The Pressure No One Sees: Life as a Doctor Today

Machine-generated transcript; may contain minor errors.

[00:13] What if the biggest breakthrough in life don't come from success but through the pain we

[00:17] never wanted to face?

[00:20] Welcome to Lessons from Failures, the show where we turn pain into power's power and failures

[00:26] into purpose.

[00:27] Hi, my name is Moza Bella.

[00:29] I am an entrepreneur and a woman who believes that your path does not define your future

[00:36] unless you let it.

[00:38] And today's guest is the living proof of that, Dr. Heather Skeens is a renowned eye surgeon

[00:45] and now the number one best-selling author of Unshackled.

[00:50] But today, we are not just talking about her accomplishments.

[00:54] We are going deeper into the moment that she had to fight for herself, reclaim her voice

[01:02] and rise from the very pain meant to keep her small.

[01:07] This is the story behind the

[01:37] But I got here safely.

[01:38] That's all that matters.

[01:39] And you showed up.

[01:40] And I showed up.

[01:41] Yes.

[01:42] That's wonderful.

[01:43] Well, I am gratefulful that you are here.

[01:44] And thank you for being here.

[01:46] And congratulations.

[01:48] I want to say it again.

[01:50] Congratulations on being the number one bestseller.

[01:52] And I know that you just launched your book for just two days and then you got that status.

[01:57] Yes.

[01:58] Yes.

[01:59] That's incredible.

[02:00] Yeah, I was so grateful and honored to have such support behind my book.

[02:03] Okay.

[02:05] It was overwhelming.

[02:06] Okay.

[02:07] Yeah.

[02:08] Well, so then tell me then, I know that you're a doctor, right?

[02:11] Yes.

[02:12] So people just go around and they have different doctors in their lives.

[02:15] They have the eye doctor, the ear doctor, the heart doctor, the regular doctor, right?

[02:20] So what is the number one, do you think, what is the number one misconception that people

[02:26] have about doctors?

[02:34] Only reason that we do it.

[02:37] And that is absolutely false.

[02:39] And I outlay a lot of that in my book.

[02:42] But doctors, the majority of us go in to medicine.

[02:46] Not because our parents pushed us there, but because we truly want to help people.

[02:52] We start out as these, imagine a college student, a young, naive college student who

[02:57] just wants to make the world better, who it has a fascination

[03:01] with anatomy and the human body and learning everything-

[03:04] Yes.

[03:05] Everything--.

[03:06] everything they can to help someone, someone R, someone.

[04:02] And that's absolutely not true.

[04:05] It's that we have to care for so many people and there's only one of us and such

[04:10] limited time.

[04:12] So I tell my patients this all the time when they come in, I'm off to the next person,

[04:19] right?

[04:20] But I'm giving them 100% of my attention when I'm there and your patient never leaves

[04:25] you.

[04:26] So a doctor is like a mother who has thousands and thousands and thousands of patients.

[04:31] You may think that just because you had a brief interaction with your

[04:34] doctor that that's all the time they've given you, but that's 100% not true.

[04:38] Doctors, myself, we take everyone home with us every day when we go home.

[04:43] Wow.

[04:44] That's a lot to take home with.

[04:45] That's a lot.

[04:46] That lives 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

[04:51] .

[04:52] Not all doctors, though.

[04:53] Not all doctors.

[04:54] Just the good ones.

[04:55] And you know, the majority of doctors are very good in caring for their patients,

[05:00] of, of course, just like in every field that exists, you have good and R bad.

[05:05] But the majority are very good and really care about their patients.

[05:09] And there's so many, many people to help.

[05:30] It's continuing to grow.

[05:31] Yeah.

[05:32] Yeah.

[05:33] So did you always, you know, growing up, right?

[05:35] Did you always know that you wanted to be a doctor?

[05:39] No.

[05:40] No?

[05:41] I had no doctors in my family.

[05:43] I never thought about it.

[05:46] My dad got me the game operation when it first came out, where you

[05:50] remove the pieces from the tiny slots without setting off the buzzer.

[05:54] And it was very easy for me.

