June 30, 2022 • 26 mins
Kristen Balboni welcomes Julie A. Freischlag, the Chief Executive Officer of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist to break down how she prioritizes her responsibilities as a leader of many medical programs. The pair further discuss how Freischlag led one of the top vascular surgical programs in the U.S., the advantages of receiving training worldwide and her commitment to mentoring the next generation of physicians.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Whatever you choose to do, you need to be really
good at it, so then people will look at your
accomplishments and say, quite, you know, she did a really
good job being a surgeon. She's great with patients, she's
great with teams. And as surgeons, we want teams all
the time, whether it's in the operating room or in
the clinic or in the emergency department. Were always fronting teams.
So for me, I just focused on being a really
(00:24):
good masker surgeon. Welcome to Season two of the Inspired Podcasts,
presented by Atrium Health. This is a podcast series for
Panthers fans where we highlight admirable women from across the
Carolinas as they share stories and lessons from their lives
and careers. And today's guest, Oh my goodness, she is
(00:44):
quite the inspiration. Julie Freischlag, who is the CEO of
Atrium Health, wake Forest Baptist, the dean of the Wake
Forest University School of Medicine, and the Chief Academic Officer
of Atrium Health Enterprises, just to name a few things. Julie,
thank you so much for being here. And I think
my question and everyone's question, who is listening first? And
(01:06):
foremost is when do you sleep. No, I need seven
and a half hours of sleep. I go to bed
about ten and I get up at five thirty and
then go off to exercise, usually do a little elliptical
and then off to work. So it works. Well, that
is great to know, and I am so impressed that
you have time to exercise in addition to all of
(01:28):
the roles that you have. So in addition to all
of the incredible titles that I just listed, you're a
vascular surgeon, You're a mom. This year, you are the
president of the American College of Surgeons. What does I
would just love to simplify this for people like me
that here your resume and go, oh my gosh, how
can one person do all that? What does a normal
day look like for you? Juggling all those things? Well,
(01:51):
now that I'm more of an administrator more than a surgeon,
I do still operate. I'm an expert in threastic outlet syndrome,
so I take care of patients who have uh injured
either their artery, vein or nerve due to their first ribs.
So I operate probably three or four times a month,
and I see patients in the office a couple of
times a month, so that's less than I used to
(02:11):
when I was chair of surgery or ahead of a
bastar division. But starting off my day usually about seven
thirty now because of COVID, some is virtuals some is
in person. I just did a video here for encouraging
people to come back to work now that COVIDS much
less than that, we can interact with each other. I
meet with my department shares, I meet with students. I
(02:32):
talked with my teams about how we're going to promote
research as well as clinical care. So it's very That's
why I love having all those titles because I get
to do lots of things. I get to talk about research,
I get to talk about clinical work and also talk
about education. And today I'm actually over at the medical school.
That's where I'm spending my time today. Sometimes I spend
my time over at the hospital, and sometimes I'm down
(02:54):
in Charlotte too, because, as you know, we're going to
be putting a second medical school campus in Charlotte scythe
and office down in the atrium of CMC Hospital of
Adriam Health, and I definitely want to ask you about
that a little bit later because that is so exciting,
But how do you prioritize where you'll be and what
gets your attention on any given day. I try to
(03:14):
be really organized, so I think if you're a busy person, uh,
and maybe women are really great at this, especially women
that raise families as well. As you get really organized
so I have my time. It's really program routine meetings
and things so that you have an opportunity to meet
with people consistently, so there's no urgent, emergent meeting to
do that. And then things come up where you have
to answer a patient like I did this morning. She
(03:37):
was afraid she may have had a blood clot in
her legs, so I answered her to talk to her.
I mentioned one of my family members needed a referral
for a physician. So there are things that come up
during the day that you have to do uh. And
then other things are just routine to to take care
of business as you go forward. We have a lot
of group meetings to where I bring my team together
so they can go off to do things and probably
(03:59):
when most important things is learn how to delegate most everything.
You have a great team off they go. Like I
talked to my research dean this morning, and she's got
everything under control for a retreat we're having actually down
at the Senior Heart Institute in July, and she's got that.
So I don't need to get involve. I just need
to know how to help. I love that. I loved
what you said, just kind of very humbly about being
(04:21):
somewhat organized. I don't think you. I mean you have
to be organized with all that you have going on.
It really is incredible and great advice for everyone. I'd
also love to ask you about your background. Sure, what
interested you in in medicine? What was your path and
what have been all the stops along the way to
get to where you are now. Well, I was born
in a small town. So I was born in Decatur, Illinois. UM.
(04:42):
My great grandfather was a stone cutter, that's where the
name fresh Log comes from. And my grandfather's each where
one was a coal miner and one made boilers for
the railroad. So I came from people that use their hands,
not to be surgeons, but to do other things. My
mother was a school teacher, and so she actually really
encour to us to get educated. UM. I had what
(05:02):
was born indicator, but grew up in Carbondale and Urbana,
and I skipped first grade. I was at a brother
euro whole ahead of me. I read all his books.
I was sort of a discipline problem. So I skipped
a grade. Was headed towards college and thought I was
going to be a teacher also, but at that time
they sort of closed education. They thought they were gonna
be too many teachers. I loved science, so I was
(05:24):
a stem person before we knew it was stem right
to do it. And and I applied to medical school
mainly because to go into nursing school you had to
leave college a year early. And I love going to
the University of Illinois, so I ended up going to
medical school. UH, sort of a default. I I interviewed
with a histologist, a woman who we really got along well.
(05:45):
She asked me about the last book I read. It
was a Watership Down. She had read it, and I
was in the next day. And it turned out that
the dean of the school at that time, the missions
Norma Wagner, was really looking for more women to get
into med school, and those years late seventies, about ten
percent women. My class was forty two percent women. So
I was lucky to get in there. And then I
(06:06):
did surgery as my first rotation and I just loved it.
