doing the tough stuff that you're doing.

Yeah, I love that. Well, where can people find you? And if people are interested in being a part of the virtual. The family virtual assistant, where is there a website?

Yeah.

So for me, it's at B. Bankhead MD. I'm there on TikTok and Instagram. And then @modernmom lab is our Instagram, and then modernmomlab.com is the website. Great.

And you guys know where to find us @Generations MD on Instagram and TikTok. And you can email us at ask generations mdmail.com and we'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.