Spotlight Series: An Interview with Dr. Julie Freischlag
Are you seeking guidance and wisdom from someone with a wealth of experience but have no idea where to find them?
If so, look no further.
Today, we are excited and honored to feature one of our nation's most respected female vascular surgeons in our Spotlight Series.
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Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Cynthia Ficara: Are you searching for advice or wisdom from someone with extensive experience, but you're unsure where to find it? Well, look no further because today we are incredibly privileged to feature in our spotlight series, one of the most esteemed female vascular surgeons in
Anneliese Rhodes: the country. Meet Dr. Julie Freischlag.
A true multi talented individual. Not only is she the CEO of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and the executive vice president for health affairs, but she is also a dedicated mother and a practicing vascular surgeon. In fact, she holds the distinction of being only the sixth female in the entire United States of America to become board certified in vascular surgery.
Dr. Freischlag is here today to share her extensive knowledge, which will leave you feeling comforted, supported, and inspired. You're going to absolutely love hearing from her.
Welcome to the secrets and medical device sales. I am Annalisa Rose and I am Cynthia Ficarra. Together. We are the girls of grit to professional women, bringing you over 40 years experience as top performers, top earners, and leaders in the male dominated medical device industry. Street tune in as we give you the keys to unlock
Cynthia Ficara: the secrets to success in medical device sales.
Anneliese Rhodes: So today we are joined by a very, very special guest. I am so excited that she is joining us here on Secrets in the Medical Device and Sales, as well as hosted by the girls of Grit. Today, we are joined by Dr. Julie Freischlag, and she has so many accolades that we are going to run through. But I can say on a personal level, I was really lucky to hear Dr.
Freischlag speak. At a meeting about a year ago, and it was a medical meeting, which is mostly attended by men, and she did such an amazing job of presenting on the topic that we will probably discuss a little bit here today, but the fact that she was so dynamic as a speaker really hit home, because I think a lot of times women's struggle and With presenting information, especially when it's data and Dr.
Fresh log, just did an amazing job. So I'm so excited to have her here today. And I will say for all of you listeners, when you Google her name. Everything pops up, but in particular, there was. A tribute done to Dr. Freischlag from the hospital, John Hopkins, everyone knows that name, and there are so many men and women, physicians, leaders commenting on how amazing she is as a woman, as a leader, as a surgeon, and as their leader.
Words like transformational, words like dynamic, focused on change, focused on patients, focused on our needs. And so excited to be working with her and I will tell you all, I highly recommend you listen and watch that because it brought tears to my eyes.
Cynthia Ficara: Oh, well, without further ado, I am quite honored to introduce Dr.
Julie Freischlag, who is. Is, and I'm going to read this, Chief Executive Officer of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, Chief Academic Officer of Advocate Health, and Executive Vice President for Health Affairs of Wake Forest University in North Carolina. As a member of executive leadership team, she is responsible for the academic core of Advocate Health, the third largest nonprofit integrated health system in the U.
S. In this role, she oversees research and discovery for the entire Advocate Health System, including all educational and research programs at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Atrium Health, Cabarrus College of Health Sciences, and Atrium Health Carolina's College of Health Sciences. As CEO of Wake Forest Baptist, Dr.
Freischlag has overall responsibility for the health system's clinical, physical, Academic and innovation enterprises and its annual operating budget of more than 4 billion. There are so many accolades that Dr. Breischlag has, but I would like you to say hello to everyone and tell us about yourself.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Well, thanks so much.
I appreciate having the opportunity. I've done part of a few of these podcasts because I think it's really important for people to hear about women's careers because sometimes you think maybe it was easy that you just got to the top and went down a slide, but it is a little bit of an adventure actually today we had an event because we're building a new critical care tower outside and we celebrated all the construction workers that are putting this together.
So we did the last beam that went up on top and I sat down and had lunch with a group of them. One young man sort of asked me, where did I come from? How did I know I wanted to do this and almost could I do this too, you know, and so you never know who might be listening and talking to you. So I came from a small town in Illinois, I was born in Decatur, Illinois.