[05:55] I liked it, but I didn't understand why it was a challenging game because

[05:59] I never set the buzzer off.

[06:02] And my mom showed me actually only in the last few years, an eye model, like a 1970s eye model

[06:08] that I played with as a child, but I have no memory of it at all.

[06:12] So no, I actually went to college thinking I was going to be a pharmacist.

[06:16] My uncle was a pharmacist, and I thought that's what I'm going to do, follow in his footsteps.

[06:21] And it was running into a former classmate on the street at the University of Kentucky

[06:27] who explained to me why he was going to be a doctor, he was going into medicine.

[06:31] He told me that it was the highest profession that you could achieve and the highest calling

[06:36] that you could attain.

[06:57] And I think that's true of many physicians, we're chronic overachievers, yes.

[07:04] So I know that in this book, and again, this is the book, unshackled, and this dress looks

[07:12] familiar..

[07:13] That's absolutely beautiful.

[07:15] Thank you.

[07:16] You look gorgeous in this color.

[07:17] Thank you.

[07:18] Now, and I know that in this book, you talk about just one story, but I'm sure that in

[07:23] your real life, there's a lot of other stories.

[07:27] So I don't know if you're willing to share, if there's any story that when you take

[07:33] care of patients, or when you took care of that patient, you felt like somehow you failed

[07:39] that patient.

[07:41] Sure.

[07:42] There is a patient.

[07:43] I mean, I have a number of things that I can think of, but there is a particular patient

[07:50] that I think of.

[07:51] There was a young teenager, I believe about 14 years old.

[07:57] There's a condition of the cornea.

[07:59] I'm a cornea transplant surgeon.

[08:01] The cornea is the front window of the eye, the part that people put their contacts on.

[08:06] There's an inherited condition called keratoconus that is progressive, that usually starts in

[08:12] the teenage years.

[08:14] And if left untreated, progresses to the need for cornea transplantation.

[08:19] And really, just prior to 2015, we had to watch cornea, cornea transplant, because in

[08:29] the United States we had no treatment a to slow the progression of that disease.

[08:34] A treatment that was started in Europe prior to 2015, and had success, was, began in the

[08:40] U.S. around 2015, called cornea cross-linking.

[08:42] And, this is a procedure where we can use vitamin B2, riboflavin, very safe, eye drops

[08:48] applied to the eye for about 30 minutes, give a drop-drop every two minutes for 30 minutes,

[08:52] and then there's a small light, a UV light, of a certain wavelength that you apply that

[08:57] the patient looks at, and the combination of the light and the vitamin help to stabilize

[09:02] the collagen in the cornea and strengthen it so that the cornea stops progressing.

[09:08] And what the cornea does is it bends and flexes and becomes some steep and peaked like a mountain.

[09:13] That's what keratoconus is, it's a very severe irregular form of astigmatism.

[09:18] This treatment stops that and so basically, it's been, it's miraculous because we now can

[09:24] stop our patients from needing a cornea transplant.

[09:27] This patient, we know that in this age group, they're going to progress, so the standard

[09:32] of care is to offer this treatment.

[09:35] This patient's insurance company wouldn't cover the procedure.

[09:38] No.

[09:39] And they would not cover the procedure, which is several thousand dollars out of pocket

[09:44] or to the insurance normally, and the patient pays abortion, but they wouldn't cover it

[09:49] at all.

[09:50] And the patient didn't have the money.

[09:53] And I'm looking at him and I'm looking at him and I'm looking at him and this is crazy.

[10:01] They would rather you progress to the need for cornea transplant, which is your quality

[10:06] of life is less.

[10:08] It affects the quality of life of those around you.

[10:11] You can't work, you can't see, you can't go to school, you can't function.

[10:16] It's more costly.

[10:17] you'd rather see this disease process get worse before paying for a cornea transplant

[10:23] instead of helping us do something to prevent it.

[10:25] That's right.

[10:26] Which makes no sense, which is the whole medicine, which is a lot of speak about in my book.

[10:32] It makes no sense in that we would rather a person be sick and treat them after they

[10:37] get sick with an expensive therapy other than providing something to prevent them from having

[10:41] a problem in the first place.

