The Direct Care Way

Replay with Dr. Justin Trosclair

June 28, 2022 Tea Nguyen, DPM Season 1 Episode 20
The Direct Care Way
Replay with Dr. Justin Trosclair
Show Notes Transcript

I had the privilege to speak about my passion for podiatry with chiropractor Dr. Justin Trosclair on his podcast A Doctor's Perspective in 2017. Look how much has changed! I went from an employed position, then a solo practice owner, and now a Direct Care Podiatry practice & coach for other podiatrists interested in this model. 

Take a listen to hear what it's like to be on another doctor's podcast,  his great questions about what we do as podiatrists, and how being married to another doctor is challenging enough as a business owner. So don't forget to schedule date nights with your loved ones every week.

Follow Dr. Trosclair at https://adoctorsperspective.net/episode-28-diabetic-neuropathy-avoiding-amputation-and-foodie-dr-tea-nguyen-podiatrist/ 

If you like what you hear, please share it with a podiatrist. They might be one podcast away from a totally different life. Enjoy. 

Are you a woman in podiatry interested in Direct Care coaching? Apply at coachingwithteallc.com the next cohort starts August 2, 2022.
Contact me teadpm@gmail.com
Find me IG @teadpm


Dr. Tea  0:00  
Hey there, I have a really special episode to share with you today. I was a guest on Dr. Justin's chose Claire's podcast called The doctors perspective, a few years ago, and I wanted to share who I was back then, with who I am today, there is a bit of a contrast, when I was invited to speak on his podcast, I was employed, it was my first job out here in California. It was my second job. The first job I had I was an independent contractor in this second job felt like it was going to be a leveling my career path, because it was in my home state. So I talked about where I was at, in my practice, as an associate. And you can tell I was, I sounded very hopeful, I thought this was going to be it for me. This was in 2016. And now it's 2022. So much has changed even the way I think about the world has changed the books, I've read the company, I keep the things that I think has drastically changed. And I think all of that has been pivotal in changing who I am as a podiatrist, and as a business owner. So I wanted to share this episode with you because number one, I love promoting other doctors work, especially one that I contribute to. And to just to give you an idea of how much can change in just a couple of years, if you made a decision today, to be proactive in the projection of your life, really. So I hope you take a break from all that as usual. And just listen into this conversation I have with Justin. He is a chiropractor with an interesting background. He has lived in China and came back to the States. And his practice is also cash based. And I've learned a lot of my practices from other specialties who have been opted out of insurance a long time ago. And I feel like we're kind of the last to know that we are a profession the last to know that a non insurance based practice exists and it can thrive. So sit back, relax, do your thing. And listening to this very special episode with Dr. Justin Trosclair from a doctor's perspective.

Dr. Justin  2:44  
Episode 28 diabetic neuropathy avoiding imputation and foodie. I'm your host, Dr. Justin Trosclair. And today, we hear Dr. T win perspective. For doctors who want a thriving practice and abundant home life, listen as your host, Dr. Justin Trosclair goes behind the curtain and interviews doctors and guests about real world triumph struggles, practical tips and entertainers. On this episode of doctors perspective. We're going to continue our women's spotlight with Dr. T when she is fellowship trained in wound care, particularly with diabetics, I mentioned in the podcast but you got to check out her Instagram, it can be kind of gross, but to me, it's pretty amazing because I remember, you know cadaver lab and being impressed with the feet and how complicated that seems to be. She's gonna go into some great advice on how to check to see if you have loved ones or even yourself if they have diabetes to make sure that how you how you can keep your feet healthy, so you don't have to have amputations she talks about self diagnosis and how that can be a bad thing and why she talks about things that she does with her husband to keep the love alive and so much more. All the show notes can be found at a doctor respective.net/two Eight let's go hashtag behind the curtain welcome to the podcast everybody. Dr. T when dp and Podiatry in Santa Cruz, California, she's fellowship trained in wound care. She's passionate about preventing leg amputations especially in diabetics, and she educates others in prevention welcome so much to the show.

