Laurie Baedke (00:02.498)
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Growth Edge Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Laurie Baedke and I am so delighted to be joined today by a colleague, Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid. Dr. Lawrence-Reid is a board certified pediatrician and the founder of Doctoring Differently. Doctoring Differently is a landmark digital course and online community that educates physicians of all specialties about flexible, lucrative careers beyond full-time clinical medicine.
She is a proud Boston area native now warmly based in San Diego, California. Although I will tell you, and we'll probably learn this as we chat, Dr. Lawrence Reid is rarely in one place very long. She is a traveling bug and she has spent a lot of time everywhere, but she graduated from Wake Forest University, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and she completed her general pediatrics residency at Children's Hospital.
in Montefiore Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York. Naomi, take the mic, fill in some color commentary and tell the listener just a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (01:09.526)
Sure, thank you so much for having me, Laurie. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for the warm introduction. You said it all, including the fact that I am, while based in San Diego, rarely here, I'll say, but I have created a career and a way of working that allows me to travel and live my life in ways that people didn't think were possible, ways that they told me.
were not possible for doctors, for general pediatricians. And I feel just very, very honored and very grateful that I took a chance and kind of created this new way of working, which I'm able to work clinically and non-clinically for your physician listeners in the hospital, outside the hospital, do other consulting and expert and writing, things that I can do from anywhere in the world. And then when I'm back.
in California I can you know see children and practice clinically so it's it's a career that I've put together brick by brick myself that I want all physicians to know is possible.
Laurie Baedke (02:17.25)
Love that so much. Let's just kind of start at the very beginning. I can't wait to tee you up to talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial work, but let's start at the beginning of your clinical career in medicine. What was your original vision of what that career would look like when you entered medicine or as you were training in medicine?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (02:37.644)
Well, I'll say I did not have a vision for entrepreneurship. I did not have a vision for my own business, my own companies at all. think, you know, in medicine or in graduate school, we kind of can pick the people out in our class where we think, they, that, that person, that woman, that man, they're gonna have their own company. They're on an MBA track. They're destined for that kind of life. That was absolutely not me. I...
did my residency in New York City. Near the end of my residency, I enjoyed the pediatric ER environment. I liked the shift work, I liked the variety, and I imagined a career working in a pediatric emergency department. And so I finished residency in New York in 2014. I moved to San Diego for no reason other than the weather. I'll tell you right now, I just, I knew I was done with the Northeast. I grew up in the Boston area.
but I wanted to live in Southern California. I just did. So I moved, I got a job, and it was about three years into that job, which I think for many young doctors or doctors getting their first jobs, it takes us a little while to realize this isn't necessarily the career that we thought it would be, that we'd sacrificed so much for, paid so much money to pursue. And despite the pride of
Hopefully the pride in ourselves and the pride our families and communities have for us, you know, I think a lot of us, we're truly honest with ourselves, are not as happy as we wished we were. And so it was, you know, three years of a, I'll say a very low salary in comparison with the debt that I had. Again, for your non-physician listeners, pediatricians are paid the least of all physicians. So we just live at the bottom of the physician pay scale.
And it is, as they say, it is what it is, up to a point. I'll get to that later. But I, after a few years, almost three years, I looked around and in the ER, you're working shoulder to shoulder with your colleagues. So we're not in offices, we're right there working. And I could see the future. I could see that it didn't get better. I'm working with doctors who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s, who are just counting days and seconds to retirement.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (04:58.428)
And I thought, okay, I just can't, I can't delude myself into thinking, well, when I make partner, or when I make professor, and it'll get better, it'll get better, I'm watching it actually not get better. And at that point, I knew I had to do something. I knew no one was coming to save me. I knew I had to make a change and save myself.
Laurie Baedke (05:23.19)
Wow. So at that point in time, you're facing a fork in the road. Did you have a vision for where you would go next? And what fears or uncertainties were you kind of wrestling with as you began to explore something different?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (05:25.9)
Yeah? Yes.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (05:41.608)
That's a really good question. I'll tackle the last question first. Well, I'll say I didn't have a vision. I didn't have a goal. I just knew I wasn't happy where I was. And I think that that sometimes needs to be your impetus to move is just, I don't like where I am right now and I might not see the whole next path.
I may not see the end of the road. Medicine, it's a long path. And we get very used to knowing where the horizon is as doctors. Everything is set up. It's undergrad, it's medical school, residency, research year fellowships, attend, it gets all very prescribed. No pun. so to shift and adjust to something that is a little bit, is more murky, there's fog, there's mist over the path, you can't see the end of it.
is can be very intimidating and scary. Okay, but let me go back to the fierce part. I didn't give my final straw moment. And so I'll give that to you now. So I'll describe an ER for anyone who's not been in an ER, great for you. But I'll tell you where the physicians do a lot of their work that's outside of the patient room, there's generally a very small office.
Laurie Baedke (06:41.038)
Please do. It's such a great story.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (07:00.148)
Some would call it a closet, but it's a small office with two desks, two chairs, two computers. Very humble, but that is where doctors do their charting in the ER and depending on whose shift, we have different people back there. In the hospital I was working in, I walked into a shift, it was, I'll say, of 2016, and I walked in and the chair that was available for me had an armrest, it was an office chair, but it was broken off.
entirely and there were shards of metal just sticking up and there was a post-it note on the computer that said you know administration is aware they are working on it and in my mind someone is at office max right now getting an 80, 90 dollar office chair this is a hospital with a billion dollar annual revenue and we all know how important physician charting is for insurance purposes for reimbursement for everyone in healthcare effectively being paid so
but I sit down, I tuck my arm to my torso so I'm not impaled with metal. I see my patients, I come back, I do my charting, I do my notes, and I leave at the end of that shift. I return the next day or the day after for my next shift expecting to see a new chair, but instead administration had taped diapers around the shards of metal rather than replacing the chair. And I stood.
at the door of the office and I just looked, I looked at that for about 10, 20 seconds. And in that moment, the past almost three years just came rushing over me. The low salary, the high debt I was managing, the overnights and the weekends and the holidays, which yes is part of a ER physician schedule, but having no control, having no autonomy, having really no,
upward trajectory in this department, or really I could feel in this field. I was in a large academic center. So in that moment, I just knew that was a line, a boundary that I didn't know I had. I didn't know diapers would change the trajectory of my career in a non-motherhood way, I'll say. But I went home that night and submitted my letter of resignation. And some would call it a tantrum, just a moment of,
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (09:26.144)
a little bit of rage, I'll say, but again, it was cumulative three years, I think just crystallized into those diapers on that chair, all coming together and me not necessarily knowing what my next step was. But in that moment, I just said, I'll figure it out. I can't stay here. I simply cannot stay here. Whether my, resigned in three months, six months, I'll figure it out in the meantime, but I have to.
overcome the inertia of being in one place and I need to start making a change and move. And again, I'll figure it out as I go.
Laurie Baedke (10:03.094)
Okay, thank you for sharing that. And I wish that you hadn't had to live that, but I also know from my own journey and from so many conversations with so many other amazing individuals, we never really hit those transition moments or the pivots until we either have the courage or the pain of staying become so great that it overwhelms.
and mutes the fear or pain of changing, right?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (10:36.434)
Exactly, exactly. It overrode any, I'd say that pain or that discomfort, the offense I felt, overcame the fear for sure.
Laurie Baedke (10:45.944)
Yeah. So you knew that you were at an inflection point and you endeavored to start building something for yourself. So tell us a little bit about the years that have transpired since that. You started building for yourself. What did that look like? And then what did you start to build that you started to share with others as well?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (10:56.876)
Sure.
I'll say, Sure, so you make it sound so glamorous, I'll say. Man, you make it sound so glamorous. Again, for your audience, it was not merely as thought out, I'll say, as, you know, imagining I'm building and creating for myself. I was trying to survive. I was trying to just live.
Laurie Baedke (11:29.422)
Scrappy. Scrappy.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (11:30.412)
I was very scrappy. wasn't, in fact, it wasn't, at the time, now of course in retrospect, we're now eight-ish years later, I can definitely put a nice rose-colored lens of, always knew I was destined for great things. I did not know or feel that at the time. I just knew I was living in a very high cost of living city. I had almost $200,000 of educational debt.
I did not have a wealthy spouse or family to pay my bills or to let me coast and figure it out for a couple months or a year. I knew I had to immediately just work. And I, at the time, was around 33 years old. And I just went per diem. So again, for medical people, I feel like even non-medical people understand the concept of per diem. I was effectively a substitute teacher, a substitute doctor.
And that's what it is. It's like, I'm not fully employed, but I just hop in and see patients. And you know, when someone is out sick or on maternity leave or, you know, for whatever reason can't work, I fill in. even that, and so it was not any great entrepreneur, that was not the necessarily beginning of a building entrepreneurial step for me, but it provided, I again had to survive. But even that step, I'll tell you for a lot of doctors looked
They said, why would you, you're wearing an academic center and you you could be assistant professor and full professor and partner and you know, you need to stay on these tracks and show that you're a team player. And I just said, I was so unhappy there. I wasn't research focused. Research was not a passion of mine. I didn't want to do a fellowship, which that is I think in healthcare and medicine. And part of the American dream is that more education is the answer and the key to.
inevitable happiness and success. And that is not true either. But the thought is, well, you need to do a fellowship, go be a pediatric cardiologist. I think they have a better life. But I didn't want to be a cardiologist. Or get an MBA, go get another degree. That will be the answer. And I thought, no, I've gone to school a lot. I've gotten the certifications, and I've done the things. And I just feel like there must be more I can do with what I already have. And it started with just going across town.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (13:51.636)
working per diem shifts, that in a few months turned into doing some travel doctor work, which is called locums in our field. people have heard of travel nurses. Almost everyone has heard of a travel nurse, but very few people, even doctors have not as frequently heard of travel doctor work. And it is the same concept, and it is so, so important for so many rural hospitals that are outside of big cities.
that need coverage, that doctors don't necessarily want to live there full time, so they have to pull in doctors to work a few days, maybe a few weeks at a time, and go home. But it's a real network. There's about 75,000 doctors in the US who work this way. So I began to do that in the state of California. I a California medical license, so that's where I would go to different parts of the state and work for a week or so at a time.
by the way, be able to negotiate very high rates, high salaries, travel, of course, reimbursed. But it became so exciting. I really enjoyed it. And I met other doctors who were doing this work, doctors who have families, doctors who, but were able, found so much joy in this type of work. And then I'll try to speed through the rest, but that opened up, know, I'd work a week and, you know, earn more than I was making in a month, sometimes two months.
it would open up so much capacity and time in my life that I began to think, okay, well, what else can I do? I began doing some medical writing. I began doing expert witness work with attorneys. So, you know, there are a number of civil cases happening all the time that aren't necessarily malpractice. I'll say that. We think that the intersection of law and medicine is always, you know, a doctor messed up and it's a malpractice case, and that is not true. There are...
Cases, civil cases of liability happening all the time where there's an injury or an illness that is not caused by a doctor's actions or negligence, but doctors still need, or I'm sorry, attorneys still need a physician to kind of just give their opinion and distill medical records. I began doing that. I began doing veteran disability exams. It turns out any physician of any specialty, including pediatricians, can do veteran disability exam. I'm here in San Diego and.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (16:06.924)
There's a lot of military and a lot of veterans who live here too. But it just turned into one thing after another. I clearly caught a bug for, wow, this is so fun. I'm having fun again. And by the way, I'm working, in my opinion, half the time, but earning four and five times what I used to make. So now taking summers off traveling, as you mentioned, taking December off.
And it just opened up more and more excitement and energy that I then knew I wanted to share with other doctors.
Laurie Baedke (16:40.684)
Yeah. And what did that sharing start as? You obviously lead an organization called Doctoring Differently Now. So maybe lead with telling about what does Doctoring Differently look like now and maybe lace in some of the iterative growth journey that brought it to today.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (16:44.652)
Yeah.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (16:59.776)
Sure, so doctoring differently was birthed out of my own experience. I wanted to set the stage and the scene with the things that I do, which none of which were taught to me in training or in medical school or in residency. as doctors, we love to be taught. I'll say it's spoon-fed. We expect to be spoon-fed information. And trust me, we can learn a lot. We know a lot. But there is a degree of
If they didn't teach it to me, I'm not supposed to know it or I'm not able to learn it. And I knew that I had tapped into this incredible way of working for doctors. And I'll say as a pediatrician, I initially felt, well, you here I am previously at the bottom of the physician pay scale, but I have turned things fully around. I think that I need to lean into that.
that here is, if a pediatrician can do it, any physician of any specialty can do any of the things that I teach about. But that is where it came from. I I arrived at a place unexpected that I was finding so much happiness and success and fulfillment and innovation and autonomy and choice and freedom, all of the good words that not many doctors, at least in these full-time clinical positions can maybe describe for their own positions.