[10:44] So this patient was devastated.

[10:46] Obviously, you know, we're talking about a teenager here, the parents were more devastated

[10:52] than the teenager who's grasping what it means.

[10:56] I put some thought into this and the mom was crying

[11:01] Oh my gosh.

[11:02] She was just so upset.

[11:03] Oh my gosh.

[11:04] I don't want to.

[11:05] Yeah, I put some thought into this and then I just performed the procedure with no cost

[11:11] to the patient because the benefit is so much.

[11:14] I couldn't sit and watch this, I couldn't watch this.

[11:19] And I felt like I failed them because I was not able to, you know, my office was not able

[11:23] to, as much as we argued and fought, sent letters and called, we just could not get

[11:28] this approved, and it just didn't make any sense.

[11:30] But that was beyond your control.

[11:33] Beyond my control.

[11:34] Therefore, you just did what you could, did what I could do.

[11:37] You did that and you know, that was, you know, free of charge for those and I'm sure

[11:40] that they were very appreciative.

[11:41] Yeah, I could not have the resources to help this person and the knowledge and the ability

[11:47] to help this person and send them out the door.

[11:50] You know, and where were they going to go?

[11:52] Right.

[11:53] But then you see that at least, you know, that one patient, or I'm sure that you've

[11:56] done this for like a few of them, they somehow in life, they got the opportunity to see you,

[12:03] right?

[12:04] So how about all the people, millions of people out there, right?

[12:06] That not just the eyes, but all the conditions that they needed to help, right?

[12:10] However, they just did not have somebody who could help them.

[12:14] Right.

[12:15] Right?

[12:16] Right.

[12:17] I know that, you know, like in this book and there was, you know, the chapter, chapter 14

[12:24] in this book and you wrote, Bellasee is a moment rooted in physician liberation because Bellasee

[12:34] isn't just a franchise, it's a movement, a movement built by doctors for doctors.

[12:42] So tell me more about that.

[12:44] So Bellasee is the name of my ophthalmic franchise.

[12:49] I created Bellasee to give a work-life balance to doctors and to give the doctor-patient

[12:57] relationship back to patients.

[13:00] And so that doctors could take care of themselves because of the way that we practice medicine

[13:10] in my clinic, in my franchise, practice surgery.

[13:14] It's a time to take care of themselves because if you can take care of yourself, then you

[13:19] can better take care of someone else and in turn, that makes you better for your patient.

[13:23] 100%.

[13:24] The patient gets better care.

[13:26] 100%, yes.

[13:27] Yes.

[13:28] And also, we're not rushed with our patients.

[13:31] One of the things that we pride ourselves on is our patients are like our family.

[13:36] When they come in, we like to make them feel like family.

[13:39] At your practice.

[13:45] When patients come in, patients fear, people fear loss of eyesight, only second to death.

[13:53] And so you think about it, you're told you need eye surgery.

[13:56] That's very scary.

[13:58] A lot of people are coming to see an eye surgeon because they've already been told

[14:03] they need surgery, maybe by their optometrist, or maybe they just can't see and they know

[14:08] they may need surgery.

[14:09] So they're very scared coming in.

[14:12] So the whole purpose of everything that I've designed is to alleviate fear for patients

[14:18] around eye surgeries so that when they leave my office, even after they've been told they

[14:23] need eye surgery, they're looking forward to it, not dreading it and they're not fearful.

[14:28] Very hard to do.

[14:29] I don't know if we ever look forward to the eye surgery.

[14:33] I don't know.

[14:34] You come and see me as a patient.

[14:36] Then look forward to the eye surgery.

[14:40] That's very nice.

[14:41] Lovely, lovely.

[14:42] Thank you.

[14:43] But some of the ways that we are different than a regular eye clinic is that my environment

[14:49] is a spa-like environment.

[14:51] So we have a spa-like atmosphere.

[14:53] We practice preventative, medicine as well.

[14:56] So when a patient comes to see me with an eye problem, the eyes are not separate from

[15:01] We're trained and taught that they're separate in medical school.

[15:07] But the eyes are with the rest of the body.

[15:09] So anything that affects your body is going to affect your eye.