Uh, my mom was an elementary school teacher. My dad, uh, was a circulation manager for a small newspaper. So we grew up in small towns. We moved a few times because he changed newspapers. And then in high school, I went to the Chicago suburbs because he became the circulation manager of the Chicago Tribune.
So all of a sudden I was a Chicagoan. And for those of you from Illinois, there are everybody in Illinois, and then there's the Chicagoans. And so I became a Chicagoan, finished high school up there, but went back to University of Illinois for college. I was going to be a teacher. I was going to be a high school biology teacher, but for reasons that we don't understand, they sort of closed education, I love science.
I was having a great time down at the University of Illinois. I was in a sorority, um, and having fun. And so to be a nurse, she had to go back to Chicago for the year last year, and I didn't want to do that. So I actually applied to med school. I ended up getting an interview at Rush Medical College and.
Met a woman histologist who asked me, of course, what was the last book you read and it was water ship down. So we talked all about those rabbits and hierarchy. The next day I got an early decision and I must have been. I didn't know what that meant, but I got in and part of that was there was a woman there.
Norman Wagner, who was the dean of admissions. She's a PhD anatomist. And she decided to take more women and more people into med school who were maybe at a 1st career. So our average age then was 28 and 42 percent women. And at that time, only 10 percent of people in medical school or women. And that was in 1976.
So there were a lot of women in my class. Dr. Wagner was 1 of the amazing role models to make that happen. I want to be a pediatrician. So I thought that was it. I did surgery and then I walked into surgery and it was like, oh, my goodness. So, I guess the story is, you never know. Always keep your eyes and ears open and you never know what you're going to be.
I ended up going on some rotations on the West Coast is a 4th year. Got snowed into a hospital, a price hospital, and I'm going inside. I'm going West. So I matched at UCLA, but my event with that was they dropped my match slip on the floor. So, for a little bit, I thought I matched nowhere because I had been on call the night before UCLA was my 3rd choice.
I really wanted to go to UCSF and years later, I found out that they didn't rank anyone that year at UCSF. There were 3 of us. So it really wasn't me. They just didn't want anyone. So, I was only the 6th woman to finish surgery at UCLA in general surgery, only the 2nd one in vascular, and I was only the 6th woman to get her boards in vascular surgery in the country.
Uh, so not too many women, I was a very diverse candidate back then. Now we have many more diverse candidates, but back then there weren't that many women. And when I was a division chief of vascular UCLA, I was the only woman in the country doing that. And when I was the chair of surgery at Hopkins, I was only the 4th woman to ever be chair of surgery.
Now we have over 25 women chairs of surgery. And aren't that women, many women in CEOs either or deans? Just a handful on both sides to do it. So I feel that I've enjoyed going on with my career. I think my biggest goal of these things is always keep learning things. So I'm a vascular surgeon as you know.
so much. Did all the best for surgery. I'm sort of an expert at the Gatlin syndrome, but I always wanted to make it better. I love teaching. I love educating people. I love looking at systems running teams. So, as I kept going, just learning new things, enjoying new opportunities. I've worked in many places.
I've worked in Johns Hopkins. I've worked at. Medical college, Wisconsin University of California and Davis University of California at Los Angeles University of California in San Diego as well as here and I've enjoyed all of that. So, I think for me, it's just a career. Why not? And to take a chance and then also to teach those behind you.
And when I met you, and at least the person in charge of that meeting. Uh, the president was a young man I had trained, you know, there's just nothing better than seeing someone you had trained years ago. Now go on to lead and be incredible. And if I were to tell you that is the best, you know, I like doing it myself when I went through it, but I truly, truly like watching those that I've trained do it behind me.
Anneliese Rhodes: That's amazing. And you know what? You're exactly right. I think when you mentor, which is exactly what you're talking about, and then you see the results and the people and the happiness it brings in the success that they get. And they can attribute a lot of it to your mentorship. There can't be anything better.
We both agree to that. You know, something that I was thinking about as you were telling your story. Did you always know that you were going to be a leader, that you were going to be so strong, really strong in everything that you've accomplished? I mean, to be one of the very first vascular females ever.
