Identity, Endurance, and Choosing Your Path with Dr. Valencia Thomas

This episode of The Girl Doc Survival Guide features Dr. Valencia Thomas, a Black dermatologist and professor at UTHealth Houston and MD Anderson, who discusses her extensive training path and how identity shifts across places and career stages. She describes growing up in Fort Worth, being the only Black student in her class, and arriving at Harvard amid racial violence and inflammatory remarks, while valuing active dialogue and trusting an inner voice for safety and direction. Dr. Thomas emphasizes being race-conscious but not race-limited, and notes that people may say off-color things through ignorance rather than malice, sharing a story from Dr. Harley Haynes about learning respect and the “us vs. them” divide. She highlights lessons on communication from Ted Lasso, explains that about 16% of people are “never adopters,” and advises endurance—“adapt, migrate, or die”—and making decisions knowing they can often be changed.

00:00 Meet Dr Valencia Thomas

01:07 Texas Roots and Moving Around

01:53 Identity and Being Black

03:54 Harvard and Racial Reality Check

05:42 Learning Across Differences

06:50 Ted Lasso and Hard Conversations

07:53 One in Five Never Adopters

09:20 Endurance and Career Thriving

10:37 Changing Paths in Medicine

12:09 Wrap Up and Thanks

Dr. Carolyn Lee on Comfort Zones, Identity, and Creating Your Own Path in Medicine

Christine welcomes her friend and colleague Dr. Carolyn Lee, MD, PhD, a Yale- and Georgetown-trained dermatologist and Stanford residency graduate now at UVA, who is an epithelial biologist and entrepreneur focused on high-risk skin cancer and developing new anti-cancer therapeutics. Lee shares a childhood anecdote about avoiding the unknown and reflects on how growth happens at the edge of comfort, despite intimidation and failure. They discuss juggling multiple identities and interests, parenting mixed-race children after moving from the diverse Bay Area to Charlottesville, and the importance of maintaining hobbies and “many legs” of identity beyond work and family. Lee describes how being an Asian American woman shaped her experiences later in her career, including stereotypes, feeling “betrayed,” and learning to create her own path without templates, ending with advice: take opinions as opinions and do what you want to do.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:12 Comfort Zone Story

03:05 Growth at the Edge

03:42 Wearing Many Hats

05:54 Keeping Identity Beyond Work

07:25 Asian American in Medicine

09:10 Stereotypes and Belonging

11:47 No More Templates

12:40 Mentor Advice and Wrap Up

Love Language Audiobook Sample Featuring Narrator Da Eun Yoon

Christine shares an audio sample from the audiobook Love Language, narrated by Da Eun Yoon, and encourages listeners to check out Yoon’s earlier podcast episode and pre-order the audiobook via Amazon and other retailers. The excerpt follows a family arriving in South Korea, meeting relatives at the airport, and driving through heavy traffic as the narrator’s mother reflects on how the city has changed over fifteen years and how her memories of home connected to loneliness in America. The narrator expresses excitement to meet family and hints the trip will influence a future decision to move. They stay in a cousin’s small apartment, play video games despite language barriers, and spend days sightseeing palaces, temples, mountains, and a palace in Gwangju with traditional architectural details and customs like leaving shoes outside.

00:00 Welcome and Audiobook Intro

00:30 Arriving in South Korea

01:02 A Changed City

02:01 Family Apartment Bonding

03:12 Sightseeing Across Korea

03:26 Palace Details and Farewell

Dr. Hensin Tsao on Mentorship, Writing, and Defining Success Beyond Titles

Christine welcomes Dr. Hensin Tsao, Harvard Dermatology Professor and Director of melanoma programs at Mass General, who shares a pivotal early-career moment: stepping in for a WHO Melanoma Congress talk on genetics that led to new opportunities and reinforced the value of serendipity and mentorship. He advises giving every talk full effort regardless of audience size, focusing on turning “light bulbs” on for learners, and building an academic career through continual writing and strong communication, which he argues AI cannot fully replace in crafting persuasive, poetic narrative. Tsao reflects that titles are responsibilities, not validation, and warns that career moves can carry disruptive family costs. He discusses leadership lessons about recognizing differing goals in trainees, and describes his identities as explorer, clinician-guide using evidence to reduce suffering, and youth soccer coach. He closes by urging listeners to choose their own “destination” in life and work.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:44 Serendipity Breakthrough Story

04:16 Give Every Talk Your Best

06:18 Write to Thrive in Academia

08:29 Titles Versus Responsibility

13:31 Identity as Explorer Clinician Coach

17:27 Final Advice Pick Your Destination

Dr. Kate Gfeller on Cochlear Implants, Music Perception, and Becoming Yourself

On The Girl Doc Survival Guide, Christine interviews Dr. Kate Gfeller, PhD, Professor Emerita at the University of Iowa, about her career studying music perception, enjoyment, and rehabilitation for people with hearing loss, including NIH-funded work with cochlear implant users. Gfeller shares growing up on a rural Iowa farm amid a “tall poppy” culture of fitting in, and a pivotal moment when her father told her being like everyone else is not a life goal. She describes early mentors, scholarships, sexism in academia, and how she entered cochlear implant research by quickly preparing for an interdisciplinary opportunity and learning from surgeons and engineers. She discusses patient-centered research and offers strategies for living with hearing loss: accessible information, clinician coaching to apply it, building self-efficacy and self-advocacy with community support, and recognizing the impact of fatigue. She closes with reflections on identity, mentorship, kindness, and freedom of thought.

00:00 Meet Dr Kate Gfeller

01:52 Farm Girl Big Dreams

04:12 Tall Poppy Lessons

05:22 Path to a PhD

06:41 Breaking Into Research

08:57 Imposter Syndrome to Strength

09:58 Patient Centered Hearing Loss Insights

11:16 Three Keys to Self Advocacy

13:45 Growth Mindset and Asking for Help

14:47 Identity Kindness and Closing

New Roles, Shifting Identity, and Belonging

July 1 marks a common transition time for medical trainees, faculty, and others moving into new roles. Identity can shift when ending one chapter and starting another, a theme also present in Christine's middle-grade novel-in-verse, Love Language, releasing August 4th. Da Eun Yoon, the narrator of the audiobook, was featured on last week’s podcast and touched on how being bilingual and living in or visiting other countries can affect identity.

00:00 Welcome Back

00:02 New Roles July 1

00:09 Identity Shifts Ahead

00:16 Love Language Preview

00:26 Audiobook Narrator Spotlight

00:39 Support the Podcast

00:44 Holiday Sign Off

Da Eun Yoon on Names, Voice Work, and Living Between Cultures

Christine interviews multilingual actor, voice artist, and audiobook narrator Da Eun Yoon, announcing her as the narrator of the middle grade novel in verse Love Language (out August 4). Da Eun shares the meaning of her Korean name and her changing English names, describing challenges introducing “Da Eun” at Northwestern and eventually embracing it. She recounts moving to New York after graduating from Northwestern (2023), being encouraged to try voiceover, and discovering audiobook narration as a career. The conversation explores her upbringing in Korea speaking English at home, identity crises and accent work in both languages, the “shadowing” method for learning pronunciation, and feeling different across Korea and the U.S. She discusses passion as acting despite fear, her work as storyteller/translator bridging cultures, uncertainty about where to live, and how narrating Love Language resonated with her.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:07 The Story Behind Her Name

01:55 English Names and Identity

04:06 Announcing Love Language

04:37 Career Path to Audiobooks

06:34 Living Between Cultures

09:27 Relearning Korean and Shadowing

11:32 Northwestern and Family Talk

12:24 Finding Passion and Fear

14:10 Where to Live Next

15:18 Final Thoughts on Love Language

16:14 Thanks and Goodbye

Redefining “Normal” After Traumatic Brain Injury: Dr. Maria Stella Bonn on Disability, Advocacy, and Checklists

On The Girl Doc Survival Guide, Dr. Maria Stella Bonn, Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, discusses her 2011 bicycle accident–related traumatic brain injury and her writing on disability and “normal,” including the idea that everyone’s baseline varies. She reflects on unpredictable health changes, including a breast cancer diagnosis two years after her TBI, and how recovery reshaped her views on capability and judgment. Bonn says she wishes others would assume people are okay and let actions demonstrate abilities, offering a story of walking her kindergarten-aged child to school during recovery. She emphasizes the importance of an advocate, describing how her husband ensured therapies occurred, pushed her to persist, and helped expedite replacement of her skull flap after an emergency craniectomy. She also discusses improving information handoffs in healthcare and co-parenting through simple checklists.

00:00 Meet Dr Maria Bonn

00:35 The Bike Accident

01:27 Normal Versus Disabled

03:26 Life Can Change Fast

05:05 Cancer After TBI

07:02 What Disability Means

08:37 Recovery With Her Child

09:17 Why You Need An Advocate

11:29 Medical Handoffs And Checklists

13:28 Closing Thanks