[15:12] So in order to treat your eye properly when you have a disease or something wrong, we need

[15:17] to look at the root cause.

[15:18] What's going on in the body that's causing this?

[15:20] Where is this coming from?

[15:22] And so that's another big thing that we do.

[15:26] We have a functional wellness program as a part of our clinic where we look for root

[15:32] causes and help the patient address those, which often involves whole body healing,

[15:37] not just eye surgery.

[15:39] That's wonderful.

[15:40] Yes.

[15:42] And something else that we do are facial aesthetics.

[15:45] A lot of people naturally are asking me about fine lines, wrinkles around the eyes, sagging

[15:52] eyelids.

[15:53] These things not only interfere with vision, but they interfere greatly with your quality

[15:58] of life because if you don't feel like you look good, then you don't perform well in

[16:03] the world.

[16:04] Of course.

[16:05] Yes, absolutely.

[16:07] And we.

[16:07] Don, we don't offer anything that is not holistic and natural.

[16:11] Rhe treatments that I offer help to boost the body's own collagen.

[16:17] But these are ways that doctors can Rhe my franchise, they can both practice medicine Rhe

[16:24] as an eye surgeon, but they also can treat a person from a whole perspective if they choose.

[16:30] And they also have other avenues and things they can do to break up their day.

[16:36] It's not just operating on eyes.

[16:37] And I think, you know, what's very interesting is that, you know, you didn't think about,

[16:41] okay, let's do another, you know, adventure, right?

[16:46] Those actually came to you, those ideas came to you naturally from the demand from your

[16:51] patients.

[16:52] That's right.

[16:53] That's correct.

[16:54] Every one of them, 100% patient inspired, all of them, and we continue to evolve.

[17:00] And so that's one of the things that we pride ourselves on is we I constantly,

[17:05] evolving and changing because if you're not, then you're not growing.

[17:08] So and really, yeah, it's the patients that give us the Rhe inspiration and tell us what

[17:13] they need.

[17:14] That's wonderful.

[17:15] So with Bellasee movement, you said, and that's a franchise, but it's a movement.

[17:19] Now you encourage the doctors to take better care of themselves.

[17:24] And by having the system that is very efficient, yes, allows themselves, for themselves, right?

[17:33] They will then take better care of the patients, right?

[17:37] And you have the system that in place for them to do that, right?

[17:40] So they can work on the business and right in the, the business all the time, right?

[17:45] That's correct.

[17:46] And that would help with the preventative care.

[17:49] Yes.

[17:50] Right.

[17:51] Yes.

[17:52] And then holistic.

[17:53] And.

[17:54] Yes.

[17:55] Is that right?

[17:56] That is 100% correct.

[17:57] And I have a holistic model.

[17:58] That's right.

[17:59] So the other thing that the other thing that we do for doctor well-being is that I have

[18:03] a number of resources with respect to physical health, spiritual health, mental health.

[18:13] Doctors our mental health suffers greatly.

[18:15] No way.

[18:17] We, you know, PTSD, burnout, insomnia, this all starts in medical school with everything

[18:24] that we're exposed to, chronic sympathetic nervous, system overdrive, from just having

[18:29] to go, go, go, go, go in our training.

[18:32] And our bodies begin to break down.

[18:34] And specifically you see that happens usually starting around the age of 40 and then it

[18:39] just escalates and things just continue to spiral down.

[18:43] This is where a lot of times you see doctors wanting to change careers, becoming very disillusioned

[18:48] burnout.

[18:49] Suicide rates are very high among physicians, especially women physicians.

[18:54] And so, yes.

[18:55] I've heard that.

[18:56] Now, and then, you know, you're speaking just from, you know, the female physician's

[19:00] standpoint, or does that happen to men as well?

[19:03] Men as well.

[19:04] Men and women, although women are a little more susceptible, but both.

[19:08] So our model helps to provide direction and resources and guidance for helping in all

[19:15] of those aspects and making the a physician better.

[19:19] So yes.

[19:20] So we empower physicians.

[19:22] Bellasee stands for bold entrepreneurs who live life with

[19:26] autonomy, sovereignty, emancipation, and evolution because we are evolving medicine.

[19:33] Beautiful.

[19:34] Beautiful.

[19:35] And I call doctors and patients in my book to join my movement, the Bellasee Movement,

[19:41] where we unite together and stand up against, you know, insurance companies and pharmaceutical

[19:47] companies and everyone that's just shackling us.

[19:51] That's right, right.

[19:52] Yeah.

[19:53] Shackling all of us.

[19:54] We need to, everyone needs to become unshackled.

[19:56] Yes.

[19:57] Oh, thank you.

[19:58] Thank you.

[19:59] You're welcome.

[20:00] We're telling all of that.

[20:01] So these are the things that we don't even know, like, you know, we, we have some,

[20:03] we looked at physicians and maybe, maybe all the professions too, you know, in a certain

[20:07] lens.

[20:08] Yes.

[20:09] And that may be colored by different perceptions or maybe wrong or, you know, informations.

[20:14] Yes.

[20:15] Right.

[20:16] Right.

[20:17] So I know that you have two sons.

[20:18] Yes.

[20:19] What do they think about this book?

[20:20] Are they so proud and happy?

[20:22] They're so proud.

[20:23] You know, I'm going to tell you, I'm very proud of my book and all the support, but

[20:28] the thing I'm proud of most, my oldest.

[20:31] oldest son, I cannot impress him with anything.

[20:34] How old is he?

[20:35] He'll be 15 at the end of July.

[20:36] Wow.

[20:37] Okay.

[20:38] I have never been able to impress him with anything that I have done.

[20:40] You know, I'm a physician.

[20:41] I have three black belts in, in Taekwondo.

[20:45] You do?

[20:46] Wow.

[20:47] I'm a super mom.

[20:48] I mean, the list goes on, but he's never impressed.

[20:50] Wow.

[20:51] When I got bestseller with my book and I told him, he looked it up on Amazon.

[20:57] When he saw that, he actually called me ecstatic.

[21:01] Mommy, you did it.

[21:02] You're bestseller.

[21:03] Oh my gosh.

[21:04] And he was so happy and proud of me and he told me.

[21:08] And that meant more to me than anything.

[21:09] Wow.

[21:10] Because he's very hard to impress.

[21:11] Right.

[21:12] And then because he's very good in sport, right?

[21:15] Yes.

[21:16] And maybe that's why he has high standards for himself.

[21:17] Yes.

[21:18] Yes.

[21:19] And they are tremendous athletes.

[21:21] They play baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis.

[21:26] Baseball is their favorite.

[21:27] So they're both tremendous athletes.

[21:29] Yes.

[21:30] And I met your younger son.

[21:31] You did.

[21:32] He is, oh my God, he's adorable and he's so mature and so well behaved and so smart.

[21:39] Thank you.

[21:40] And very witty.

[21:41] And he told me that if I make him mad, he's going to go on Amazon, give me a one star

[22:05] star.

[22:06] Yes.

[22:07] Yes.

[22:08] So it's your soul and you pour into it.

[22:09] Yes.

[22:10] And it's your real life experience.

[22:11] Yes.

[22:12] And then you made few people cry.

[22:14] Hollywood.

[22:15] Yes.

[22:16] Oh maybe, maybe all of us.

[22:17] You know, whoever, right?

[22:18] A lot of people cry.

[22:19] So be prepared to cry.

[22:21] Yes.

[22:22] But it's a happy ending, right?

[22:24] Yes.

[22:25] Is there a happy ending?

[22:26] There's hope.

[22:27] At the end of the book, there's hope because as a physician, one of the things that I

[22:32] feel is so critical for all physicians to do is always provide hope. No matter what the diagnosis

[22:38] that someone has is, you know, just like in the book I speak of my brother-in-law who I took care

[22:43] of as he passed away, more important is to give him support and love and hope for something,

[22:53] even a peaceful passing. It's so important for physicians to relay that for their patients.

[22:58] Yeah. Yeah. So there's always hope. That is so profound. That is so profound.

