“You know, to be a unicorn, I think you have to be willing to stand out from the pack and sometimes take a different pathway forward. You can also pay a price for this. The vast majority of people will take the high road. They'll be supportive, encouraging. But there are also others who may not be so kind and may want you to conform. They may also display petty jealousies. They may help to create obstacles in your pathway. But I think for me as a unicorn, I think you have to understand that standing apart from the crowd can attract negative attention. But thankfully, most of the time it is positive.”
- Dr. Camelia Lawrence
Dr. Camelia Lawrence, MD, FACS, is a board-certified surgeon specializing in benign and malignant breast disease. She has fellowship training in advanced breast cancer surgery, including skin- and nipple-sparing mastectomy, sentinel node biopsy, and oncoplastic techniques. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and her medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. She completed her residency at New York Medical College and then entered her fellowship training in breast surgical oncology at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, CA. She currently serves as director of breast surgery for the Hospital of Central Connecticut and Midstate Medical Center, responsible for further developing their breast programs.
Dr. Lawrence has always been intrigued by the power of healing. Ever since she was a little girl, she believed that medicine impacts the heart and soul of people, and that it's truly special and amazing to be a part of that. In terms of physician leadership, as a female, woman of color, and a surgeon who has a visible presence, she had an obligation to help others traverse the climb, to inspire others in their career to reach for the stars, regardless of where they may have originated. We discuss what it means to truly be a unicorn and what it means to be ready and prepared, inside and outside of the operating room.
Dr. Lawrence shares the importance of listening to your intuition. Throughout her career, she’s developed her emotional intelligence and stresses self-exploration and self-discovery. She also shares why she believes that the most impactful leadership style is one that is collaborative and why she tells her mentees that they need to take risks and be willing to fail to succeed. We discuss the importance of being in a supportive environment and going where you’re celebrated, not just tolerated. Today, Dr. Lawrence is enjoying the current phase of her journey, where she’s focused on advocacy, community empowerment, and education.
What’s Inside:
- What it means to be a unicorn as a physician and what it means to be ready and prepared.
- The importance of self-discovery and listening to your intuition.
- How being in a supporting environment and taking risks helps you succeed.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Find full transcripts of DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast episodes on the DocWorking Blog
The past few weeks have been busy at DocWorking! We have been working behind the scenes to add even more CME credits to the THRIVE memberships.
Let your CME budget help you prioritize your own wellness so you can get on with living your best life on your own terms, as defined by you, with DocWorking THRIVE.
You can take the first step today by taking our 2-Minute Balance to Burnout Quiz! Where are you on the Balance to Burnout Continuum? Take the quiz and find out today!
DocWorking empowers physicians and entire healthcare teams to get on the path to achieving their dreams, both in and outside of work, with programs designed to help you maximize life with minimal time.
If you like our podcast and would like to subscribe and leave us a 5-star review, we would be extremely grateful!
We’re everywhere you like to get your podcasts! Apple iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Google, Pandora, Stitcher, PlayerFM, ListenNotes, Amazon, YouTube, and Podbean.
You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Some links in our blogs and show notes are affiliate links, and purchases made via those links may result in payments to DocWorking. These help toward our production costs. Thank you for supporting DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast!
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.