I mean, that's huge. And then to go on to be CEO at multiple hospitals. I mean, I, did you know, as a young child, I mean, what was one of the, was there a turning point?
Dr. Julie Freischlag: I think my mom told me when I was younger, That you had to get educated, you know, because if you got educated, they couldn't take that away from you.
And my grandfather was a coal miner and he died when I was 6. he actually probably ruptured an aneurysm because his son had a sudden death and my mother had an aneurysm, which is very unusual and he told me I skipped 1st grade years ago and I was quite a talker so I think they pushed me up to 2nd grade mainly because I talked too much.
And my brother was a year ahead of me. And everything, and I think they didn't know what to do with me. And my grandfather also said, you know, Julie, they're going to tell you, you can't do things and you're just going to tell me, you know, because I was just this short little girl, you know, and then you die, you know, to do it.
I think I always remember that. And back when I went to school. There really were no girls sports. Really, I was a cheerleader for a few years. I was a lifeguard. I did that. But there weren't organized girls sports. We couldn't even wear pants to school until I was a sophomore in high school. I mean, it was a whole different world, right?
So part of it, the way you got there, was to be smarter and quicker. And I think that's what I did as well. Just be smarter and quicker and, um, and then I think my mom also instilled to me, be smarter and quicker, you know, because I, I also think I'm a really nice person too. I really feel that you can get there without being diabolical without.
Lying without taking advantage of others. And I think that's part of being a surgeon and a doctor. You're there to help. You're not there to hurt. And I do think even if people aren't that fair to you, or don't give you opportunities, which I've had many people not do that along the way, you know, you don't want to work for them anyway.
I mean, if they don't want to give you a chance, why would you want to hang with them to do it? So you find people that will give you that chance. I did have 2 brothers. I had a brother. Um, 1 year older than me that I skipped 1st grade. So we were on the same grade forever. And then I have a younger brother, 7 years younger than me.
So I did have 2 brothers. My older brother wasn't athletic, but my younger brother is very athletic. Um, but I think part of that also is, um, I was 1 girl in the middle of 2 boys. And so I just did whatever they did. You were a fighter. I
Cynthia Ficara: think so.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: I
Cynthia Ficara: love it. You have strong characteristics that, you know, lead you to be a surgeon and you had many years where you successfully worked bedside as a surgeon, caring for patients and Hands on, and then now you've evolved into this C suite, high level position of hospital administration.
So, what made you make that transition from bedside to administration?
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Yeah, that's a really good question. Part of it is I watched how people organize things, wondering if you could do it better. My job at Hopkins, I not only ran the whole department of surgery, but I ran the operating rooms and we ran the ICUs and we really looked at throughput and where should that operation be done and how do you do it better and faster, you know, quality issues to do it and making sure you had availability.
I think part of it was just trying to get your teams to work better. What if that patient was you, you know, what, what would you want done? And for those of us surgeons that get stuck waiting to get a case done or waiting to get a case on on Friday afternoon, or trying to get things happening, trying to make it better organized so that you have more time to teach more time to go home or time to take a deep breath, whatever it is to do it.
So, I think part of it is, you know, surgeons run good teams. You know, we run teams and ORs that are nurses, anesthesiologists, all in one space, and they're all breathing the same air, right? And we're pretty good when it's a level 1 and urgent emergent, but maybe not so good when it's an appendicitis on Friday afternoon, you know?
So, part of it is just realizing, you know, what if that patient was you? What would you want them to be doing? And then also understanding that you can run a team really well. I have everyone have a good experience there, including yourself. So, maybe a little bit with self serving to do that. And also, I like watching other people to things just like I love watching people do surgery when I teach it, I love watching people learn how to run things and organize things and make things work.
So, I do think that, um, enjoying others and delegating to others is also something to do.
Anneliese Rhodes: That's awesome. You know, you mentioned so many great qualities about being a leader. I love how you said you don't have to be diabolical. You don't have to be, you know, a lot of women, we get painted a certain way when we are in leadership positions.
And. I love the fact that you said, be kind, because I think what that does is even though of course you're going to need to be stern and you're going to need to have everyone follow certain set of rules, but you don't have to do it in an ugly, mean, uncaring way. You can do it with kindness on top. And it's interesting because I, I bet that you are perceived so much better because you are kind.
I think a lot of women really struggle with that. Did you learn that? Or is that just something that you've seen? You, you know, you mentioned obviously you're, you want to do this because this is the way that you would want to be treated. And we say that a lot in this podcast, but it's, it's really interesting.
I'm so glad you bring it up because I think a lot of women struggle with that. How do you find that sweet point, right? That sweet spot where you are a leader and you do get things done and people do listen to you, but yet you're not perceived as like this overwhelming diabolical mean person.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Well, I think I was just talking, I did some virtual grand rounds yesterday for the University of Colorado.
So I plan got canceled. So we were talking to a group of women and I do think we're judged differently. Still, you know, when a woman misbehaves in the, or I would hear about it in a nanosecond where it and when a man does it, it was sort of expected to do that. So I think. The spectrum of behavior is less for women, uh, in many ways to make that happen.
Plus what I learned is, um, I think one of the things I've learned is if I have an issue with you, instead of telling 12 people about what I don't like about you, I just go tell you. You know, I go to you and say, listen, I bet you didn't mean to do this. Uh, but this is how what I saw what I did. This is what someone told me.
What do you think? And I've told people that too. If you hear something that you think I didn't do, make sure you let me know how you feel about that to do it because, you know, me and I wouldn't say or do that. So I think starting directly to people, I also, if I say something really stern, I'll go, listen, you know, what you did was really stupid.
You shouldn't have done that. And I'll just smile, which is like, I'm not yelling at you, but what a dumb thing to do, you know, and you don't want to do that. You know, you, you didn't show up on time, or you didn't do your homework on the case, or you didn't answer your page, or you didn't get the paper done on time.
I mean, all those kind of things, you just sit there and go, really, you know, why didn't you do this or what? If you couldn't get it done or had an issue, call somebody, let somebody know. So, I do have a good sense of humor, but I am pretty direct with people. And actually, my assistant Carla says it's.
interesting because the surgeons were used to giving good and bad news, right? And sometimes you have to give really bad news about I can't fix this or you're going to lose your leg or you had a stroke. So for me to just say that you did something that wasn't so kind or so nice, that that actually is something that, um, uh, it's easy to do because no one's going to die.
You know, you're, you're not going to lose your leg, but you really can't behave like that. So, I think giving direct feedback has helped me out a lot and then relationships. I was just talking about that yesterday. I think morning good relationships with. The nurses in the alarm when I was a resident to make sure they had my back with the nurses in the clinic with the other team.
I had 1 of my interns years ago. Just tell me, you know, we weren't that many women residents because we didn't look at you as a woman resident. You were Julie, you know, you were teaching us, you were making sure that it was happening. You cared about us. So I think relationships, not only with your patients, but with your colleagues are important too, because then they have your back and you have theirs, you know, because we're all in this together and it's not bad.
And you also need to learn you don't have to love everybody you work with. You know, I have had people that I didn't like at all. And sometimes that's really hard. And maybe they need to move on. But you can just like people. You don't have to love people to get along with them. Uh, but part of it is just making sure they understand the rules of the road and where you're going.
Gosh, so much great information.
Cynthia Ficara: You asked a little bit ago about leading, and I think Dr. Fleishlug just walked us through how she leads. And that was a phenomenal example without even realizing you did that. Yes. And honestly, I would work for you. Yes. Can I work for you? I'll work with you. No, wait, we're talking about a team.
I would work with you. No, actually I I really really I think you hit the nail on the head and I bet and I I don't even know one person that works with you But I guarantee if I ask any one of those people about working Quote unquote under you because essentially they are I bet all of them would tell me that they don't want to disappoint you Obviously you care and like you said when you smile saying why did you do that?
they have to know when they do something wrong because Surgery at the end of the day is life or death. And yes, there's those moments They need to be caught up this you absolutely cannot do this. There's a patient's life on the table Yet at the same time, you still have to finish the surgery. You need to encourage them.
They're learning and give them the confidence to keep going. I just think the way you described that was excellent. So thank you for that.
Anneliese Rhodes: And you bring in the human factor into everything that you're talking about. It's still the human factor at the end of the day. And I think that that's what we all want.
That's what we all crave. I mean, every single one of us, I can say are probably so tired of all the automated stuff, right? So when you have the human. Aspect of understanding the situation, dealing with them one on one, not making a big spectacle of things. I think people appreciate that. So one of the things that I think it's tossed around a lot, but it's probably a, maybe we can just open it up for an example is one of the challenges that everybody in the world faced with healthcare was COVID.
You know, I use that as an example, but I would love, I know all of our listeners would love to hear, I'm assuming it was probably one of your biggest challenges. We'd love to hear how you handled that as a leader, as a surgeon, as you know, someone who all eyes and ears are listening to, waiting for you to tell them what to do.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Right. And I actually got to talk together on that because what is everybody watching when you don't know what to do? Because, you know, when it occurred, I must admit, I had an alum in an event, say, what are you going to do about COVID 19? My thing? Oh, I think it'll stay in Washington. I'm not sure. It's going to be a big deal.
I didn't think it was. And then all of a sudden, I remember coming back and giving a talk at Yale. And I was coming back and everybody was washing their hands. This was the first part of March in 20, uh, 20. And all of a sudden then we shut down the ORs and we actually wrote an article about it saying we shut 'em down, tried to figure out what was going on.
'cause we really didn't know who was at risk, right? We didn't know whether we should wear masks or not. And of course we didn't have gazillion masks 'cause we just ordered them all the time to make it happen and that we didn't have as many gloves and, and, and because we knew we could get them tomorrow.
So, the supply chain thing was huge to make that happen. And then we did a lot of work just trying to figure out what should and could you not do, you know, could you even diagnose the disease? Where was the testing? We did do a couple of trials. I was the first one to sign up for doing a trial here. My husband and I did that.
So, we did that in August. So, that by January, you know, we did have vaccines for people. I got the vaccine. My husband didn't, he didn't quite understand. A randomized trial, he thought they had to give me the vaccine to make it happen. But I do think we, we just paid attention. We had a command center. Like, many people did.
We watched our numbers to make it happen. We didn't get affected as much early in North Carolina, but we really had a very low vaccination rate in our state. So that was probably our hardest thing. I participated in some mass vaccination events and really got through that whole thing. And just when you thought it was okay, then it came back again.
You know, that next fall, my husband and I actually were out in California and he got it in October. And that's what they said. We couldn't travel for 10 days. So we were in this hotel for 7 days, and we just couldn't take it anymore and flew home. And now they're saying, you don't have to do that anymore.
Because most everybody's been exposed or vaccinated to do it. But it was scary. I think it was hard. We saw people die that were scared to come to hospital. We had probably a group of patients who were undocumented in the United States that were scared to come to our hospital. They worked in some of our plants and factories and things, and they were probably middle aged women that died because they didn't come in.
They lived in tents. Home and things, but we finally got to the other side of it. And I, I do go around saying, so what did coven 19 do for us? You know, what does that that done? It brought us like, well, 1, it makes us able to do this. You know, before this, you and I would never be able to do podcasts or virtual.
We do virtual meetings. I like getting together and having in person meetings, too, but it does make it important so that you can connect to make it happen. Or when my plane got canceled on Sunday, I couldn't get to Colorado. I can still get grand rounds virtually. And so it has done. It's made us patients throughout our 5 hospitals, so that if you're a less sick patient, I've got you at smaller hospitals and.
We had very big trouble trying to get surgeons and people to do that in the past. But now we move them all over to make that happen. Uh, so that's been very helpful as well, too. I think it's taught us to be flexible. I think it also has taught us, you know, the differentiation between access and how certain people couldn't get vaccines, how people didn't understand the vaccines.
The political nature of all that was just crazy. When you look back at it, um, Mandy Cohen actually ran our state and now she, she works at the CDC and she was great with all of this. We have weekly talks and conversations to make it happen, but it did get in your way. I think when you look back so many people.
I feel it stripped them of things, whether it was my granddaughter, her kindergarten, you know, she, she did her 1st, couple of years in school on a computer. And that's not her strength. Right? Luckily. She's caught up with reading and other things eventually couldn't travel. My son couldn't get married that year, so they had a small wedding for us.
The big wedding the next year, and he got cobit at that 1. So here we are to make it happen. I did like the little wedding just for your parents. I thought that was a good thing, but there were a lot of things that happened and then loneliness, you know, for people in nursing homes and older people and even now, older people, we don't have as much cobit, but older people are still struggling.
So, I think it taught me a lot. Um, it taught me a lot of resilience to do that. And also now that we're on the other side, just really celebrating the fact that we've gone to the other side, you know, to make that happen and that here we are. And we did 1 of our partnerships with Adrian help during that.
So we actually are partnered with Charlotte. So we did have some other things to do. I also put together a racial equity task force right after George Floyd got murdered. We actually did a lot of work on racial equity and centers for advancing racial equality. So we actually used some of that time that we couldn't go do the other things we did to really go deep into ourselves to explore that.
So that was really helpful as well too. So we had some big purpose work that we probably wouldn't have done. If we were going along like in general, and when he got murdered, that was right with COVID. So you really couldn't, it's marked, you know, you had to pay attention. And I think that did well for our institution
Cynthia Ficara: as well.
My goodness. Just when you think there's not more you can do, there's more you're doing. That's phenomenal. But, you know, looking back and all that you have done, is there anything that, that you would have changed in your journey, or if there is a. A vascular surgeon striving to take a very similar path as you, would there be anything that you would encourage them to do differently?
Dr. Julie Freischlag: And I got asked a lot via regrets and thoughts and I really don't, it's not that everything went well. I was married to an oncologist, got divorced. I got remarried. My husband's from a dating service. I got 2 step kids. I mean, I've got a menagerie of a family too. But I think I've learned from everything.
So, as you go forward, I think the key is, if you're in the wrong spot, or you're in the wrong practice, or you're doing, it's not working for you and your personal life. You really need to go fix it. You know, you need to go get it because your goal is to be happy most every day. That's what your goal is to do.
And so I don't think I've ever relive it. The only thing I think I might do differently is to be a little easier on myself. I, women are harder on themselves. You know, we judge ourselves really hard, whether, you know, if you're at home, you wish you were at work when you're at work, you wish you were at home.
We tend to want perfection. We tend to want a perfect, we tend to want this. And I think letting up on yourself just a little bit now may have driven me to do more. I do have a great time management skills. I can get things done here and there, but most women can't. I think we're multi ball jugglers.
There's no question whether you have kids or parents or cats or dogs, you get a lot done to do it. But I would say, just take when you get offered something say, yes, more than no. And then once you start doing it. If you get joy out of it, I will keep doing it. But if you don't get joy out of it, stop doing it.
You know, and I actually was on a conversation with 1 of my mentees today. She was 1 of my students and she's a surgeon and she was making a choice not to do something because she's not enjoying it and she was feeling bad about it because it's a leadership position and this and that, but she doesn't like it.
She wants to go do something else. And I said, that is perfect. That's exactly you know, what it is. It's not giving you joy. So go do something else. And that's okay. You know, take a different path because it was a little different than what I've done. And of course she should do something different, but the key is she should like it every day.
Anneliese Rhodes: That's a great piece of advice. I'll tell you. I'm, I'm struggling with the decision to make and you're right, you should say yes more than no. And if it turns out that it's not something that you want to move forward with, then change it. I mean, you have one life to live. You might as well change it and be happy, happier than you are unhappy.
So I agree with you. Thank you for that. I appreciate hearing that. So I was thinking about all the things that you do every day, and I'm sure you're up at 4 a. m. And you know, probably sometimes not even going to bed until midnight. What do you do in your downtime? What do you do maybe to relax or relieve some of that stress?
We talk a lot about that and for everybody it's different, but I'm curious. What do you do?
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Yeah, well, my husband's great because he left me complain for 5 minutes and that's a green has been only 5 minutes. So I'm going to gather a dog. You get 5 minutes to do it and then you move on. I do a lot of reading during the code.
I actually lost my ability to do a lot of reading, but I read all sorts of books. I read fiction. I read. Self-help. I read leadership. I love to read, so that's always helpful. I'm also a crafter. My mother was too, so I sew and craft and needle work and do that. I think that's a surgeon in me sort of relaxes you to make that happen.
My husband and I walk a lot. Typical person, but now I started running 2 miles a day again. So I'm starting to run a little while and I have an endless pool. So, in the summertime, I wasn't like, I like to swim. So, all of those things together. I enjoy. We do type trips. I like to take vacations and go places.
And so now that it's gone, we're sort of back traveling a bit. And my son, I have 2 step sons and his son. Him and his wife like to travel with us. So we're actually headed to Paris in July with them. And they're going to meet us in Italy, uh, later in May. So, so I do like to travel a bit. There's no question about it.
Cynthia Ficara: I feel relaxed now, just listening to you. I've already decompressed my day. That was great. I love
Anneliese Rhodes: my five minute timer. I would like to set that up right now for my husband and I think he might appreciate it too. It's I think
Dr. Julie Freischlag: you and I both just took something. Yeah, because it ain't going to change, you know, so part of it is to get the 2 or 3 things out and then go on to something else.
And I also tell my people here, you know, I've come Friday, you know, I don't really want to talk to you all weekend unless somebody died that wasn't supposed to die or something bad happened, you know, take some Marcus. I'm sick of you, you're sick of me, let's move on. And we've really changed the culture here that we really leave each other alone for the weekend, unless you're on call, unless you're doing something, but you really need to have that space away.
So that you're able
Anneliese Rhodes: to meet them. Boundaries those are boundaries. We struggle with
Dr. Julie Freischlag: that. You can do this 24 hours a day. I spoke out and it's not good for us to do that. So. Part of that is making sure that you turn it off. I think we, we learned the hard way. We have so many meetings going into the evening.
I was involved with something with one of the journals that it was an issue. And we were meeting two or three nights a week from nine to 11. It's crazy, you know? And so making sure you stay away from that is important.
Anneliese Rhodes: I love that. I love that. Well, I have a one last question, but Cindy, do you have any questions for Dr.
Freshman?
Cynthia Ficara: No, I just want to say I love how, you know, it is, it is, I'm very inspired listening to you put yourself first and be able to accomplish these tremendous, tremendous things that you've been able to accomplish, but taking care of yourself and doing it in a, in almost just a very natural fashion is really great to hear.
Yeah,
Anneliese Rhodes: and keeping
Dr. Julie Freischlag: it along the way to do it. Um, and I also think if you project a success to others, you know, their success come back and helps you. You know, so what they do reflects on you as well, too. So, I think that's what I've learned that. It doesn't always have to be me. You know, that it can be our team to make that.
Anneliese Rhodes: I love that. So our listeners, I know would love to know, do you have any famous quotes or anybody that you have just always looked up to and something that they taught you during that time that you would love to share with all of our listeners?
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Yeah, so my favorite quote is this one, be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says, oh, crap.
She's up.
Anneliese Rhodes: I'm doing a happy dance. I need that for my office. That is this
Dr. Julie Freischlag: was given to me by shipper already. She's a bathroom surgeon at Stanford and she came and shadow me for a week. And, uh, it's my favorite quote. I mean, there's all sorts of lovely ones, and I love Renee Brown and all of that to do it, but you want to be that person that they go.
Oh, my God. She's still here to be
Anneliese Rhodes: and just for our listeners, she's got it as a plaque on her wall. So I, I am, I'm going to get that. I'm going to put that somewhere. I mean, that, but.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: And the other 1, she gave me, I was, we were trying to build this birthing center here. And my board said, what do you want our approval?
I said, no, I just want you to say, yes, sitting there as well, too. And it's got a little, it looks like a figure of
Anneliese Rhodes: you.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: It looks like a drawing
Anneliese Rhodes: of you.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: I love that. I just want to be brave today. Oh, and that's 1 of my assistants to do it. So, those 2. Um, and my most important role models really were my mom, you know, who was a teacher and told me to do what I needed to do.