[23:04] So what's next? What are you working on next? You know, after people have been reading my book,

[23:11] I've had so many people reaching out to me that want to tell me their stories, both patients and

[23:17] physicians who resonate with what I'm saying and they want to share their personal experiences.

[23:22] That's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. The book is doing exactly what I wanted it to do. I want

[23:29] people to be able to talk and open up about, about their experiences and share them. Because there's

[23:35] power in numbers, right? So the more of us that are speaking and recognizing what's going on,

[23:40] that's how we make change. And so I would love to write a book sharing people's stories that

[23:46] they tell me, both patients and doctors, and putting them together and sharing that. So

[23:51] I'm going to start to document those and speak with people that are willing to contribute.

[23:57] Well, then, you know, that's going to be another bestseller.

[24:00] Yes, absolutely. Overachiever.

[24:04] And I think because those are like real life stories.

[24:06] Yes. Right.

[24:07] Those are true stories. And then, you know, people just, just like you said,

[24:11] is your voice. Right.

[24:14] And it's just something that is, you know, it doesn't feel right in your heart. And then you

[24:19] had to call out for the movement. Right. That's right. I actually, and I wanted to mention,

[24:26] I began working in last November with a spiritual business mindset and manifestation coach,

[24:31] Ashley Vaughn. She was amazing. After working with her for three months, that's when I got the

[24:38] inspiration to write my book. She, I had no plans on writing a book. It wasn't, I I, I thought

[24:45] maybe I would someday, but even even the topic I had no plan about through journaling and

[24:52] releasing blocks and journaling what I want to be, what I want my purpose to be, what I want

[24:57] my future to be. This book came to me out of nowhere. And that's what I say in the introduction.

[25:03] I was, I wrote it, it came through me. It didn't come from me. I just typed and typed and

[25:08] it would wake me up at three or four o'clock in the morning that I would need to write. I would need

[25:11] to say something. I finally got smart and realized, hey, you're a doctor, you know how to dictate.

[25:16] So why don't you just talk what you're thinking into Microsoft Word and then just go back and do

[25:21] the spelling check instead of sitting there and trying to type everything out. I've got it done a

[25:25] lot faster, but I actually wrote the book in about two months. Okay. Well, that's still,

[25:30] that's amazing. But see, you know, it has always been there. It's always been there.

[25:34] Always been there. It's just that you need somebody to just say, you know, hey, you know,

[25:38] why don't you do this? Yes. And that's, I think that applies to most everything in life.

[25:43] don't you think? Yes. But you know that it's always in you, your potential. Yes.

[25:48] Everything's already in you. You just need to say this is, you know, what we should do and

[25:53] take the first step. We need mentors. And I can't advocate for that enough, especially for

[25:59] physicians, patients too. But you need a mentor, whether that's someone that you're paying,

[26:05] whether it's a friend, you need someone to keep you on track. And I have many, many mentors,

[26:11] you being one of them, exceptional. Thank you. And you were also my mentor.

[26:15] Thank you. So that's wonderful. But that's how we grow. It's about having other people

[26:20] hold us accountable. And by holding other people accountable, that's how we grow. Right. Yep.

[26:26] Continue to learn every day. Yes. So if today is, and I don't think that it would be right,

[26:34] but if today was the last, the only chance that people can hear from you. Yes. What would be

[26:43] your message? Sure. I would, I would tell people that you always need to be your own advocate.

[26:50] So when you go to a physician and you get a diagnosis, you need to listen to your gut.

[26:57] And you need to always be your own advocate. You need to do your research. You

[27:00] You need to get multiple opinions. You need to constantly stay on top of things for yourself.

[27:07] And you need to never lose hope no matter what the diagnosis is, no matter what someone has

[27:12] told you. There's always an array of hope somewhere. And you need to find it because

[27:17] that's how we heal. We need to be positive. So that would be my number, my number one piece

[27:23] of advice is be your own

[27:53] advocate. But thank you for all of the knowledge that you share. It's such a pleasure having

[27:58] having you. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it so much. Thank you for letting me share my story.

[28:03] And thank you for being here with us. So remember, there's always a hope and be the

[28:09] advocate of yourself. And I will see you next time. Thank you. Bye.