The Entrepreneurial MD: Dr. Mary Hannon’s Journey

Speaker 1: [Music] to stay in the right mindset you always have to remind yourself of what your intention was at the beginning of starting this business and for me that's taking really good care of patients we have better days than others just like everyone in every profession on the days that seem the toughest you just have to remind yourself okay this is where I'm supposed to be this is really why I started this and if today didn't go so well tomorrow is a new day hi I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the shilp podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go thank you for joining us Dr Hannon you are the owner of South Bay MD tell tell us about your career prior to launching your business prior to launching my business I trained in emergency medicine in the Bronx New York worked there as an attending and then our family made the cross country move I worked in several emergency rooms in and around the LA area as well as different Urgent Care settings mostly inner city underserved populations for 12 13 years before starting my own business very high paced very high Acuity stressful situations in those emergency rooms for a lot of years and the Bronx being in the city and being in the ER what led you to that type of work and what type of personality and mental capacity do you think someone needs in order to work in that environment yeah the Bronx was an amazing place to train because it's just literally a free-for-all at all times you think back to those days and even after some of the shifts you would be driving and just asking yourself did that really happen especially summertime in the Bronx it was one of the highest receiving level one Trauma Centers in all New York City you see a lot of Pediatrics and adults and that's exactly where you want to train because you want to be able to be prepared as best you can for wherever you might go from there and certainly my years to Kobe Hospital Monir Hospital certainly prepared me for basically anywhere I wanted to go after that what type of person goes into it some people say a crazy person there's lots of pluses and minuses you have to be very much a multitasker bed five need F and bed two needs this and I need to get back to this person it's a lot going on basically at all times to be able to manage that as opposed to other types of medicine like surgery or other Specialties they focus on one patient at a time and one surgery at a time this is pretty much the opposite of that you also need to know a little bit about everything as opposed to being a specialist on one particular part of medicine so different personalities gravitate you need to be very approachable you're meeting patients for the first time oftentimes at one of the worst times in their life and their families and they don't know you they've never met you you have no report with them so you need to establish that immediately you need to establish a level of trust with both the patient and the family in usually very dire circumstances so that takes a different type of Personality people that like that gravitate to that because as you rotate through med school couple shifts in the ER you pretty much know what you're getting into at least the crazy level of it it was a natural fit for me also by the time I came out of medical school I already had my older son and had my second son in residency so it's a little bit easier because it's more shipped work scheduled work it's really not as a resident but when you come out full-time ER doctor is usually working through 3 12 hour shifts a week for being a mother it definitely lends to that life now those shifts are night shifts they weekend shifts there your kid's birthday there's Christmas it's not as easy as it sounds but at least it can be planned out a little bit better than other Specialties and thank you for doing what you do and what you did because we need people in the world like you especially to help during those challenging moments yeah it's where I feel like my talents are best served so I can't see myself doing anything else what led you to start South Bay MD and share with us how you work with your clients and patients what led me to start South AMD was my friends and family that had been telling me to do it for years between myself being an ER doctor my husband as an orthopedic surgeon I started to add up like the number of medical texts that we get in a 24-hour period it would blow your mind from some of our close friends our family from people that I have no idea who they are and they got my name out of the directory at school so there was definitely a need for access to care because as we all know as parents it's difficult to get your pediatrician on the phone sometimes to get your own care I had been thinking about it for a while was like okay if I'm ever going to do this Now's the Time where people need this level of care desperately and I had no idea if it was just going to be a couple of months because this sort of model surprisingly really didn't exist in our community that's what prompted me to do it and if I'm looking for a doctor I'm going to want someone with your background that can also relate to patients quickly and easily if you're coming into my home correct being an emergency medicine doctor and an urgent care doctor we are certainly trained for what you would go to an urgent care for certainly an emergency room obviously I don't have all the capabilities of an emergency room coming into your house but I will say I'm not an internal medicine doctor I'm not an internist meaning I don't adjust blood pressure medicines and the yearly visits and follow longterm in that regard so I do think that for the average parent someone with my skill set is probably who you're looking for on a Saturday or a Friday night when the kid needs stitches he has a cold he has a fever so I think that lends itself really well and that's great and we've all as parents and as people had those moments where we need someone and can't find someone or don't know who to call so that's great piece of mind yeah and a big part of it is just triaging because patients often times don't know especially parents can this wait for tomorrow can I wait next week do I have to see the dermatologist today because they're telling me the appointment's two months from now is this something I need to go to the emergency room for so a lot of it is just helping patients to know what the next step is that information you're Googling it you're looking it up on WebMD jet time is the worst thing you can do yeah it's what are your options especially on the weekend especially on holidays especially in the evening but and that's always when they get sick yeah so a lot of that is just triaging the next step there was one night with my son where he was really struggling to breathe and I ended up taking him to the emergency room and we went through a whole lot of things maybe we didn't need to and the next day my pediatrician said did you give him ibuprofen and I thought that would be the last thing that I would think I didn't know that it would relax his Airways but then after that when he would struggle to breathe when he was younger I'd give him ibuprofen and it would help but as a parent without that advice given to you before you don't know those things and maybe a call to you you would have said that and that would have helped him and it would have saved a trip to the emergency room yeah that's our goal and then the flip side is sometimes parents think that they're overreacting I had a kid recently that I went and saw and I took one look at him and I like you need to go to the ER right now and so sometimes you just don't know we all know different kids that we have act differently and respond differently and so sometimes it's hard even with kids to figure out what the next best step is so that's where we come in as it relates to our overall health and I know we're all different what is one piece of advice that you can give us for our physical and our mental health I think the best piece of advice that we hear all the time is to prioritize ourself and to try to get the workout in it might be 5:30 in the morning and we're not exactly morning people but try to carve out that 45 minutes to an hour not only is it better for your overall health but usually you're in