Normal Wagner, that woman who got me into medical school and probably Olga Johnson, who was really the 1st woman chair. I saw her when I was a 3rd year med student at Rush. She was a transplant surgeon and Olga was probably 6 foot tall. And I remember looking at her going, do you have to be that tall? I mean, is that, has, is that what's gonna happen?
And she was amazing. She was quite a trailblazer. She died a few years ago of cancer, but she was the first chair at Ohio State and one of the first leaders. And, and, and she had this thing, uh, that said that we, there weren't that many women in any of our societies or anywhere. And she said, you always had to keep a list of amazing women.
So when you were at a meeting. And they were asking for names or asking for something. You have a list already, but you can say, okay, you need to have so and so, so, and so, and so who's going to be a chair of unity. So, and so, so, and so, and so, so, so you have that list. Of amazing women now, I have a list of amazing men and amazing women.
You know, you keep them all there, but you always because, you know, you have that 1 moment when they say, okay, who should we consider for this position? You can't say I'll call you tomorrow. So we always had all this list of amazing women and still do as we look at people to lead organizations to make that happen.
And she was quite amazing because, you know, I'm, there's not that many people in my age group, but there were none with her age group. And so she was quite an amazing woman, transplant surgeon at the University of Illinois at Kirk County. And I can't even imagine, you know, and she always the other thing is, you know, she always had a smile on her face, you know, and that's the other thing is, you know, even if it's a bad day, you really don't want them to know you want to be that 1 that says, oh, crap, she's here.
She's just fine. You sit there and you go, you're just not going to do that, you know, to make it happen. So I, I do think that she was quite impressive to do that. Well, I'm
Cynthia Ficara: sure you were number one on her list for amazing
Anneliese Rhodes: women. Absolutely. You are so inspiring, Dr. Freischlag. I, I am so inspired. I want to be like you when I grow up and I would love to come and follow you and work with you and just learn so much about being a great leader.
You truly epitomize a fantastic leader.
Dr. Julie Freischlag: Thank you so much. And part of it's, it's given, given that opportunity. Uh, and there are days that suck, you know, to do it, that's okay, you know, to do it. But the best thing is go back to your core and your North Star. And I think as long as you continue to be that way, off you go.
I love it.
Anneliese Rhodes: And with that, we're going to close to all of our listeners. Thank you so much, Dr. Freischlag for joining us today with the Girls of Grit and Secrets and Medical Devices. We so appreciate your time and my pleasure. Yes, ma'am. And we look forward to hearing from all of our listeners about this episode.
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Bye. Bye. Wow. Cindy, there is so much to be said about this interview with Dr. Freischlag. I mean, it just leaves me speechless and really wanting to write down everything that she said. Thank you. You know, she has a remarkable ability to impart her wisdom that resonates so deeply.
I mean, it really kind of makes me think about what my late grandmother and my late mother would have shared with me. And her teachings just are so profound, but they have that love and support underneath that makes it so genuine. And I love the story from her when she was age six. And her grandfather instilled in her the mindset to never be deterred with those that doubt her abilities.
And I think this is what he said, and I quote, You are going to be told you can't do things, and you are going to tell them that you can. I truly think that Dr. Freischlag reminds us all of what we have the power to be. And I think we all need to declare. Yes, I can. And we need to be told that and reminded that over and over again that we can accomplish anything.
We set our minds to
Cynthia Ficara: absolutely. So, we will leave you with words of wisdom from Dr. Julie. 1st. Beginning with keep learning. Be smarter, quicker and nice say more. Yes, is the nose. When something is not working fix it have a list of amazing women and men that you can call on That was one of my favorites be easier on yourself and always Go back to your north
Anneliese Rhodes: star So our call to action is quite simple.
Go to our website and click book now for your consulting session with Cindy and I, we are here to help you achieve your highest success and becoming CEO of your own career paths. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of secrets and medical devices. Sales brought to you by the girls of grit.
Have a great week, a great month and a fantastic year. Bye
bye.