I had no idea that's what I wanted to be. Uh.
So I ended up applying to surgery and training at
U c l A. And I was just the sixth
woman to finish training at U c l A at
that time, so it was new. Back in the eighties,
women in surgery weren't as prevalent as they are now,
but at that time it was just a great experience.
(06:27):
And my mentor was a Basker surgeon, so I wanted
to be just like him. And then after that, what
was the path? Yeah, you took my first job actually
down in San Diego. I was married once before. I've
been married twice. My first husband was a physician too,
and he had a fellowship there, so I did like
many women, where you sort of follow your partner and
try to coordinate schedules. And then we came back to
(06:49):
Los Angeles, where I worked at the A Hospitals a
lot because masker surgeons do a lot of work at
the hospitals because of the nature of most of the
patient's being men with the risk factors of smoking and diabetes.
And so I went to um back to u c
l A to do that, and then then we got divorced,
and then I got an opportunity to go to Milwaukee
to run the v A there as well as to
(07:11):
be the number two person in charge of Asker Surgery.
So I did that, and then another opportunity came back
to run U c l A Basker Surgery ten years later,
so I did that. So I did a lot of
movie in order to get ahead. At that time, I
met my present husband in Milwaukee through a dating service,
so we've been married now twenty nine years. So we
(07:31):
went off with me to U c l A. And
then I got an opportunity to be a chair of
surgery again looking at leadership opportunities, and I was chair
of surgery at Johns Hopkins for eleven years before I
became a dean at U C. Davis and before I
came to Wait Forest five years ago. So part of
it is I've always looked for leadership opportunities, you know,
where you can make a difference who do you work for.
(07:52):
It makes big difference of who my boss is and
also what are you learning. You know, as you take
these positions, you can stay there a long time, if
you continue to learn and make a difference. For me,
I always needed something new. I like to build and
create things, so I changed jobs quite a bit. When
did you know that leadership was something that you wanted
to start looking for, because, as you said, it sounds
like that was always a part of your process, but
(08:14):
it's not necessarily the most common jump for a surgeon. Correct. Well,
part of it is the first thing you want to
do is whatever you choose to do, you need to
be really good at it. So the first thing I
did is the first ten years I was a surgeon,
is you want to be a really good surgeon, or
you want to be a really good broadcaster, you want
to be a really good writer. Whatever you decide to do,
you want to be really good at that. So then
(08:35):
people will look at your accomplishments and say, boy, you know,
she did a really good job being a surgeon. She's
great with patients, she's great with teams. And as surgeons,
we want teams all the time, whether it's in the
operating room or in the clinic or in the emergency department.
Were always running teams. So for me, I just focused
on being a really good basker surgeon, and I must admit,
(08:57):
as I kept coming through the ranks, were very few women.
There was only one woman in on faculty at Unitzero City, California,
San Diego, only one in l A when I was
a surgeon, only two in Milwaukee. And I looked at
how people lead and how they made things work for groups,
and I didn't like it as much. I thought we
(09:17):
could be much more flexible. I thought we could actually
do better things um for the team. I thought we
could be more inclusive, and so as I looked at things,
I wanted to make those decisions. So if you're in
a group and you don't quite like the decisions and
and you can't quite get what you want, you can
influence being part of a team, but you can't change things.
(09:40):
So the only way to change things is really to lead,
and then you can make it uh in your own light.
I do listen well, I'm a great listener, and I
do incorporate things well. But I think I sort of
decided I wanted to change how things were orchestrated, and
therefore I got into the leadership. And you talked about
all the different places you've lived. I have lived all
(10:01):
over the country, as well chasing my next opportunity. UM
and l A. I've lived in l A. I've not
lived in Milwaukee, but Chicago. I grew up in North Carolina,
and I will say l A is very different than Milwaukee,
which is very different than North Carolina. And so when
those opportunities presented themselves, you're picking up your your whole
life and moving into a totally different community. What were
(10:23):
those decisions like? Was it always like I'm going for
the next best opportunity, the next best place for advancement,
where my work is recognized. Um? And was it hard
to to live in so many different places over the
course of your career? Well, you know, when I was younger,
we moved a lot. And maybe I got that from
an environmental piece. My dad was a circulation manager of newspapers.
(10:45):
So he was circulation manager of of newspaper Dicatur, Illinois,
and then Carbon Illinois and then abandoned then a circulation
manager for the Chicago Tribune. So I lived in Chicago too.
So I went to three grade schools in three high schools.
So I remember when I went to my third high school. UM.
I used to be sort of an introvert and I
decided you needed to quit doing that. So maybe it
(11:06):
was moving as a kid that we moved a lot.
And so the longest I've ever lived anywhere really was
at Hopkins for eleven years and seven years when I
got trained, because we moved a lot. I love meeting people. Um,
there's great things about every one of those towns. You know,
l A was exciting back then as a young person
to be in Los Angeles, to be training, to be
(11:28):
by the ocean and to do those things. Of Milwaukee
has a special peace with being on the lake. But
a little bit of winter to make that happen, just
a little bit of just a little bit. They had
a record snowfall the first year I moved there, but
into personally same here Winnesday they had a record snowfall
my second year, and in Baltimore was great too. I
(11:50):
think there's great people everywhere. And if I were to
tell you, and you've probably seen this to Kristen, is
now you really appreciate people from all over the people
from California, people from Illinois, whether it's Wisconsin, North Carolina.
Most people come to work or do live their lives
to do the right thing and to be kind and gentle.
(12:13):
Most people don't come to work to create endless trouble
or not to be good at what they do. So
meeting different ways of doing, especially in medicine, the white
medicine is practiced is different in each region and state
and area. So I actually think I got more global
look at how to take care of patients with different
socio economic issues, different living issues, different heritage at different
(12:36):
ethnic backgrounds. I think all of that together makes you
a better physician, a better leader, a better or anything.