And I knew that I wanted to create what I wished I had when I started because I was very scrappy with it. As we saw, was chair on a diaper and I was out of there and I was picking up shifts and I was going here and going there, but figuring out on the road, figuring out as I went. And I knew that I could shorten that period for so many doctors to be, this is what going per diem looks like. This is how you write a resignation letter. This is how you negotiate. This is what locums looks like.
This is how you start VA disability. This is how you start expert witness work. Putting that all in one place from a position of experience and authority is, in my opinion, just so, so, so valuable. And I didn't want to hear doctors say what they, what we all say to each other. Well, they didn't teach us and you know, all these things we tell ourselves. And I do, I understand, of course I do, but at some point recognizing this is, we have one life to live. This is your one life to live. This is your one career.
Laurie Baedke (19:21.55)
Yeah.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (19:22.892)
There's probably people at home you want to see more, places in the world you want to go more, and your medical director, your department chair, your colleagues, they're not going to change your career. No one's coming to save you, but you can do this and you can change, you can take this education and you can make real changes for your own career and for your own family and life.
Laurie Baedke (19:46.274)
Yeah, that's so amazing. And how rewarding and meaningful, Naomi, that you are the guide. You have written the playbook and you take people by the hand in a moment of deep uncertainty and often fear or stress and chaos. And you say, come with me. I'll walk with you. There are others. Look, look, there are others. We will all do this together.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (19:53.386)
Yeah. Yeah.
Laurie Baedke (20:12.728)
how meaningful for you, it's kind of the ultimate see one, do one, teach one, right? And you, you have taken that lived experience and your gumption and your courage and your tenacity and frustration, and you have turned this into something so fantastic, but let's talk a little bit about some of the individuals who come to the program, who come to doctoring differently. What patterns do you see?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (20:18.348)
That's exactly right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Laurie Baedke (20:40.504)
kind of current among the physicians who come and knock on the door at doctoring differently and let you take their hand and walk them or guide them on this journey.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (20:50.826)
Right, I'll say, you're exactly right. It is the biggest honor. just, I am so grateful every day that I took a chance, I'll say, I'll take a chance. First of all, on myself. Again, if no one else is gonna do it, I have to do it. In the words of RuPaul, you don't love yourself, how are you gonna love anyone else? You have to love yourself, you have to do it yourself. And then,
when I had this idea that, I can show other doctors the way. I'm just so honored and grateful. And you're right. Watching doctors change their lives is like, just, I feel like I'm like, man, who better? Who more important? I'm partial, of course. But I feel like it's making Americans better, making people healthier. When we're walking, going into rural hospitals, but on our own terms, well-rested.
well compensated, I mean, I'm the best doctor they ever had and I see it in their eyes and they say, hey, do you have a clinic around here? Can I come see you? And know, sometimes an awkward conversation because I'm in and out, but in that moment, I'm giving them the absolute best care and they're better for it, I'm better for it. It's such a beautiful relationship. The nurses at these hospitals that I'm...
sometimes rotating through are so grateful. The communities are so grateful. I'll go into the local frozen yogurt shop. It's, hey, doc. And it's like, I don't necessarily know these people, but they know that I'm a visiting doctor in town and are so glad that I'm there. And by the way, the non-clinical things I do that are apart from the bedside are helping with legal cases or even public policy, things that affect health, that one person at a time is a great impact.
but I could have an even greater impact helping with policy and public health and other advisory roles. So it's been such a journey. Back to your question, who are the doctors who come through? They are at the end. They are so tired. They are so frustrated. They found me on social media or someone, a friend, of recommended them. Sometimes I've had
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (23:08.2)
spouses or children of doctors reach out to me on social media to say, my mom, my wife, she is so stressed. What can she do? I'm giving her your information. And these are our doctors who are of all specialties. mean, from Peds to and emergency family medicine, interventional radiologists, cardiologists, we are all feeling it. Doctors of all specialties who are feeling those constraints of
these corporate medical systems that have decided our worth, which is far less than often the worth of their administrators or other people who run the hospitals, but also have decided this is the call schedule. This is when you'll hold the pager. You will see 30 to 40 patients a day. You never want to be a doctor's 35th or 40th patient, I'll tell you that right now, in a day. But these are...
These are situations that often are beyond our control, but if there's a mistake made, well, that's fully on us, despite our exhaustion, despite the setups that these hospitals have not constructed our careers for our own success in that way. So I meet doctors often at their lowest, at a very low, low point, where they say, I'm ready. I'm ready to learn.
Laurie Baedke (24:21.868)
Hmm.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (24:29.956)
and I'm ready to make a change and I can't keep working this way. I see so many physicians often women who are ready to step away from medicine altogether who say, listen, I can't be a doctor and be a mother. It's too much, it's too hard. I pick motherhood and yes, I have spent decades becoming a physician.
and maybe have a lot of debt to go with it, but I simply cannot do this and I'm ready to walk away entirely because I think it's full-time clinical or it's nothing at all. And I am so excited to tell them and to show them, no, it does not have to be one or the other. It is not all that or none of that. There's so many ways to work on your own terms in between that keep women, keep doctors in medicine, but especially keep female doctors in medicine.
which has again been for me an unforeseen victory, but one that I've truly enjoyed.
Laurie Baedke (25:28.972)
Yeah. So that's one that was actually where I was going to take you next. And you kind of started down that path, which was kind of what are some of the myths about medical careers that keep people from exploring alternatives and, that maybe the stories they're telling themselves or what they've heard other people say.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (25:41.267)
Hmm.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (25:48.044)
Sure, man, I could go into so many. I'll say the first is that what I talk about or this vision of reinventing your career means leaving clinical medicine, which is patient care, full patient care. And that is absolutely not what I teach or preach. Clinical medicine is generally all we know. I could talk about how our skills are transferable to other industries, which they are.
But what we are taught is how to be a doctor to a patient or to thousands of patients, but that one-on-one interaction. And many doctors at their core do enjoy it. It is obviously very necessary for our society. It's one of the oldest professions. However, when it is, in the ways that I've described, just becomes so laborious and so untenable for doctors, that is the point where they just say, I'm so burned out.
I can't, in my in basket answering patient labs and questions all night long. I'm finishing charts and notes and you know, it gets to that point where it's like, I can't, if this is clinical medicine, I can't do any of it. But when I talk about what I do, they say, well, I'm not ready to leave. And I introduced the idea of part-time work, which I'll say, I know that most Americans have a concept of part-working part-time, working per diem. Doctors, we have,
often one speed. We are taught that we work at one speed, at the full, at the full, full time speed. So I introduce at least that concept. When I talk about travel doctor work, I tell my own experience. When I was finishing residency in 2014, my leadership said, don't consider locums. It's non-viable, it's illegitimate. Only doctors with, you know, some sort of
credentialing or licensure issues. Real doctors don't do it. It's the doctors in trouble who aren't that good. They're the ones who do it. Real doctors stay in these big, sexy, academic cities and just grind until they're full professor at 55. That's what real doctors do. so I have to, I turn that myth on its head as well and say, no, no, no, that's not true either. When it comes to expert work.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (28:10.956)
So many doctors, as I mentioned, think it's all malpractice. And I can't be involved. I don't want to throw another doctor or colleague under the bus. So I'm not going to do it at all when really you can, I'll say less than 30 % of expert cases are around malpractice. So first of all, it's a minority. On the other hand, we need doctors involved in that space as well. Doctors can prevent frivolous malpractice cases against other physicians.
by being a part of that work and showing the facts. We can support our colleagues occasionally in those spaces. But in general, these cases and these industries that require physician insight, I haven't even talked about AI or tech and all of the companies that are clamoring to get into healthcare. I hope there's some doctors in the room. I really do because I don't want it to be a bunch of tech bros who are just mumble, jumble chat GPTing how to treat a UTI.
I want there to be actually actual doctors. And I think we will all feel the consequences of when doctors aren't in the room. We'll be struggling with those policies down the road. So I have to present it in that way. And I do to my community. That was a question just last week. Well, I don't know about AI. I don't know about chat. I don't know. I've seen this job. But I don't know if I should really, if that's a good thing for us to get involved with. Who better?
Who better to get involved with it? I want doctors there. I want doctors in the room, even at insurance companies and third party payers. Very few people in this country are happy. I think with our current health care system, in my opinion, only doctors can change it. Only doctors being very loud and tenacious about doing the right thing, only we can change it.
Laurie Baedke (29:34.776)
Yeah.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (29:57.952)
So when I present things in that way, I think, doctors, I see the light bulbs go on over their head, and they start to look off in the distance and consider the possibilities. And that's what I like.
Laurie Baedke (30:10.114)
What are some of the bigger mistakes that physicians make when trying to pivot?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (30:15.584)
trying to do all of it at one time. These are great questions, by the way. Thank you so much. These are excellent. They think they have to do it all at once. They think that if there's one thing they heard of, they have to quit everything they're doing and go all in on that new thing. I'll use a med spa. I also have a aesthetics practice, a concierge practice here in San Diego that I operate part time.
I see so many physicians who kind of say, I wanna have a IV hydration clinic or a Botox filler clinic, or we're now doing, of course, a lot of hormones and weight loss. And so they're like, well, I'm gonna quit my job and then I'm gonna take out a giant small business loan, hire staff, rent a brick and mortar building, build it out, buy a $100,000 laser, and no, that, that.
is not the way to do it. I'll say this, very few people do that, but when they imagine a career shift, that is what they think of, and it's so intimidating and large, which it is, so they don't make any move at all, if that makes sense. They just don't, they're like, well, I would have to do all of those things, so I'm just, that's too much for me, I don't have an MBA. Okay, well, A, that's too much, in my opinion, for almost anyone.
But you can do it step by step. You can turn down clinical time. You can go per diem or part time. And you can start doing expert work or veteran disability or medical writing. I have so many writers. There's so many doctors who are great writers. And as I was telling you, Laurie, I have a student who sent me her book of poetry that she just published. Sent it in the mail.
Laurie Baedke (32:07.148)
So beautiful.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (32:10.06)
just yesterday and I feel like I'm unearthing these gifts and these talents that so many physicians table when we start medical school that we think we can't return to. But in fact, we can make this thing on our own terms. For most of us, in my opinion, it's a little bit of clinical medicine, it's a little bit of non-clinical, but it doesn't, there's no prescribed rule.
I've taken six to eight months off from working clinically and then picked it right back up again and balanced it with some non-clinical work that I'm also doing from home or a case I'm working on or a writing package I'm preparing for someone. So I think that that, I understand, can be intimidating for doctors. They'll say, but that's unstable. You have bills every month.
You know, I can't just contract work from time to time, but I think we just have to realize our skills are so always in demand. You can construct your job to be exactly what it needs to be and to have the income and the revenue that you need to have. That is all possible.
Laurie Baedke (33:10.243)
Yeah.
Laurie Baedke (33:20.236)
Yeah. No, I think, you know, that all or nothing thinking that is very, very tendon in hyper driven, high achieving professionals, type A individuals, physicians and surgeons, obviously very high on that list in that category can be our Achilles heel when it comes to being able to find a sustainable pivot. So I know our time is starting to run short, but there are a couple of things I really want to cue you up for. And so one is really the topic of identity.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (33:50.028)
Mmm.
Laurie Baedke (33:50.178)
was as you've watched, as you've achieved a significant career pivot and reinvention, and as you have guided so many others to do that, how does redefining your career reshape your leadership identity or your human identity?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (34:06.476)
Your questions are so good. okay. Identity, when you said identity, I thought, you know, the physician identity is a deep one. It's a thread through this past 30 minutes of everything we've been talking about. again, it's our identity, but it's also our mom's identity, our whole community's identity, the person working at the dry cleaners. Everyone knows you're the doctor.
there can be a real link, toxic or not, between that identity and staying at a job that is not a good one. For me, I talk about identity in that I'll say for me personally, honestly, if I'm out of the hospital and I'm not working in a physician capacity, I kind of don't want people to know I'm a doctor. I want to be a person first. It's so much more fun to just be a person. It's a lot less responsibility.
But I'll say when doctors are starting to consider this work, first layer I pull off is the specialty. We also have a big mentality around our specialties. Whether we are pediatricians, whether we're surgeons, whether we're anesthesiologists or radiologists, there's just a lot of identity and I'll say elitism and status around specialties. But so many of the opportunities that I talk about often just require a physician.
So I peel off that specialty layer, which is maybe a little nuanced in the physician arena. And then it's just like you're a doctor no matter what you do. If I wanted to stop everything I'm doing today and make jewelry on the beaches of Bali, I would still actually be a doctor. I wouldn't be practicing, but it's still there as long as I want it to be. So I just, and again, as I described, I have these writers who are now,
blooming and artists and people who are tapping into this so much creativity and potential that they didn't know that they had had, that they'd tampered and dampened throughout their training. So I'll just say my personal identity has evolved and it's honestly, it changes every day. Sometimes I am in front of an audience, I'm teaching, I'm educating. Sometimes I am a Botox injector. Sometimes I'm a writer.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (36:29.036)
Sometimes I'm a pediatrician in a clinic resuscitating a newborn. For me, that kind of diversity of my life and career, I think makes me a better person. It makes me a better human. It makes me a better doctor. Sometimes I'm a veteran disability examiner talking to an 80-year-old who fought in the Korean War, and he's showing me the Life magazine that he was featured in, and they don't even publish Life magazine anymore, but I'm thumbing through it and looking at his battleship.
I just feel richer in experience and in the conversations that I'm having with people every day that, like I said, I think make me a better doctor, but also make me a better human.
Laurie Baedke (37:12.362)
I love that, I love that. Well, I know that I could continue peppering you and I have so many questions we didn't get to, but I'm gonna land on this last one. And I'm just curious, what would you say to the physician who feels some kind of a quiet or incredibly increasingly loud nudge that there might be something more, but isn't sure how to pursue it?
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (37:33.388)
Sure. The first thing I'll say is you don't need permission. I think a lot of physicians are waiting for permission. They're waiting for someone, their department chair, medical director, or colleague to say, now's the time. You can go. You can go do something new or different. Or they're waiting for that perfect, you know, high paying opportunity to just find its way into their inbox and just
pull them out like a claw in an arcade, like that claw game, just pull them right out and then push them, drop them off in a perfect new role. I'll say that you don't need permission. If you do need it, I'm giving it to you right now. Here, you have permission to do something new. Doctors, we've needed permission at every stage of our career and we think we now need it to.
pivot and transform our careers, but you don't. And I'll just say there are no rules. We also are rule followers. We followed every rule. You have never met a more obedient person than a pre-med student or a med student or an intern or resident. We are regimented and we are obedient and we do what we're told and we do what we're taught. And if we weren't taught or told that these are opportunities that we can pursue, we often feel like we're doing something wrong if we do.
So those are the two big things I would say to a physician. I'd say, you know, follow me, get educated. There's so much free content now or so. I mean, in 2026, there's a lot out there. I get it. Sometimes it can feel like too much and you, what's good? What's what? Is this legit? Is this a scam? I'll say that there is a lot out there. So just start engaging with other physicians who you see doing new and different things. I've been so blessed and every step along the way I have sought.
individual mentors in these fields. Doctors are good people. For the most part, everyone wants to talk and share this great thing that they found. So, you know, whether it's on LinkedIn or on social media, but like get engaged with that and have the conversations and please know you are not alone. There's, you don't need to be ashamed or embarrassed that you're burned out or you're unhappy and you want to do something new. Know that you can. No one can do this but you, but you can do it.
Laurie Baedke (39:56.728)
love that so much. Naomi, I am going to put links in the show notes where people can find you, follow you, collaborate with you. And I can't wait to continue to follow your travels on social media because you are someone who is just, you are out there living your life and doing such amazing things and then showing others how to thrive and live life on their own terms as well.
Everything that you've shared today has just been so fantastic. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you for everything you're putting out into the world and for sharing time with us today.
Dr. Naomi Lawrence-Reid (40:28.8)
Thank you for having me.