a better space mentally to tackle all the things that come up during the day it's really important it's really important for your kids to see that you're doing that and to see that's a priority for you A lot of times especially if it's not done in the beginning of the day it falls by the wayside and you're so exhausted so I think that's a great practice to get into it's interesting that you're saying that because I started to do the pelaton 5 minute meditations because I'm like I've Got 5 minutes and then just in the last couple days I kept telling myself I'm going to take time to myself in the afternoon and by the time the kids got home I didn't do that or I'm going to work out in the night and by the time we go to sports and all the things I don't do it so I shifted everything I'm like okay my priority at night is going to be to go to sleep cuz I'm a night person I really want to stay up cuz I'm just awake but I'm shifting that I'm going to do my 5 minute meditation in the morning at 6:15 and then I'm going to do 15 minutes of weights and then I'm going to go into the whole morning routine at 6:45 so I it's hard but I feel better when I do it I know and once you get into that routine like it gets easier and easier the hardest stuff is starting it but I do think that's so important for all of us it's so true when the alarm goes off at 5:45 and then I'm frustrated to get up I'm like you know what I need to be patient because this is a shift I want to stay up late and it's just going to take a while for me to get up and get going in the morning yeah mindset when running a business is so important what do you do as a doctor and business owner to stay in the right mindset to stick stay in the right mindset you always have to remind yourself of what your intention was at the beginning of starting this business and for me that's taking really good care of patients we have better days than others just like everyone in every profession on the days that seem the toughest you just have to remind yourself okay this is where I'm supposed to be this is really why I started this and if today didn't go so well tomorrow is a new day try to keep in mind the initial impetus for starting business because as long as you stay close to that I don't think even with some tougher days that you'd ever really be misled in my business in particular taking care of people and on their not great days and when they don't feel well and families and there's a lot of inner layers that go on with all of that so you just have to stay true to what your original intention is as your business grows and not lose sight of that's what I try to do and that's great advice for keeping in mind how you're helping patients have a better life and how do you want patients to feel when South Bay MD comes into their home I want them to feel almost like the old school doctor house call I know all of my patients I know all of their families I see them at the grocery store there's a level of trust that being a part of a community brings to that and so I want them to feel very well taken care of that I always have their best intention in mind both for adults and their children and sometimes I take care of the grandparents Aunts Uncles the whole scene and that's how it used to be and told before the generation before us where the town doctor came into your house you knew him usually was a him there was just this always level of trust I took care of a she was in her 90s this was about a month ago and she was blown away when she was young this is what she had and this is how she was used to and she was like I can't believe this is coming back what you're doing is so smart especially at a time when it's becoming harder to get in touch with doctors because everyone's joining such larger corporate type practices and so I think people are craving what you're starting and it's so smart thank you I think that there's definitely a need there by coming into someone's home it's a different level of closeness I certainly do home visits a lot but we also do video and phone for people that don't live in this immediate area but there's a level of someone meeting you in your home or on a video or taking the time even if you did the exact same thing from a medicine standpoint as you did in an office it feels different so I I've been pleasantly surprised what do you think is the most important element as it relates to leadership when growing a business that goes back to what we just spoke about I think as a leader you need to keep what your original intention for starting the business at the Forefront of the other people that you lead and sure it might change over time but I've been part of medical practices where that has been lost and it gets bigger and now all of a sudden you're at a point where you can't even recognize where you started and you actually started for all the right reasons but then it's expand and grow and exponential growth to the point where it's just too fast and too much that you even for get what your original goals were and so I think as a leader you constantly have to remind people what the company is and what you stand for and what your goals are and as you expand you have to share that intention with the people that come on board and that's so true and I think it relates to other corporate businesses as well customer service chat Bots and everything are great until you actually need a real person and so I love this conversation because I always thought we'd swing in One Direction but at a certain point we'd have to swing back the other way because we are still human beings and that's a good point to make this industry and this is some of the problems that I've had in previous places that I work it's not just about the bottom line some Industries it is when you're talking about humans and healthc care it's not believe me I know it's a business and you got to pay the rent I get that but there is a way to do it such that you don't have to sacrifice good patient care for the bottom line and medicine is becoming bought up and more corporate and run by corporations and business entities and a lot of times they lose sight of what your business actually is and that is taking care of people so it's not the same as many other industries that they might have led and been involved in in the past what do you see for the future of South Bay MD the future is to expand and to bring on other positions and expand the territory of inhome consults I definitely see that happening you have to pick the right people because it is your baby and you want to keep the level of the standard up and fortunately I know so many great physicians in the area so that's certainly how we grow it and scale it and offer it on a greater scale the tele medicine component which can really be all across the country and so that's our next big step Magic happens when we focus on the part of our business and ourself that brings us joy what is one thing that you do each day to make sure that you're finding and living your joy it's a good question if I'm being honest I don't know if it's s day there's definitely other days that are Joy more joyable than others but I think for me what brings me joy is being able to be successful in all of the facets right so having a great day of taking good care of patients and getting great feedback with that spending time with my family and also a big part of my life is I like to do service and expand outward and so when I'm able to bring my talent outside of my business and even outside of my family to help others that really brings me joy you can have it all as long as you prioritize what it all is right now my house is a mess I can't have it all that's not as important as the other areas that we can excel in so that's what I try to do hopefully on a daily basis but definitely on a regular basis you are thank you for sharing with us about South BD and keeping the human element in medicine I know we're all appreciative of that please share with us how and where we can find you our website is South bd.com we're on Instagram and Facebook we do a lot of texting because it's easier but you can always call us too and all of the contact information is on the website so that's probably the fastest Way South amd.com thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello she.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave