At home, things were not so great. My mother was a single parent who struggled with severe mental illness for her entire life. She was married 5 times. Her 3rd husband was a sexual predator who abused me many times. My memories of him are too horrific to go into detail here, but one that stands out is listening to my mom beg for her life as this wretched man held a gun to her head. I don’t harbor any blame for my mother. By working through this trauma later in life, I realized that she was just doing the best she could with the hand she had been dealt. I forgave her. 

When I was 15, my mother made me begin to pay rent, so I had to find myself a job. I went to the local fast-food restaurant, where the boss offered me a job as a cashier. But I wanted to be a fry cook. I wanted to know how the ‘sausage was made’. The boss laughed in my face and told me that 'girls weren't allowed near the deep fryers'. That it was 'too dangerous'. But I insisted. I knew what I wanted, and I knew I could do it. So I did, and I proved that guy wrong. I became the first girl fry cook in that little fast food restaurant in FL. This would turn out to be the first of my many, many encounters with the limitations of living in a Patriarchy and breaking through the glass ceiling.

As I got older, my urge to become a doctor got stronger - I wanted to make a difference, and to help people, and to get myself out of the cycle of poverty and relying on welfare that I had grown up in. Becoming a doctor seemed like the obvious choice - it ticked all the boxes. I completed all my training while married and giving birth to my 2 wonderful daughters. My husband turned out to be an abusive narcissist, which makes perfect sense - this was before I had embarked on my journey of healing. Eventually I left him, and found myself a full-time single parent who was responsible for the financial, emotional, practical, and educational support of my children.

When I hit 40, I really started to work on myself. This was triggered by having to deal with the addiction of a person who is very close to me - I realized that lots of things had to change if we were all going to survive. I didn't want my past to define me. Personal development has become my calling now. I have come so far and I want to help other people who feel stuck and held back by the things that have happened to them. I understand firsthand how trauma can affect the brain and cause it to get stuck in a destructive loop or spiral. That’s why I decided to become a life coach and get proper, accredited, trauma-informed training to help others unpack their traumas so they can move forward to live the life they want to live, and stop letting themselves be defined by their past.

Throughout my medical training, I don't recall being aware of gender bias on a conscious level. But as I progressed through the ranks of academic promotion, (assistant, to associate, to professor), it became apparent that my male colleagues were receiving different compensation for the same job, and routinely being offered and afforded more opportunities for growth and progression.

As I took on more leadership roles, I noticed that I would be judged by a different set of standards, and held to a higher expectation.

I published an article that provided a comprehensive, evidence-based overview of the gender bias-based roadblocks faced by women in academic medicine. I was chosen to be Chair of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Committee on Women Anesthesiologists. In that role, I participated in publishing several articles pertaining to women physicians and the amplification of gender bias as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the findings were published, childcare options for healthcare workers were introduced and followed, to enable those affected by the pandemic to get back to work.

I am proud to say that I was instrumental in getting The American Society of Anesthesiologists to officially recognize coaching as a tool for promoting a culture of healthcare well-being.