Tag: profile

Behind the scenes with a co-director of The Pride Study

In our “Behind the Scenes” series, Stanford Medicine physicians, nurses, researchers and staff members share a glimpse of their daily lives.

For Stanford obstetrician/gynecologist Juno Obedin-Maliver, MD, MPH, there is no typical day. Part of what she loves about her job is that every day is different.

Obedin-Maliver practices the full spectrum of gynecology, including outpatient, inpatient, operative and emergency services. She also co-directs The PRIDE Study, which is a national prospective, longitudinal cohort of sexual and/or gender minority people — including but not limited to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.

I was excited to speak with her about how she fits all of this into her day — both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pre-COVID morning routine

I get up between 5 a.m. and 6:15 a.m. I usually make some tea and have breakfast before getting my three-year-old son up, dressed and fed. Then, either my partner or I take him to school. Next, I head down to Stanford from San Francisco where I live.

Organizing the workweek

I see patients about 30% of the time, and the rest of the time I do research. Days that I don’t see patients are a mix of research writing and meetings — with overnight calls or surgery kind of sprinkled in here and there.

Part of my research team is at Stanford, part at the University of California San Francisco and part at our office in the Oakland City Center. So, I have meetings with folks all over the Bay, and also all over the country, because we have collaborators and stakeholders across the United States.

The PRIDE Study

The main focus of  The PRIDE Study is understanding the relationship between being a sexual and/or gender minority person and a person’s health. And we think about health broadly: physical health, mental health, social health and wellbeing. We want to understand in more detail the well-documented health disparities among sexual and gender minority people, but also their health resiliency. We’ve enrolled about 18,000 people in the study.

I’m also working to build an LGBTQ+ program at Stanford, which will include clinical care, research and education.

Juno Obedin-Maliver, MD, MPH, and Mitchell Lunn, MD, co-direct The PRIDE Study, a national prospective, longitudinal cohort of sexual and/or gender minority people.
Most productive time of the day

My most productive time is in the morning at home. I usually triage my email — deleting spam, putting actionable items on my to-do list and putting anything that requires significant time on my calendar. And if I get up at 5 am, I can get an hour of uninterrupted writing in before my son wakes up, which is awesome.

Evening ritual

I get home between 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., then I just hang out with my son and my partner. We give him dinner and a bath, read him books and get him to sleep. And then we have our own dinner. Sometimes we just hang out until bedtime. And sometimes, unfortunately, we get back on the computer to work.

In the evening, I like to meditate, if only for 10 minutes. I remember what I’m grateful for. And I generally read a novel before I go to bed. Right now, I’m reading a book called The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine. It’s pretty great. I try to get to sleep by 10 or 10:30 p.m.

My day during the pandemic

I still see patients one day a week, and it’s a mix of in-person and video visits in the clinic. I also work some shifts on labor and delivery.

In terms of research, my team is still rocking and rolling, despite the challenges of COVID-19 and systemic violence around the country. I’m very luck to work with an inspiring team dedicated to equity and justice.

Professionally, it’s been a productive time, and we’ve published a number of papers. We’ve also launched a survey about the impact of COVID-19 for LGBTQ+ people, and a related survey about respiratory symptoms, and have had a few thousand responses already. The pandemic seems to be exacerbating systems of inequality, and that’s certainly true for LGBTQ+ — and even more so for LGBTQ+ people of color and those who are economically disadvantaged. As we enter Pride Month, we are also about to launch our fourth annual questionnaire on June 8, and celebrate having over 18,000 participants.

Having a 3-year-old at home and splitting his care throughout the day with my partner has been a big challenge though. Our kiddo misses his friends and school, as we all do. In many ways, we’re closer than ever, and have had a lot of opportunities to do crafts and bake — and we’re growing food on our porch (tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, chard and strawberries!).

On the other hand, trying to still fit in a full work day is a struggle; it means working before he is up and long after he goes to sleep, and unfortunately more screen time for him than ever before. That being said, we’re so lucky to be healthy, have access to food and have jobs that allow us to work at least some of the time from home while still being of service.