Unknown Speaker  4:19  
Hi, thank you for having me.

Dr. Justin  4:21  
Absolutely. I'm excited I I've had one podiatrist on the show before and he he was kind of a similar all about prevention and those types of things. But we kind of met via Instagram and I saw some of your your photos I was like wow, these are really graphic but really awesome because I don't see that stuff as a chiropractor. So I'm just I'm just curious kind of what what got you into podiatry over anything else and how did you pick it?

Dr. Tea  4:48  
To be frank nothing in particular caught my attention. When I was graduating undergrad. I wish I had a really cool story, you know, but I don't nobody in my family had gone to college. At that age when I was trying to figure out what I wanted. So my last year in college, I visited the college fair. Just talk to a bunch of people and the coolest person, there was somebody marketing for the podiatry school and we just got to talk and a lot of it was lifestyle choices. You know, I was interested in medicine. I dabbled a little bit in pharmacy, and I really wanted a job that was a little bit more interactive with people. So that's kind of how I stumbled upon it. Really?

Dr. Justin  5:27  
Would you you're in podiatry school? Are there a lot of residency programs or like sub specialties that you can go into?

Dr. Tea  5:35  
Yeah, once you finish the four years of podiatry school, there's surgical residency, which is three years of training, and then after that, you can choose to specialize even further. So that's when I went into the one year fellowship in Dallas to learn more about wound care and Amputation Prevention

Dr. Justin  5:53  
that has a lot of extra schooling. So when you come out, you're as trained as like a certain heart surgeon exhausted. I don't have to start immediately after I graduate, right? Because this is too much. What are you finding to be the cause of all these crazy wounds and cuts in diabetics like they wait too long. Explain that. For me.

Dr. Tea  6:14  
A lot of diabetes, probably half of who are diagnosed with diabetes will end up developing what's called neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy. So they start to lose feeling in the hands and feet. That's the stalking gloves syndrome. When you start to lose feeling that protective sensation that tell you to pull back that's from something that's very hot, like a hot bath water, or stepping on a needle, or thumbtack or toy or Lego, you know, those things hurt, pain is a good thing. But when you don't have that feedback, sensory, you ignore it, you ignore the cuts, you ignore the infection. And it's not until the patient gets very sick, they start to get fever, or somebody else notices smell or drainage or a hole in their foot is when they start to seek medical attention. Sometimes it's not too late. But oftentimes, I do find a lot of situations where people just didn't know that they needed a podiatrist to help them with those things.

Dr. Justin  7:07  
How is it because they're really big and can't they're not very like mobile, because I'm thinking I wash my feet every day, I can see my feet, it was something I would kind of notice. So what do you see there?

Dr. Tea  7:18  
Some people when they have diabetes, they're also having other medical problems, like they start to lose their vision. So they can't see the bottom of their feet, for instance, or they're not flexible. They have back pain, arthritis, they can't bend over to even reach and clean between between the feet or the toes, really. So those are some of the issues that I see.

Dr. Justin  7:38  
Okay, do you happen to have a tip for people who might be diabetic or a loved one who might be listening to this might be late stage diabetes like that to where they can be a little more preventative and what they're looking for. So for their loved ones? Yeah. As soon

Dr. Tea  7:52  
as you're fusing as soon as you're diagnosed with diabetes, establish a podiatrist immediately, we can see things that you may not be able to notice small things like calluses, why is the callus there that's thickening of tissue. That's your body responding to excessive pressure? How do we fix that we talked about using offloading mechanisms like an orthotic, maybe a custom made insole, those are inserts that goes into different types of shoes, we can look at the current shoes that you have, maybe those are causing some problems as well. So that would be a starting point is just to establish care with this foot specialist.

Dr. Justin  8:29  
Do you find a lot of people don't do that they just go to their general practitioner and that's about all they do.

Dr. Tea  8:35  
Yeah, you know, general practitioners are the gatekeepers for all of our specialties and they're often overwhelmed. Or they do give the information and then the patients are overwhelmed. They have so many doctor's appointments and not that's the last thing they want to do is see you know, something that they think is benign, their feet, everything else their heart, their eyes or kidneys, you know, take precedent,

Dr. Justin  8:57  
that's true, because some people are on a budget as well, where they're like, well, that doctor didn't say much or it's not so bad. I'll just yeah, if it gets bad I'll notice I'll I'll know if it gets bad.

Dr. Tea  9:07  
Exactly, exactly. Then wait till it gets bad. Unfortunately, that's you know, that's kind of really too late sometimes.

Dr. Justin  9:14  
Are you all surgery at this point?

Dr. Tea  9:16  
I am predominantly surgery but not all surgery. I do a lot of palliative care. So we do prevention education. All of the diabetics that I see I see them routinely. If they're diabetic without problems like neuropathy, no history of amputation, no alteration. I can see them once a year. If they're a little bit older, maybe getting a little bit more frail, or they're starting to lose their vision and they can't see and reach their feet to take good care and have basic foot hygiene. I'll see them about two to three months in if they have an officer or their surgical patient. I usually see them every week.

Dr. Justin  9:53  
Really like before the surgery or just post care.

Dr. Tea  9:57  
Yeah. All right. I definitely Want to see them at least once a week? To keep things clean? Because it thinks can flip overnight? Yeah, that's

Dr. Justin  10:05  
true. I'm curious. Um, as a chiropractor, you know, I'll see you know, treats and plantar fasciitis, we treat some some ankle sprains and things like that, what's a good tip is even for physical therapists to So when should we say this is beyond our realm, and we need to refer to you, I

Dr. Tea  10:21  
think it's a give and take, I rely heavily on physical therapy for a lot of these patients who don't want surgery, I don't think surgery is the end all, it's an option. So when I refer out to physical therapists, you know, they already know that I'm sending them for something very particular. And then once they complete their circuit, and the patient is not at 100%, or wherever their goals are, then we will revisit surgery. And that would be a good indicator, you know, let's say you've exhausted your chiropractic care, and your patient is still not functional, they can't go back to work without pain, then they bounce back to me. And then we talk a little bit more seriously about other options do you

Dr. Justin  11:00  
do if you're hiking and one of your ligaments rips off the bone? That's pretty bad sprain? Are you the person to go to? Or should you go to an orthopedic surgeon?

Dr. Tea  11:10  
We are trained in foot and ankle issues. So I, you know, our podiatry school here in the States is four years and then the three years of surgical training to reconstruct some of those issues. Some of us go into fellowships as well. Additionally, for things like that, so it's really it really depends on where you're from and what you know, the doctors around you and what your referral basis.

Dr. Justin  11:34  
And insurance covers you guys, right? I know. somebody's paying my bills. Now, are you private practice? Do you work in a hospital,

Dr. Tea  11:45  
I work in a private group with other podiatrist. I'm a new associate, I started with this particular group last year, and it's it's all podiatry, there's 234 Other podiatrists

Dr. Justin  11:58  
as well. So I'm curious, coming out of school, or I guess finally finishing everything, you're super duper trained. So you're not like you're it's not like you're a rookie, you're actually like a fellowship trained the boss, as they say, when they hired you, they they treat new people pretty good as far as like competitive salaries and things like that. They don't just treat you like, well, you're brand new out of the four year program, you don't have any other specialties. I would assume those guys or gals who probably get paid less than you is that, uh,

Dr. Tea  12:27  
I don't know the answer to that. I knew that when I got interviewed, people were very laid back. Don't forget, I live in Santa Cruz. The culture in itself is pretty chill. You know, we're serious about our work. But we're also very serious about our downtime. So I think I got hooked up with a really great team, we all interact very well together very kind with me. I mean, I've never felt shortchanged for any reason. So I feel like I'm a fair contributor to the group.

Dr. Justin  12:55  
Very cool. And the reason why is there are certain professions out there, where if you're new, they don't really say that they kind of shortchange you until you kind of learn the ropes, and then all of a sudden, now you're gonna go one without doing that for so I was just curious how it works in your field.

Dr. Tea  13:09  
I'm sure it's the same in every field. I don't think there's any field that isn't like that.

Dr. Justin  13:15  
When you're doing like educating your patients, or like maybe giving talks and educating other people. Are there any big misconceptions about

what you do? 

Dr. Tea  13:23  
Yes, well, yes.

Speaker 2  13:26  
They can be super annoying to you. You're like, oh, my gosh, come on. 

Dr. Tea  13:28  
Well, for starters, I look very young for my age. The misconception is she's too young, to doesn't have enough experience. I want the older male. So I have two hits against me and the female, I look young, automatically will think I don't have you know, what's necessary to help them, which is fine. You know, you get that every day, and then you just deal with it. The second misconception that I deal with is oh, you're a podiatrist. So you just trim toenails. That's how it used to be. That's how it started. Yes, but that was many decades ago. And our profession is rapidly changing. Started Training is very specific to the foot and ankle, everything related, whether it be an ankle fracture, or flat foot reconstruction, or you fell off a ladder, any broker field, you know, we fix all those things. So that's the big two that I deal with is that oh, you don't do surgery? Yes, I do. Oh, you're young. Yes, I am experienced.

Dr. Justin  14:26  
That's really cool. What would you say, to look out for if I'm looking to send somebody to a podiatrist? What are some of the things that I should be asking to make sure that they're a good fit for the type of client that I'm looking for?

Dr. Tea  14:38  
What in particular, are you referring to? I suppose,

Dr. Justin  14:41  
okay. I guess for like an ankle sprain or like a really bad plantar fasciitis versus like a wound care diabetes. Obviously, that would be the US would that'd be the question to ask, what are your what's their training?

Dr. Tea  14:53  
You can just ask them, Hey, I have this problem. Can you fix it? We have such a diverse set of Podiatry. You know, podiatrist in training, not all the podiatrist, do wound care not all very high.

Dr. Justin  15:06  
So it's not all podiatrists are created equal. It's all based. Really, I think what you're saying is just ask the question, what are you trained in? And if you don't match up to what the patient is experiencing, then just call another one.

Dr. Tea  15:18  
I mean, basically, hey, I have this problem, can you fix it? And I'm pretty honest, there's a bunch of stuff I can't do, or I don't want to do. And, you know, I have patients ask me all the time, what do you think about acupuncture for my heel pain? I don't know. I don't do them. Acupuncture is. So for me. I'm pretty frank about certain things. But just because I do care doesn't mean I don't do other things as well.

Dr. Justin  15:41  
That's true. This could be a redundant question. But I like to know, some doctors really feel like they have this this special ability, this unique quality, what would you say is your like, unique ability or quality that makes you so special?

Dr. Tea  15:54  
Well, I think we all want to feel special. So I think for me, in particular, I take a lot of pride in being very forward with my patients being honest. You know, I deal out a lot with care. And that means I deal a lot with amputations, too. I don't like having that conversation with patients where I've done everything I could, and now they have to lose their leg. I think that is one of the hardest conversations I can have. But it's necessary, otherwise, they can lose their life. And I think, you know, given the choice between you and me as well, we'd probably choose a leg over our life. Whereas some people, they would actually rather die than lose a body part. So I have to deal with those differences. What makes me very different from my colleagues, perhaps is that I'm not afraid to have those conversations up front, even on at first meeting, being very serious, say, Hey, you have this condition. If you're not serious about taking care of yourself, Who's going to care about you? It should be you. It shouldn't be me. Of course, I care, obviously, you know, that's why I'm in the field. So it's my husband calls it tough love, essentially, we you know, he's a general surgeon, so he deals with patients as well. And he just thinks that I'm a little bit more dry.

Dr. Justin  17:10  
If you see an ankle and a leg that automatically that's the comment that you have to make. It's gotta be pretty bad.

Dr. Tea  17:17  
Yeah, I, at least once a week, I have to deal with, you know, an amputation of some kind. So I've just learned to be very succinct and not dance around the issue and say, Hey, this is what you're going through what you should expect and what I can do to help you but you need to meet me halfway. I do my part. You need to do your part.

