On their honeymoon in St. Lucia. Dr. Ng’ s MBA graduation. Dr. Choi’ s MBA graduation.
( continued from page 35) time to find permanent roles, Louisville quickly became the top choice.
“ One of the reasons I came back here was that as we were looking for jobs, I knew I wanted to work with one of my mentors from when I was a fellow. He was very inspirational and always available to talk and answer questions, gave great advice and you always left a conversation with him feeling inspired to do something productive,” Dr. Ng said.“ Unfortunately, he left shortly after I came to Louisville, but he is one of the reasons that I am here today.”
Dr. Choi remembered surprising her interviewers during their chat by how much she already knew about Louisville.
“ They were shocked that I knew all these hidden gems and foodie places, but it was because I spent all my limited free time here. So, when I came back, it was like,‘ Oh! My happy place is where I get to work!’” she said.“ Now on Sundays we’ re so thankful that we don’ t have to drive back three hours home, we can just stay together as a family.”
Both are now physicians with UofL Health, where they have been since they arrived back in Louisville. Dr. Choi took a moment to brag on her husband, sharing that in 2016, he won the Fellow of the Year award, voted in by his attendings. A few years later, the new fellows who worked with him during the pandemic voted him as Faculty of the Year, a true full-circle moment.
Within pulmonology, Dr. Ng’ s specific areas of interest are interstitial lung disease and lung transplant.
“ Interstitial lung disease is a very specific type of problem that not many people get, but when they do, it can be very severe and detrimental to the patient. Because those patients don’ t have many options for treatment, a lot of them have to pursue lung transplantation, so because of that, I’ m involved in our lung transplant program,” he said.
He is also an Associate Professor with the University of Louisville School of Medicine, leading teams of medical students, residents and fellows through ICU rounds and teaching both at the bedside and the whiteboard. His teaching doesn’ t stop there, though, it also extends to his patients.
“ In the clinic I do a tremendous amount of counseling, and it’ s not unusual for me to spend an hour with a patient because of the disease that they have,” he said.“ A lot of it is understanding what they’ re going through, understanding what happened and trying to explain to them what they have to look forward to and what we can try to do about it.”
Dr. Choi’ s subspecialties in urology focus on cancer survivorship, complex voiding dysfunction and reconstruction. Part of what drew her to fellowship and Minnesota in particular was the ability to learn about more“ quality of life” procedures, and the opportunity to work with Dr. Steven Siegel, one of the pioneers of sacral neuromodulation, or“ bladder pacemakers.” During her training, she worked at a urology practice where she saw many patients with neurological issues like stroke or Multiple Sclerosis. Still today with UofL, she sees a lot of patients with spinal cord injuries.
Dr. Choi is Clinical Assistant Faculty with ULSOM and wants to show students how a clinically busy surgeon can also be involved with things like research, student education and clinical trials. As her office is now in a rural community, she also uses the opportunity to show the strengths of a rural hospital to the trainees.
Both Dr. Choi and Dr. Ng got their MBAs through UofL and Dr. Choi has recently gone back to the School of Business, this time as a teacher, honoring the path of her mother from years before. She started a“ Humanism and Compassionate Leadership in Medicine” course that is taught asynchronously over five weeks.
“ If you lead with compassionate leadership, a lot of data shows that the organization’ s revenue increases, burnout decreases and retention is higher. A lot of folks that join the online course have full-time jobs or have children, but they have a passion to learn, and we had a lot of nurses and physicians in the class. To make a course from scratch was really a great way to use my creative brain,” she said.“ I feel like the class
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