Photos by Steve Fisch

This is a reposting of my Scope story, courtesy of Stanford School of Medicine.

Behind the scenes with a Stanford pediatric surgeon

In a new series, “Behind the Scenes,” we’re inviting Stanford Medicine physicians, nurses, researchers and staff to share a glimpse of their day.

As a science writer, I talk to a lot of health care providers about their work. But I’ve often wondered what it is really like to be a surgeon. So I was excited to speak with pediatric surgeon Stephanie Chao, MD, about her day.

Chao is a pediatric general surgeon, an assistant professor of surgery and the trauma medical director for Stanford Children’s Health. In addition to performing surgeries on children of all ages, she has a range of research interests, including how to reduce gun-related deaths in children and the hospital cost associated with pediatric firearm injuries.

Morning routine
On days that I operate, I get up between 5:50 and 6 a.m., depending on whether I hit the snooze button. I typically don’t eat breakfast. I don’t drink coffee because I don’t want to get a tremor. I’m out the door by 6:30 a.m. and at the hospital by 7 a.m. I usually go by the bedside of the first patient I’m going to operate on to say hi. The patient is in the operating room by 7:30 a.m. and my cases start.

On non-surgical days, it’s more chaotic. I have a 3-year-old and 1-year-old. So every day there’s a jigsaw puzzle as to whether my husband or I stay to get the kids ready for preschool, and who comes home early.

Part of Stephanie Chao’s day involves checking on patients, including this newborn.

In the operating room
The operating room is the place where I have the privilege of helping children feel better. It’s a very calming place, like a temple. When I walk through the operating room doors, the rest of the world becomes quiet. Even if it is a high-intensity case when the patient is very sick, I know there is a team of nurses, scrub techs and anesthesiologists used to working together in a well-orchestrated fashion. So even when the unexpected arises, we can focus on the patient with full confidence that we’ll find a solution.

There are occasions when babies are so sick that we need silence in the operating room. Everyone becomes hyper-attuned to all the beeps on the monitors. When patients are not as critically sick, I often play a Pandora station that I created called “Happy.” I started it with Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” and then Pandora pulled in other upbeat songs, including a bunch of Taylor Swift songs, so everyone thinks I’m a big Taylor Swift fan.

The OR staff call me by my first name. I believe that if everyone is relaxed and feels like they have an equal say in the procedure, we work better as a well-oiled machine for the benefit of the patient.

“The OR staff call me by my first name,” Stephanie Chao said.

Favorite task
Some of the most rewarding times of my day are when I sit down with patients and their families to hear their concerns, to reassure them and to help them understand what to expect — and hopefully to make a scary situation a little less so. As a parent, I realize just how hard it is to entrust one’s child completely in the hands of another. I also like to see patients in the hospital as they’re recovering.

Favorite time
The best part of the day is when I come home. When I open the door into the house, my kids recognize that sound and I hear their little footsteps as they run towards the door, shrieking with joy.

Evening ritual
When my husband and I get home, on nights I am not on call, I cook dinner in the middle of the chaos of hearing about the kids’ day. Hopefully, we “sit down” to eat by 6:20 or 6:30 p.m., and I mean that term loosely. It’s a circus, but eventually everyone is somewhat fed.

And then we do bath time and bedtime. There’s a daily negotiation with my three-year-old on how many books we read before bed. On school nights, she’s allowed three books but she tries to negotiate for 10.

Eventually, we get both kids down for the night. Then my husband and I clean up the mess of the day and try to have a coherent conversation with each other. But by then both of us are exhausted. I try to log on again to finish some work, read or review papers. I usually go to sleep around 11 p.m.

Managing it all
When I can carve out time to do relaxing things for myself, like go to the gym, that is great. But it’s rare and I remind myself that I am blessed with a job that I love and a wonderfully active family.

The result sometimes feels like chaos, but I don’t want to wish my life away waiting for my kids to get older and for life to get easier. Trying to live in the moment, and embracing it, is how I find balance.

Photos by Rachel Baker

This is a reposting of my Scope blog story, courtesy of Stanford School of Medicine.

%d bloggers like this: