Arghavan Salles On Being Authentic

“The key is always trying to get better, do better and be better and figure out how to bring people along on the journey.”

Arghavan Salles is a surgeon and a PhD who has an incredible fan base on social media & was the most-requested guest when I posed the question several months ago. She joins us for an amazing discussion of her authenticity around gender discrimination, being a perfectionist, and the art of saying No.

Key Learnings

1. Why does Arghavan think she was so heavily requested by #MedTwitter

2. Where her motivation to talk openly about her personal struggles come from

3. The most powerful tools for sharing stories & how she selects where to publish, including her superb article in USA Today on women’s anger & gender discrimination

4. The ripple effect of writing in Time Magazine about egg freezing and infertility and hearing from many other women who had been struggling in silence

5. The tension between pouring energy and years into an academic article which quickly fades, being in a mainstream article that persists for years, and what this means for academic journals

6. The current dynamic that occurs wherein physicians are forced to publish in academic journals that exist solely as a repository of this material

7. Where her awareness of gender discrimination came from during her training, learning about stereotype threat, and being advised not to research gender discrimination

8. Are the ranks of those who work to make things different growing?

9. Being a perfectionist and fearing failure as a physician, mentor and teaching

10. One aspect of teaching Arghavan does not enjoy and how her desire for perfection interferes with her ability to teach

11. The resonance of Arghavan’s approach of always wanting to get better, knowing that she won’t always succeed, and doing it anyway

12. Times where carrying heavy weight feels like it’s too much and how she cares for herself

13. The art of saying “No”

14. Wherein I share one of my Imposter Syndrome reflexes

15. Step into the tension for an oral surgical exam question with Dr. Arghavan Salles!

Links

USA Today article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/10/24/angry-women-voting-discrimination-column/1696287002/

Time Magazine article: http://time.com/5484506/fertility-egg-freezing/

Arghavan’s Behind The Knife podcast episode: https://behindtheknife.libsyn.com/159-mock-orals-9-upper-gi-and-bariatrics-with-dr-arghavan-salles