Dr. Justin  17:39  
Yeah. Because it can be like just that, like most of it. Is it like an infection type of situation that they that's the reason why they have to you have to cut it off or amputated?

Dr. Tea  17:47  
Yeah, pretty much infection or gangrene, you know, they don't have good circulation, and they're having a lot of pain, that would be an indication for an amputation.

Dr. Justin  17:56  
Okay, well, that's about as real as it gets right there. My goodness,

Dr. Tea  18:00  
I don't cut it off all the time. And don't enjoy it. I do it very well, because there is a wrong way. For me these procedures, you can leave somebody very deformed, and you know, have to go do multiple surgeries. That's not necessary,

Dr. Justin  18:14  
right? And I'm guessing like, if it's a younger person who maybe doesn't have diabetes, more like an accident, the way you do, it will set you up for the perfect prosthetic. Or if they don't do a good job, you're like, we could have done this, but you got botched.

Dr. Tea  18:27  
Sometimes, sometimes we can salvage sometimes, you know, it can be pretty bad

Dr. Justin  18:31  
can be pretty bad. Wow. Well, I am curious, then do you have to do any of the marketing at all for your, in your in your clinic?

Dr. Tea  18:40  
I'm really lucky. I'm in a group that's well established. And the places that were set up in I market online, you know, through my Instagram, mostly, it's not marketing so much as educating, right? Because I feel a lot of things that I think are very easy to deal with. But by the time patients have exhausted their Google search or WebMD, you know, they've mistakenly diagnosed themselves with something therefore mistreating it, then they get to me and it's to me, it's obvious what it is to them. It's brand spanking new. So that's the only way I utilize marketing, not for myself, but more for education.

Dr. Justin  19:17  
Okay, but it seems to be working. 

Dr. Tea  19:19  
Yeah, pretty busy. Happily,

Dr. Justin  19:21  
that's good. Well, I think other doctors can just what you just said, they could start doing that as well. You know, if you're putting up pictures if you're putting up public service announcement type of things, and they can do that as well. You can show a really bad tooth or a really bad eye that looks like 15 different things, but you're like that shouldn't just be sitting around and you're on your face and you need to go see this eye doctor to get this checked out. Yeah. And

Dr. Tea  19:43  
a lot of people are afraid of doctors and I tried to be you know, I don't wear my white coat for that particular reason. I don't want to build that barrier. I want to be able to be approachable for patients so that they can ask questions like Hey, I I think I made a mistake. You know, what do you think and I want the To be honest with our interaction,

Dr. Justin  20:01  
that's interesting. No white coat. Very interesting.

Dr. Tea  20:05  
No, it gets me in trouble sometimes. But oh, you're a doctor? Yeah,

Dr. Justin  20:12  
do you have to deal with any of the staff as far as like hiring, firing or training? Oh,

Dr. Tea  20:16  
I just pick on them and they deal with it. And we have a good time. Staff is there, the staff is everything though. So I really value having them. And their inputs, you know, if it's a bad day, I need them to speak up. If it's a good day, I show my gratitude, my appreciation, because they're the frontlines to patient care. If the patients don't like my staff, they're not going to like me right off the bat, right? They're not going to come back.

Dr. Justin  20:42  
A lot of people lost patience and didn't even realize it because of their staff. That's true. Exactly. What what type of like five year or 10 year goals do you have for yourself? Or? And how do you know if they're worthy, go after?

Dr. Tea  20:54  
Man. That's a loaded question.

Dr. Justin  20:58  
I'm gonna be at this clinic forever.

Dr. Tea  21:00  
I love being where I'm at right now I'm very happy with location with the group with when getting as far as building my practice. But I do see myself expand a little bit more on wound care issues, maybe in higher risk area. And I hope to see that grow, where people are actually wanting to stay in this community for wound care. Right now, we have a split between people who live in the area who want to stay and their referral, their primary doctors want to refer them out to a bigger academic facility. We're not academic facility, we're a small community. Okay. So it's my hope that we keep patients who live here in the neighborhood to get good care to get competitive care, as well as an academic center.

Dr. Justin  21:48  
If you have five of them, four or five of y'all, y'all can really offer the gamut of Podiatry things that even a teaching hospital down the street could do. Yeah,

Dr. Tea  21:57  
we do have experiences from different backgrounds, we all specialize in very unique things. There's nothing we don't really cover in this area. So that's kind of my driving goal is to maintain that and keep that here.

Dr. Justin  22:12  
Well, that says something to because there's such a need in a community where you can actually hire that many in one building and not feel like you're competing against each other. Plus, there's probably other podiatry groups in the town as well.

Dr. Tea  22:22  
Right. There's other groups. They're the they're major groups. I think we're the only private practice group here.

Dr. Justin  22:27  
Where do you see it? I guess it's a double question. Where do you see the future of your profession going in the next few years, and what gets you excited about Podiatry in the future?

Dr. Tea  22:37  
I think wound care is very underappreciated in podiatry, but it's advanced because now we're noticing that more often than not a lot of our patients are diabetics. And they're very difficult to use to cure, you can't cure diabetes, always. So that's kind of where my professional goals are headed towards, into educating maybe the people interested in podiatry may be those students who have not not much of a clear idea where their practice is heading, residency training where you know, they want to do particular procedures that are really cool. And then they want to add to that armamentarium and there's you know, the wound care component where not only are we utilizing advanced grafts, ortho biologics they're called but we're doing you know, these beautiful rotational muscle flaps where we're using your own body to cover a wound and get you healing without you know, really expensive grafts and things like that.

Dr. Justin  23:34  
Is the technology there? Because that are they're growing and 3d printing like kidneys and different things are we there yet in your profession?

Dr. Tea  23:42  
I don't know what we need to grow in the lower extremity we can we harvest skin from your own body already. And that's an old tech you know, plastic surgery technique. That's all we really need is skin. I think the next step is probably trying to rebuild fat in the bottom of your foot. Okay, you know, we that takes up a lot of pressure over time. And as you get older, the fat layer thins out and that's how people start to get sores. So I think I see that in plastic surgery, they're talking about, you know, liposuction and transferring fat from one area into another. So I kind of see that moving forward.

Speaker 2  24:17  
I thought they were I thought they weren't doing that not necessary for like breast enhancements, but for like, redistributed it to different areas of like your calf or like something like that if you needed it. So they're not there yet for the feet.

Dr. Tea  24:30  
Correct. Some people are doing it. But the long term results are a little bit sketchy because I

Dr. Justin  24:35  
guess it does have its own blood supply. And otherwise it would just kind of like die inside your well plus

Dr. Tea  24:40  
the bottom of your foot. If you imagine you know all the weight that you put on it every day the fat can dissolve and thins out again.

Dr. Justin  24:47  
That's true. So what's protecting it now just kind of what God gave you to begin with is pretty superior.

Dr. Tea  24:53  
The bottom of your feet you mean there's a college and lattice structure that you can't really replicate even if you injected fat It's it's a different architecture.

Dr. Justin  25:02  
Does the PRP stuff work in the field? Like it would for an elbow? Yes.

Dr. Tea  25:06  
There's a PRP for sports medicine. I mean, distractive Emma has it has been shown to work in some particular pathologies. Yes. But that's not my area of expertise. I don't know too much about it.

Dr. Justin  25:20  
Gotcha. Last couple questions. You okay. Yeah. All right. We're gonna switch gears. So you're, you're married. So we'll ask a question about that, too. All right. So sometimes, as a doctor, it's difficult to take vacation because we lose money on the weekend. Well, we spend money on the vacation, we lose revenue from not seeing clients. And then especially if you're new, you may not actually have enough time built up. So do you take vacation? And if so, how are you able to do that or take more if you notice that you don't,

Dr. Tea  25:44  
I have to take a vacation. It's easy to get overwhelmed. I see over 20 patients a day, sometimes four days a week, sometimes five days a week just depends. Sometimes I take another Saturday to see patients it's, it's overwhelming if you don't take your break for yourself. So I I do commit to utilize every single day I have on for vacation for that exclusively. And when I'm on vacation, I am checked off. And that's very difficult for a physician, it's difficult for a surgeon because if you just did a surgery, you need to be reachable. But you know, if I know vacations coming up, I have to build around that and make sure that my colleagues can back me up, you know, if I'm out of town, something like that. But I think it's critical to make time for vacation.

Dr. Justin  26:31  
So you do have a nice, most people, I guess, are willing to cover for you because at some point, they're gonna need the return favor. Yeah, that's

Dr. Tea  26:38  
the advantage of a group, we have a call schedule. So things come up life happened, we have to cover for each other. It's pretty good. All right, well,

Dr. Justin  26:46  
what about this, besides your profession? Do you have any hobbies or volunteers or kids or anything like that, that keeps you busy,

Dr. Tea  26:53  
and very busy at work. So what little time I have left a job to stay active, go to gym, hang out with my dogs, my husband, what we really do enjoy doing is restaurant hunting. So we're always looking for new new foods to try new places to go and hang out. We make an effort to travel outside of our little neighborhood and try different things. So we're exploring

Dr. Justin  27:18  
what's your favorite? I guess, non staple American food?

Dr. Tea  27:22  
Or there's so many love Italian food. We love enemies, Korean and Japanese. Gosh, that's the hard one. We just eat everything really?

Dr. Justin  27:31  
Because Vietnam noodles are so good. By the way. When we when I go there, I'm like, Oh, these are so good. And then you know, I'm living in China. So we had a lot of noodles, but they're like the fresh made ones. And so a whole nother level. It's a whole nother level where you get like, even an Italian place if you get fresh noodles versus not noodles

Dr. Tea  27:49  
to get them fresh no matter where you are. Yeah,

Dr. Justin  27:52  
I mean, I just do not even cook noodles at the house because they're just not the same. Yeah. What what is something that maybe you and your your husband do to make sure you guys feel connected and not kind of drift apart as the since you're both surgeons? That's a good question.

Dr. Tea  28:09  
He's extremely busy as a general surgeon, and I am. I try not to be very demanding wife, but it's hard. And then in this, we went through this through school, I you know, we were both busy. And even though I'm studying to be a doctor, myself, I'm still wife, I still want to be around him. So we used to commit to having a date night, you know, Friday night, we make time to go out phones away. Now that we're in practice, you know, we have a lot more leisure, we have a little bit more control in our schedule. So we make the effort to make to have dinner together every night, whether we eat out or for on the go make that time to sit down and talk about our day and all that very good.

Dr. Justin  28:55  
So that's been pretty helpful. Yeah, very good. The reason why I asked there's so many doctors just being a doctor increases your chance of divorce plus, just being married as always, never. You know this, that's always bad there. So there's so many doctors, they gained the world and then they lose their family. So that's that's why we always kind of asked that question on the show and kind of get to know everybody has a different answer. So that's actually a new one, having dinner together every night and having the conversation.

Dr. Tea  29:20  
But we take it for granted sometimes.

Dr. Justin  29:23  
What's easy to get distracted. Oh, I'm gonna go to the gym instead while you go do your thing. And we'll just kind of meet up after that. And yeah, so yeah, do you have to have a morning routine or a lunch routine that gets you grounded and focused for the rest of the day?

Dr. Tea  29:36  
I wish I had a routine. You know, I used to wake up early and do yoga and just do like a three minute meditation. You know, try to plan out my day. This morning. I'm gonna have a healthy breakfast and then do my yoga. I'm gonna work on some of the goals I want to achieve today. I want to talk I want to think about some of my weaknesses and things I wasn't so good at last week. You know, perhaps I didn't communicate very well, or whatever it is. And I kind of got it down. And I think about that actively throughout the day making sure that I don't repeat those mistakes. And so that's how I started to generate my day in and not trying to be so overwhelmed with the work because it's easy to get buried into the paperwork. And just, you know, when when irritation stack up, it's easy to just, you know, take it on your staff and let it get out of control. But I tried to start the morning off, right? And just be a little bit more mindful,

Dr. Justin  30:30  
great answer. What about any favorite books, or apps or podcasts or things like that, that really made an impact on your life, whether it's something you'd always give, like, if you're a student, if you're anybody, this is a book I would recommend. And then you know, secretly, this is another really good book that has helped me out in certain areas of my life and the nuggets for us there.

Dr. Tea  30:50  
I really enjoy two things, audio audiobooks, so audible.com, whatever books you want, if you're a lazy reader, like me, you just want to listen, you can get through a book a little bit faster, is a resource that I like. The other one is Ted, Ted Talks. Sometimes I want to just branch out of my specialty and see the world and understand what other people are really good at. or I take a motivational speaker and listen to them for an hour. And you know, whatever breaks I have, I tried to utilize those two things exclusively to just expand my knowledge of the world. As far as particular books, there are so many, but the most recent one I read that I just bought for a bunch of people is called The Slight Edge. Are you familiar with that book? Not really. It's a it's a really easy read. And I really like it because there's a there's an each chapter, there's people's writing on how that book has improved their life. And I kind of tell you, I like those types of books a lot about other books. It's a book about get having a slight edge in whatever profession you're doing, or whatever goals you're trying to achieve. You know, what is that secret? I mean, the secret is really obvious actually. Up to you figured out.

Dr. Justin  32:08  
Yeah, no, that sounds fantastic. I agree with you now that you said that is like that is a kind of a book that I like is is a accumulation of a lot of people's wisdom and other things that they've done. Learn from people. That's what I say, Yes, me too. Well, how can people get in contact with you?

Dr. Tea  32:22  
You can find me easily online. T ea dpm.com is my website. DPM stands for a doctor of Podiatric Medicine, so that's designated for a podiatrist. Or you can find me on Instagram and Dr. T underscore podiatry. I thought it was funny that Ryan so Dr. T podiatry. I don't know if that's gonna stick. But you can find me online. I'm all over

Speaker 2  32:51  
social media. Keep it easy, right? Yes, absolutely. Well, any any parting words? Anything we might have missed that you would like to chat about? Before we go?

Dr. Tea  33:00  
I think you've covered it all. Yeah, but maybe we can emphasize on the medical field and how there is still a need for females to represent. And I say that because you've asked me a question earlier about some misconception, right? That idea. It's oftentimes it's because of my age, and oftentimes it's my sex, your female Doctor, what you know, do you have equal abilities as a male, whatever that really means. I have patients coming to me all the time, not believing them the doctor for whatever reason, whatever bias that they have. So I really encourage women, if you're interested in medicine to really give it a shot, because we need more representation.

Dr. Justin  33:43  
Absolutely. And this is women's spotlight. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Totally forgot. Yeah. So is it? How do you say it is there? The qualifications are the same, right? Like whenever you gotta get in, it's scores. It's what activities you've done. It's like you're just as qualified as, quote The men. You just have to actually apply and want to do it

Dr. Tea  34:04  
work hard, and you'll get it. No big deal.

Dr. Justin  34:06  
Yeah. Come on, ladies. Let's do it.

Dr. Tea  34:09  
It's not that hard. I mean, come on.

Dr. Justin  34:11  
You got to study anyway. Right. Exactly. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. And I wish you the best of 2017 in, in work and in life and in everything that you're doing. Thanks so much. All right. Dr. T, amazing. Great job. It's so you know, it's a guy. We don't have to deal with this. You look too young, maybe a little too young. But not Oh, can I get the guy because the woman can't do their job as crazy. So thank you for talking about that. And providing that encouragement for other women in high school and students to pursue the medical profession you can do it are going to study right. Look forward to reading about the slight edge. I'm going to google it. Just again, thank you so much for your time and the great knowledge that you gave us today. Show Notes can be found at a time Actors perspective.net/to Eight