If you know how people are different and how that
actually is a special sauce and not something that's uncomfortable.
That is a really great viewpoint. And I'm so happy
that you shared that. I really like that way of
looking at the world. Uh you talked, You've alluded to
(12:59):
this a few times of just the fact that throughout
your different stages of your career sometimes you were one
of two women, you were the only woman. You've broken
barriers UM yourself through through so many of the amazing
things that you've done. Did you face obstacles specific to
being UM, a woman in medicine and surgery UM and
(13:20):
how did you deal with them? If so? But I
think I did. I think back when I trained, you know,
I was in that group that was every other night
in hospital. It was a paramatal program, so they would
take in fifteen and only keep six. So it was
pretty competitive than in the eighties. And and partly I
wanted to be a surgeon so bad that you just
worked really, really hard. I must admit. When I went
(13:42):
to USA, they had just finished their first woman in surgery.
So I saw that Margie Fine had finished, and so
I was like, whoa, so they actually have finished one woman.
I found that the men were actually just really helpful.
I had two brothers, so I was used to being
around guys with making that happen. But there's certainly are
people that didn't see a woman or a person of
(14:04):
color as someone with different background in those roles. Now
they may actually not say it out loud and maybe
more microaggressions. It maybe more of how they choose and pick.
But I think I was really lucky that the leaders
I chose actually really saw that I could lead and
that I had good qualities and oh, by the way,
I was a woman versus oh, she's a woman, is
(14:24):
this going to work. I'm certainly there are people that
didn't like me or didn't think I should be promoted
or move forward. I did look at one job to
be a chair of surgery, and the dean said he
couldn't hire the first woman as chair of surgery in
his school because they didn't have a chair that was
a woman. And to me, um, and that was early
two thousand's. To me, that actually is excellent information because
(14:47):
you don't want to work for someone who doesn't want
that to happen. Uh, You wouldn't want to get there
and find out they didn't want a woman leader. Where
when I went to Hopkins, the dean there, Ed Miller,
was like, let's do it. I was the only woman
chair there for a even years, but he really knew
that it needed to change surgery and was very supportive.
So I think choosing who your boss is actually affords
(15:08):
your ability to make a difference. And and for me
now I'm enjoying so much that so many more women
are coming into surgery. You know, we've got about twenty
or thirty percent of surgeons now, or women, about over
half our training programs, or women over half of people
in medical school or women now too. And now we
just need to get women to the leadership positions to
(15:28):
realize that actually you do have more control and ability
to do what you want to do when you lead
versus being part of the team. And not all women
should lead, just like not all men should, but having
those opportunities are are really important. I guess when I
saw someone who didn't, wasn't that great or that nice?
You know, I guess I was pretty good at speaking
out and telling people about it. I actually probably was
(15:50):
a bystander person that could speak out way back then,
maybe because I had the two brothers, and frankly I
would just take note of that and realize that, you know,
you can't change everybody. You know, some people aren't going
to like you for how you look or where you
trained or what you do. But then you can go
forward and do other things with other people, and then
turn back and bring others with you so that you're
able to afford other people opportunities. And I think I've
(16:13):
gotten better and better. Uh, there's more women training with men,
so men are really used to women training with them.
I know my son, when he was six, he asked
me if women and men could be surgeons too, because
he thought only surgeons were women. You know, I love
that that's what he saw in our house because my
husband's a businessman, and I said, well, it's your mother's help.
You too could be a surgeon. Now he he does
(16:35):
real estate equity research, so he's not a surgeon. But
I do think that as you go forward, you can
make a difference with some people and some people you're
still going to change your mind, so you just move on.
And I love what you've said about being in leadership
with the opportunity to give back and to help others
along the way. So how do you look at that
(16:57):
part of it, whether it's women or people who you
know may not have the opportunities, Um, how do you
look at that part in all the jobs that you do?
And I've always been very involved with students, mainly came
from my mother being a teacher. So when I've been
in medical school or when I've been in residency or training,
I always have a student shadowing me. So I'll have
(17:17):
students come to the operating room so they can see
that I students in the clinic. Now I actually get
a senior that just finished Weight Force University that shadows
me for a year, a presidential intern, and they can
shadow me. They go to the o R and they
go to my meetings and all of them and ended
up in medical school, which is great. So making sure
that you can show people and afford them an opportunity
(17:38):
to see because I had no surgeons in my family,
and then not only to mentor them and listen to them.
But I think the biggest word now is sponsorship, right,
so that if you want to go do something, I
actually make sure you get that chance. And now that
I've had tons of chances, people know me. I don't
need to give one more talk or one more thing.
I can actually say, well, why don't you interview sell
(17:58):
and Soll versus me. She's a amazing, he's amazing. You
can make that happen. So I think sponsorship and really
telling people to um prepared for these leadership positions is
really important. And I love having young people around. I
think as I've gone through my career now being a
surgeon now for thirty five years, it's great to have
(18:19):
young people there so that they actually can give you
a point of view from those coming up. Because what
we're doing today in medicine is really for the next generation,
so it makes sense that they should be at the
table having a comment. You can just tell from just
even a few minutes of talking to you, just how
much you give back. It seems at the very ethos
(18:40):
of what you do. And I love the way you said, well,
I get to have an intern shadow meeting NonStop, you know,
your entire day. It seems just like every minute of
every day for you is about giving back to people.
And in addition to all the work that you're doing,
how do you recharge your batteries in the rare times
(19:00):
that you're not working? And well, I'm a very big extrovert,
which you can tell, can I take that test? I'm
I'm an extra bit sort of over the cliff to
do that. So I get energy from people. The COVID
has been really hard for those of us that are extroverts,
you know, doing virtual not seeing people, not being out
and about has been tough. Just last week, I actually
(19:22):
was at a couple of meetings seen people and it
was it was really refreshing to make that happen. So
people give me energy, they give me feedback. That is good.
I tend to love having meetings where their strategy or
creativity because you think of something amazing to do that.
But for me, Um, I do read a lot. So
actually I missed traveling because I used to travel the
(19:44):
places and work on the way there. And if I
got my work done, I would read a book. Because
I still read books. I actually like books to do that,
so I read a lot. I have exercise quite a bit,
walk with my husband. I'm a swimmer too. I have
an endless pool, so I'll do some swimming from time
to time. And then I do crafting too, so I
make things and I sew and I create things, sort
(20:06):
of like a surgeon at home. So I do have
those activities where I always have some project going that
ends up with either a gift for somebody or something
that I created. So maybe that's the surgeon in me
at home. Um. And I tell you, people really may
give me tons of energy. Now there are people that
not everyone is energized positive, you know, as these leadership positions,
(20:29):
you do have to work with people that do cause
a little trouble or they're all in the they're in
the wrong spot. And I do feel everyone's got the
right spot, just sometimes they're not in the right spot.
So you have to move people along. So I'm pretty
good at having those crucial conversations saying, you know, you're
really amazing, but you're not amazing here, so let's figure
out where you can be amazing. That's a great way
(20:50):
to put that. I really like that you're amazing, but
maybe just not right here. You talked about being an
extrovert and and COVID being hard on on you. A
lot of extroverts also hard on the place that you work.
I imagine you guys have come through it very admirably.
So I'm just wondering, with all that Atrium Health Wig
Forest Baptist has overcome in the past few years and
(21:13):
has achieved since you've been there, what are some of
the moments that make you the most proud because you're
doing such incredible work. But we changed quite a bit
as far as before we came together with Atrium, which
was in twenty October twenty twenty. We actually expanded even
up here in northwest North Carolina, so we actually bought
(21:34):
High Point Hospital. We had bought Wilkes Hospitals, so we're
a five hospital group with about a hundred and forty clinics,
about four and a half billion dollars, so we got
bigger here even before we joined Atrium. Which made us
even two to three times that big. We also had
something where we didn't deliver babies at our hospital, so
it was a very interesting thing. Years ago they decided
(21:54):
to deliver the babies at another hospital and really just
focus on trauma and cardiac here and things, and and
with that we're self insured, so my my women who
worked for us actually deliver their babies at another hospital
and if the baby got sick, the baby would come
to our hospital, but they would stay at the other hospital.
So we opened a big maternity wards. So now we're
(22:16):
delivering over three thousand babies a year. We were only
delivering thirty back then. So we developed a great big
attorney more and luckily we did it in twenty nineteen
before COVID, So that's been really wonderful where we have
a very active neon needle I s you were delivering babies.
All our people that work for us and deliver their
babies there, So that probably has been just really exciting
(22:37):
and also has expanded the families we take care of,
because it really has been shown wherever a woman has
her baby or brings her child, she tends to bring
all our healthcare to that area. So it's really important
to do that, so expanding that has been really important
as well as expanding our medical school research. We've increased
the amount of research over fifty and over the last
(23:00):
five years looking at UH ideology of Alzheimer's and and
aging as well as diabetes. We have a big regenitive
medicine center here where we're looking to make kidneys and
tumors UH tumors UH chemotherapy so that we can actually
know it works for well. That's Dr Talad that does that.
(23:21):
So our research has expanded as well, so we're real
excited about that. And probably the biggest thing is, you know,
now with our partnership with Atrium Health UH putting a
second campus in in Charlotte. We get over eleven thousand
applications for our medical school every year and we only
have a hundred and forty five spots here. So it
makes sense that we could have a second campus of
(23:42):
a hundred students down in Charlotte as well because we
have so many applications. And what's your role with that,
because it just sounds so exciting expanding into the Charlotte area.
And I know you said you're down in Charlotte quite
a bit. So what is your focus when it comes
to that expansion. Yeah, well, initially at the dean is
we've and looking at how to put the applications, and
we have third and fourth year students down there now,
(24:04):
and and we have a new senior Associate dean for education,
Angelist Sharkey's putting the school together. She did that in Greenville,
South Carolina as well. So we are recruiting a dean
because I am finding myself a little busy with being
the chief academic officers, a little busy. Yeah, so we'll
have a d look at that. And then the chief
academic officers I always see not only the medical school,
(24:24):
but we have an excellent p A program here as
well as a crn A program. And there's two colleges
down in Charlotte, uh Caberras and Carolinas where they train
texts and nurses and that, and so being over looking
at not only the students but the residents we train.
We train almost two thousand residents and different fields between
the two campuses. So all that together, just watching over
(24:46):
the education piece. And then we also think we call
ourselves an academic a learning health system because even if
you're not a student or a resident, You're still always
learning no matter what you do, so making sure our
our physicians are a staff or nurses continue to learn
and make a difference to be the best that can
be as a health care provider. Well, Julie, I just
want to thank you so much for taking time out
(25:09):
of your incredibly busy day to talk through all of
this with me, and just thank you for all the
work that you do in in my home state, in
in this area, and all the work you're going to
be doing in Charlotte and everything you do it wake
for us. I can't thank you enough just for all
the contributions you're making and then also setting a great
example for all of us. And I'm just honored to
have a chance to talk to you and to hear
(25:29):
about everything that you're working on. It's just been really incredible. Well,
I appreciate that opportunity. We love North Carolina. I've been
here five years. Wonderful, wonderful people. The culture down in
Charlotte with the Atrium Health really matches ours really well.
We're all to making people better. You're giving making people better,
preventing them from being sick, and getting people access no
(25:50):
matter who you are so you can get great health
care Atrium in Charlotte as well as Atrium health Way
for US Baptist. We take care of a lot of
people who have issues with access, who don't have insurance,
that have all these other things as well as doing
um life saving and amazing breaking news type things as well.
So altogether, we just feel fortunate to be here and
(26:13):
thank you for estimate to talk yes, and we feel
fortunate that we are the recipient of of all you
and everyone under you are doing so, thank you so much.
We appreciate the time you're welcome
Whatever you choose to do, you need to be really
good at it, so then people will look at your
accomplishments and say, quite, you know, she did a really
good job being a surgeon. She's great with patients, she's
great with teams. And as surgeons, we want teams all
the time, whether it's in the operating room or in
the clinic or in the emergency department. Were always fronting teams.
So for me, I just focused on being a really
(00:24):
good masker surgeon. Welcome to Season two of the Inspired Podcasts,
presented by Atrium Health. This is a podcast series for
Panthers fans where we highlight admirable women from across the
Carolinas as they share stories and lessons from their lives
and careers. And today's guest, Oh my goodness, she is
(00:44):
quite the inspiration. Julie Freischlag, who is the CEO of
Atrium Health, wake Forest Baptist, the dean of the Wake
Forest University School of Medicine, and the Chief Academic Officer
of Atrium Health Enterprises, just to name a few things. Julie,
thank you so much for being here. And I think
my question and everyone's question, who is listening first? And
(01:06):
foremost is when do you sleep. No, I need seven
and a half hours of sleep. I go to bed
about ten and I get up at five thirty and
then go off to exercise, usually do a little elliptical
and then off to work. So it works. Well, that
is great to know, and I am so impressed that
you have time to exercise in addition to all of
(01:28):
the roles that you have. So in addition to all
of the incredible titles that I just listed, you're a
vascular surgeon, You're a mom. This year, you are the
president of the American College of Surgeons. What does I
would just love to simplify this for people like me
that here your resume and go, oh my gosh, how
can one person do all that? What does a normal
day look like for you? Juggling all those things? Well,
(01:51):
now that I'm more of an administrator more than a surgeon,
I do still operate. I'm an expert in threastic outlet syndrome,
so I take care of patients who have uh injured
either their artery, vein or nerve due to their first ribs.
So I operate probably three or four times a month,
and I see patients in the office a couple of
times a month, so that's less than I used to
(02:11):
when I was chair of surgery or ahead of a
bastar division. But starting off my day usually about seven
thirty now because of COVID, some is virtuals some is
in person. I just did a video here for encouraging
people to come back to work now that COVIDS much
less than that, we can interact with each other. I
meet with my department shares, I meet with students. I
(02:32):
talked with my teams about how we're going to promote
research as well as clinical care. So it's very That's
why I love having all those titles because I get
to do lots of things. I get to talk about research,
I get to talk about clinical work and also talk
about education. And today I'm actually over at the medical school.
That's where I'm spending my time today. Sometimes I spend
my time over at the hospital, and sometimes I'm down
(02:54):
in Charlotte too, because, as you know, we're going to
be putting a second medical school campus in Charlotte scythe
and office down in the atrium of CMC Hospital of
Adriam Health, and I definitely want to ask you about
that a little bit later because that is so exciting,
But how do you prioritize where you'll be and what
gets your attention on any given day. I try to
(03:14):
be really organized, so I think if you're a busy person, uh,
and maybe women are really great at this, especially women
that raise families as well. As you get really organized
so I have my time. It's really program routine meetings
and things so that you have an opportunity to meet
with people consistently, so there's no urgent, emergent meeting to
do that. And then things come up where you have
to answer a patient like I did this morning. She
(03:37):
was afraid she may have had a blood clot in
her legs, so I answered her to talk to her.
I mentioned one of my family members needed a referral
for a physician. So there are things that come up
during the day that you have to do uh. And
then other things are just routine to to take care
of business as you go forward. We have a lot
of group meetings to where I bring my team together
so they can go off to do things and probably
(03:59):
when most important things is learn how to delegate most everything.
You have a great team off they go. Like I
talked to my research dean this morning, and she's got
everything under control for a retreat we're having actually down
at the Senior Heart Institute in July, and she's got that.
So I don't need to get involve. I just need
to know how to help. I love that. I loved
what you said, just kind of very humbly about being
(04:21):
somewhat organized. I don't think you. I mean you have
to be organized with all that you have going on.
It really is incredible and great advice for everyone. I'd
also love to ask you about your background. Sure, what
interested you in in medicine? What was your path and
what have been all the stops along the way to
get to where you are now. Well, I was born
in a small town. So I was born in Decatur, Illinois. UM.
(04:42):
My great grandfather was a stone cutter, that's where the
name fresh Log comes from. And my grandfather's each where
one was a coal miner and one made boilers for
the railroad. So I came from people that use their hands,
not to be surgeons, but to do other things. My
mother was a school teacher, and so she actually really
encour to us to get educated. UM. I had what
(05:02):
was born indicator, but grew up in Carbondale and Urbana,
and I skipped first grade. I was at a brother
euro whole ahead of me. I read all his books.
I was sort of a discipline problem. So I skipped
a grade. Was headed towards college and thought I was
going to be a teacher also, but at that time
they sort of closed education. They thought they were gonna
be too many teachers. I loved science, so I was
(05:24):
a stem person before we knew it was stem right
to do it. And and I applied to medical school
mainly because to go into nursing school you had to
leave college a year early. And I love going to
the University of Illinois, so I ended up going to
medical school. UH, sort of a default. I I interviewed
with a histologist, a woman who we really got along well.
(05:45):
She asked me about the last book I read. It
was a Watership Down. She had read it, and I
was in the next day. And it turned out that
the dean of the school at that time, the missions
Norma Wagner, was really looking for more women to get
into med school, and those years late seventies, about ten
percent women. My class was forty two percent women. So
I was lucky to get in there. And then I
(06:06):
did surgery as my first rotation and I just loved it.
I had no idea that's what I wanted to be. Uh.
So I ended up applying to surgery and training at
U c l A. And I was just the sixth
woman to finish training at U c l A at
that time, so it was new. Back in the eighties,
women in surgery weren't as prevalent as they are now,
but at that time it was just a great experience.
(06:27):
And my mentor was a Basker surgeon, so I wanted
to be just like him. And then after that, what
was the path? Yeah, you took my first job actually
down in San Diego. I was married once before. I've
been married twice. My first husband was a physician too,
and he had a fellowship there, so I did like
many women, where you sort of follow your partner and
try to coordinate schedules. And then we came back to
(06:49):
Los Angeles, where I worked at the A Hospitals a
lot because masker surgeons do a lot of work at
the hospitals because of the nature of most of the
patient's being men with the risk factors of smoking and diabetes.
And so I went to um back to u c
l A to do that, and then then we got divorced,
and then I got an opportunity to go to Milwaukee
to run the v A there as well as to
(07:11):
be the number two person in charge of Asker Surgery.
So I did that, and then another opportunity came back
to run U c l A Basker Surgery ten years later,
so I did that. So I did a lot of
movie in order to get ahead. At that time, I
met my present husband in Milwaukee through a dating service,
so we've been married now twenty nine years. So we
(07:31):
went off with me to U c l A. And
then I got an opportunity to be a chair of
surgery again looking at leadership opportunities, and I was chair
of surgery at Johns Hopkins for eleven years before I
became a dean at U C. Davis and before I
came to Wait Forest five years ago. So part of
it is I've always looked for leadership opportunities, you know,
where you can make a difference who do you work for.
(07:52):
It makes big difference of who my boss is and
also what are you learning. You know, as you take
these positions, you can stay there a long time, if
you continue to learn and make a difference. For me,
I always needed something new. I like to build and
create things, so I changed jobs quite a bit. When
did you know that leadership was something that you wanted
to start looking for, because, as you said, it sounds
like that was always a part of your process, but
(08:14):
it's not necessarily the most common jump for a surgeon. Correct. Well,
part of it is the first thing you want to
do is whatever you choose to do, you need to
be really good at it. So the first thing I
did is the first ten years I was a surgeon,
is you want to be a really good surgeon, or
you want to be a really good broadcaster, you want
to be a really good writer. Whatever you decide to do,
you want to be really good at that. So then
(08:35):
people will look at your accomplishments and say, boy, you know,
she did a really good job being a surgeon. She's
great with patients, she's great with teams. And as surgeons,
we want teams all the time, whether it's in the
operating room or in the clinic or in the emergency department.
Were always running teams. So for me, I just focused
on being a really good basker surgeon, and I must admit,
(08:57):
as I kept coming through the ranks, were very few women.
There was only one woman in on faculty at Unitzero City, California,
San Diego, only one in l A when I was
a surgeon, only two in Milwaukee. And I looked at
how people lead and how they made things work for groups,
and I didn't like it as much. I thought we
(09:17):
could be much more flexible. I thought we could actually
do better things um for the team. I thought we
could be more inclusive, and so as I looked at things,
I wanted to make those decisions. So if you're in
a group and you don't quite like the decisions and
and you can't quite get what you want, you can
influence being part of a team, but you can't change things.
(09:40):
So the only way to change things is really to lead,
and then you can make it uh in your own light.
I do listen well, I'm a great listener, and I
do incorporate things well. But I think I sort of
decided I wanted to change how things were orchestrated, and
therefore I got into the leadership. And you talked about
all the different places you've lived. I have lived all
(10:01):
over the country, as well chasing my next opportunity. UM
and l A. I've lived in l A. I've not
lived in Milwaukee, but Chicago. I grew up in North Carolina,
and I will say l A is very different than Milwaukee,
which is very different than North Carolina. And so when
those opportunities presented themselves, you're picking up your your whole
life and moving into a totally different community. What were
(10:23):
those decisions like? Was it always like I'm going for
the next best opportunity, the next best place for advancement,
where my work is recognized. Um? And was it hard
to to live in so many different places over the
course of your career? Well, you know, when I was younger,
we moved a lot. And maybe I got that from
an environmental piece. My dad was a circulation manager of newspapers.
(10:45):
So he was circulation manager of of newspaper Dicatur, Illinois,
and then Carbon Illinois and then abandoned then a circulation
manager for the Chicago Tribune. So I lived in Chicago too.
So I went to three grade schools in three high schools.
So I remember when I went to my third high school. UM.
I used to be sort of an introvert and I
decided you needed to quit doing that. So maybe it
(11:06):
was moving as a kid that we moved a lot.
And so the longest I've ever lived anywhere really was
at Hopkins for eleven years and seven years when I
got trained, because we moved a lot. I love meeting people. Um,
there's great things about every one of those towns. You know,
l A was exciting back then as a young person
to be in Los Angeles, to be training, to be
(11:28):
by the ocean and to do those things. Of Milwaukee
has a special peace with being on the lake. But
a little bit of winter to make that happen, just
a little bit of just a little bit. They had
a record snowfall the first year I moved there, but
into personally same here Winnesday they had a record snowfall
my second year, and in Baltimore was great too. I
(11:50):
think there's great people everywhere. And if I were to
tell you, and you've probably seen this to Kristen, is
now you really appreciate people from all over the people
from California, people from Illinois, whether it's Wisconsin, North Carolina.
Most people come to work or do live their lives
to do the right thing and to be kind and gentle.
(12:13):
Most people don't come to work to create endless trouble
or not to be good at what they do. So
meeting different ways of doing, especially in medicine, the white
medicine is practiced is different in each region and state
and area. So I actually think I got more global
look at how to take care of patients with different
socio economic issues, different living issues, different heritage at different
(12:36):
ethnic backgrounds. I think all of that together makes you
a better physician, a better leader, a better or anything.
If you know how people are different and how that
actually is a special sauce and not something that's uncomfortable.
That is a really great viewpoint. And I'm so happy
that you shared that. I really like that way of
looking at the world. Uh you talked, You've alluded to
(12:59):
this a few times of just the fact that throughout
your different stages of your career sometimes you were one
of two women, you were the only woman. You've broken
barriers UM yourself through through so many of the amazing
things that you've done. Did you face obstacles specific to
being UM, a woman in medicine and surgery UM and
(13:20):
how did you deal with them? If so? But I
think I did. I think back when I trained, you know,
I was in that group that was every other night
in hospital. It was a paramatal program, so they would
take in fifteen and only keep six. So it was
pretty competitive than in the eighties. And and partly I
wanted to be a surgeon so bad that you just
worked really, really hard. I must admit. When I went
(13:42):
to USA, they had just finished their first woman in surgery.
So I saw that Margie Fine had finished, and so
I was like, whoa, so they actually have finished one woman.
I found that the men were actually just really helpful.
I had two brothers, so I was used to being
around guys with making that happen. But there's certainly are
people that didn't see a woman or a person of
(14:04):
color as someone with different background in those roles. Now
they may actually not say it out loud and maybe
more microaggressions. It maybe more of how they choose and pick.
But I think I was really lucky that the leaders
I chose actually really saw that I could lead and
that I had good qualities and oh, by the way,
I was a woman versus oh, she's a woman, is
(14:24):
this going to work. I'm certainly there are people that
didn't like me or didn't think I should be promoted
or move forward. I did look at one job to
be a chair of surgery, and the dean said he
couldn't hire the first woman as chair of surgery in
his school because they didn't have a chair that was
a woman. And to me, um, and that was early
two thousand's. To me, that actually is excellent information because
(14:47):
you don't want to work for someone who doesn't want
that to happen. Uh, You wouldn't want to get there
and find out they didn't want a woman leader. Where
when I went to Hopkins, the dean there, Ed Miller,
was like, let's do it. I was the only woman
chair there for a even years, but he really knew
that it needed to change surgery and was very supportive.
So I think choosing who your boss is actually affords
(15:08):
your ability to make a difference. And and for me
now I'm enjoying so much that so many more women
are coming into surgery. You know, we've got about twenty
or thirty percent of surgeons now, or women, about over
half our training programs, or women over half of people
in medical school or women now too. And now we
just need to get women to the leadership positions to
(15:28):
realize that actually you do have more control and ability
to do what you want to do when you lead
versus being part of the team. And not all women
should lead, just like not all men should, but having
those opportunities are are really important. I guess when I
saw someone who didn't, wasn't that great or that nice?
You know, I guess I was pretty good at speaking
out and telling people about it. I actually probably was
(15:50):
a bystander person that could speak out way back then,
maybe because I had the two brothers, and frankly I
would just take note of that and realize that, you know,
you can't change everybody. You know, some people aren't going
to like you for how you look or where you
trained or what you do. But then you can go
forward and do other things with other people, and then
turn back and bring others with you so that you're
able to afford other people opportunities. And I think I've
(16:13):
gotten better and better. Uh, there's more women training with men,
so men are really used to women training with them.
I know my son, when he was six, he asked
me if women and men could be surgeons too, because
he thought only surgeons were women. You know, I love
that that's what he saw in our house because my
husband's a businessman, and I said, well, it's your mother's help.
You too could be a surgeon. Now he he does
(16:35):
real estate equity research, so he's not a surgeon. But
I do think that as you go forward, you can
make a difference with some people and some people you're
still going to change your mind, so you just move on.
And I love what you've said about being in leadership
with the opportunity to give back and to help others
along the way. So how do you look at that
(16:57):
part of it, whether it's women or people who you
know may not have the opportunities, Um, how do you
look at that part in all the jobs that you do?
And I've always been very involved with students, mainly came
from my mother being a teacher. So when I've been
in medical school or when I've been in residency or training,
I always have a student shadowing me. So I'll have
(17:17):
students come to the operating room so they can see
that I students in the clinic. Now I actually get
a senior that just finished Weight Force University that shadows
me for a year, a presidential intern, and they can
shadow me. They go to the o R and they
go to my meetings and all of them and ended
up in medical school, which is great. So making sure
that you can show people and afford them an opportunity
(17:38):
to see because I had no surgeons in my family,
and then not only to mentor them and listen to them.
But I think the biggest word now is sponsorship, right,
so that if you want to go do something, I
actually make sure you get that chance. And now that
I've had tons of chances, people know me. I don't
need to give one more talk or one more thing.
I can actually say, well, why don't you interview sell
(17:58):
and Soll versus me. She's a amazing, he's amazing. You
can make that happen. So I think sponsorship and really
telling people to um prepared for these leadership positions is
really important. And I love having young people around. I
think as I've gone through my career now being a
surgeon now for thirty five years, it's great to have
(18:19):
young people there so that they actually can give you
a point of view from those coming up. Because what
we're doing today in medicine is really for the next generation,
so it makes sense that they should be at the
table having a comment. You can just tell from just
even a few minutes of talking to you, just how
much you give back. It seems at the very ethos
(18:40):
of what you do. And I love the way you said, well,
I get to have an intern shadow meeting NonStop, you know,
your entire day. It seems just like every minute of
every day for you is about giving back to people.
And in addition to all the work that you're doing,
how do you recharge your batteries in the rare times
(19:00):
that you're not working? And well, I'm a very big extrovert,
which you can tell, can I take that test? I'm
I'm an extra bit sort of over the cliff to
do that. So I get energy from people. The COVID
has been really hard for those of us that are extroverts,
you know, doing virtual not seeing people, not being out
and about has been tough. Just last week, I actually
(19:22):
was at a couple of meetings seen people and it
was it was really refreshing to make that happen. So
people give me energy, they give me feedback. That is good.
I tend to love having meetings where their strategy or
creativity because you think of something amazing to do that.
But for me, Um, I do read a lot. So
actually I missed traveling because I used to travel the
(19:44):
places and work on the way there. And if I
got my work done, I would read a book. Because
I still read books. I actually like books to do that,
so I read a lot. I have exercise quite a bit,
walk with my husband. I'm a swimmer too. I have
an endless pool, so I'll do some swimming from time
to time. And then I do crafting too, so I
make things and I sew and I create things, sort
(20:06):
of like a surgeon at home. So I do have
those activities where I always have some project going that
ends up with either a gift for somebody or something
that I created. So maybe that's the surgeon in me
at home. Um. And I tell you, people really may
give me tons of energy. Now there are people that
not everyone is energized positive, you know, as these leadership positions,
(20:29):
you do have to work with people that do cause
a little trouble or they're all in the they're in
the wrong spot. And I do feel everyone's got the
right spot, just sometimes they're not in the right spot.
So you have to move people along. So I'm pretty
good at having those crucial conversations saying, you know, you're
really amazing, but you're not amazing here, so let's figure
out where you can be amazing. That's a great way
(20:50):
to put that. I really like that you're amazing, but
maybe just not right here. You talked about being an
extrovert and and COVID being hard on on you. A
lot of extroverts also hard on the place that you work.
I imagine you guys have come through it very admirably.
So I'm just wondering, with all that Atrium Health Wig
Forest Baptist has overcome in the past few years and
(21:13):
has achieved since you've been there, what are some of
the moments that make you the most proud because you're
doing such incredible work. But we changed quite a bit
as far as before we came together with Atrium, which
was in twenty October twenty twenty. We actually expanded even
up here in northwest North Carolina, so we actually bought
(21:34):
High Point Hospital. We had bought Wilkes Hospitals, so we're
a five hospital group with about a hundred and forty clinics,
about four and a half billion dollars, so we got
bigger here even before we joined Atrium. Which made us
even two to three times that big. We also had
something where we didn't deliver babies at our hospital, so
it was a very interesting thing. Years ago they decided
(21:54):
to deliver the babies at another hospital and really just
focus on trauma and cardiac here and things, and and
with that we're self insured, so my my women who
worked for us actually deliver their babies at another hospital
and if the baby got sick, the baby would come
to our hospital, but they would stay at the other hospital.
So we opened a big maternity wards. So now we're
(22:16):
delivering over three thousand babies a year. We were only
delivering thirty back then. So we developed a great big
attorney more and luckily we did it in twenty nineteen
before COVID, So that's been really wonderful where we have
a very active neon needle I s you were delivering babies.
All our people that work for us and deliver their
babies there, So that probably has been just really exciting
(22:37):
and also has expanded the families we take care of,
because it really has been shown wherever a woman has
her baby or brings her child, she tends to bring
all our healthcare to that area. So it's really important
to do that, so expanding that has been really important
as well as expanding our medical school research. We've increased
the amount of research over fifty and over the last
(23:00):
five years looking at UH ideology of Alzheimer's and and
aging as well as diabetes. We have a big regenitive
medicine center here where we're looking to make kidneys and
tumors UH tumors UH chemotherapy so that we can actually
know it works for well. That's Dr Talad that does that.
(23:21):
So our research has expanded as well, so we're real
excited about that. And probably the biggest thing is, you know,
now with our partnership with Atrium Health UH putting a
second campus in in Charlotte. We get over eleven thousand
applications for our medical school every year and we only
have a hundred and forty five spots here. So it
makes sense that we could have a second campus of
(23:42):
a hundred students down in Charlotte as well because we
have so many applications. And what's your role with that,
because it just sounds so exciting expanding into the Charlotte area.
And I know you said you're down in Charlotte quite
a bit. So what is your focus when it comes
to that expansion. Yeah, well, initially at the dean is
we've and looking at how to put the applications, and
we have third and fourth year students down there now,
(24:04):
and and we have a new senior Associate dean for education,
Angelist Sharkey's putting the school together. She did that in Greenville,
South Carolina as well. So we are recruiting a dean
because I am finding myself a little busy with being
the chief academic officers, a little busy. Yeah, so we'll
have a d look at that. And then the chief
academic officers I always see not only the medical school,
(24:24):
but we have an excellent p A program here as
well as a crn A program. And there's two colleges
down in Charlotte, uh Caberras and Carolinas where they train
texts and nurses and that, and so being over looking
at not only the students but the residents we train.
We train almost two thousand residents and different fields between
the two campuses. So all that together, just watching over
(24:46):
the education piece. And then we also think we call
ourselves an academic a learning health system because even if
you're not a student or a resident, You're still always
learning no matter what you do, so making sure our
our physicians are a staff or nurses continue to learn
and make a difference to be the best that can
be as a health care provider. Well, Julie, I just
want to thank you so much for taking time out
(25:09):
of your incredibly busy day to talk through all of
this with me, and just thank you for all the
work that you do in in my home state, in
in this area, and all the work you're going to
be doing in Charlotte and everything you do it wake
for us. I can't thank you enough just for all
the contributions you're making and then also setting a great
example for all of us. And I'm just honored to
have a chance to talk to you and to hear
(25:29):
about everything that you're working on. It's just been really incredible. Well,
I appreciate that opportunity. We love North Carolina. I've been
here five years. Wonderful, wonderful people. The culture down in
Charlotte with the Atrium Health really matches ours really well.
We're all to making people better. You're giving making people better,
preventing them from being sick, and getting people access no
(25:50):
matter who you are so you can get great health
care Atrium in Charlotte as well as Atrium health Way
for US Baptist. We take care of a lot of
people who have issues with access, who don't have insurance,
that have all these other things as well as doing
um life saving and amazing breaking news type things as well.
So altogether, we just feel fortunate to be here and
(26:13):
thank you for estimate to talk yes, and we feel
fortunate that we are the recipient of of all you
and everyone under you are doing so, thank you so much.
We appreciate the time you're welcome
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!