Louisville Medicine Volume 73, Issue 2 | Page 39

is making me a better physician, too, because compassion is what helps us connect with human beings, and when my patients feel that I’ m being compassionate, their compliance is higher, and they get better.”

With so much talk of burnout, and especially post-pandemic in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Dr. Ng said that one thing in particular helps him on the toughest days.

“ A lot of what keeps me going is my faith. I think you need to be grounded in something, and my faith is what grounds me,” he said.“ It’ s about just wanting to do what I can do help people, and what God has given me the ability to do.”

“ Yes, faith in something greater than us,” echoed Dr. Choi.

He also said that seeing patients make miraculous recoveries is a major fuel for him.“ Unfortunately, with my primary work with ILD people don’ t really get better, it slowly progresses and it’ s rare that someone improves. On the other side, since I do get to work with some lung transplant patients, they come in literally on death’ s door and suddenly, we’ re able to do the transplant, and you can see the life they wanted to live,” he said.“ We have patients who go on to run marathons, coach sports, play with their grandkids, all these lives that they wouldn’ t get to otherwise, not necessarily what I did, but because of what our team could do.”

Dr. Choi agreed and said that thoughtful reflection on the work they do can be a big step in overcoming burnout.“ It’ s something my mom and I talked about a lot. Any time I would feel burnout, I’ d stop and wonder if it was all worthwhile. She told me to never think that way, because I’ ve helped so many patients with my own hands and my skills. On the hard days, I do a lot of thinking about the difficult times that have happened like the pandemic and what we’ ve made it through so far. I want to continue to set an example for my children and my patients.”

Their two children are a huge part of their lives and admittedly their passion for their activities and education monopolize a lot of their time, but they wouldn’ t have it any other way.

Dr. Choi decompresses with music. She’ s been playing piano and violin most of her life and was always in choir, band and orchestra and is now part of her church’ s praise team. She’ s constantly fine tuning her Spotify playlists for the clinic and OR and is even collaborating on a music therapy clinical trial.

Dr. Ng’ s idea of the arts is a movie night. A self-proclaimed cinephile, he enjoys deep, thought-provoking pieces where he can analyze parts of a film from acting to directing to score( just think Academy Awards categories, he said).

In the future, Dr. Choi wants to continue to collaborate with the business school and medical school on curriculum. They have both been faculty advisors for the Bluegrass Biodesign program since its inception and she hopes to continue moving forward to develop new products to help future patients. She also hopes to do more globally, be that collaboration with international universities or medical missions.

Dr. Ng wants to continue practicing clinically, but also rise up in the university and hospital administrative ranks. He learned a lot from being on the frontlines of the pandemic and wants to use what he learned to help lead and make Louisville a stronger medical community than what it already is.

Above all, they both want to create a life and future for their kids that they can be proud of.

“ We want to be a good example for our children. We both worked very hard to get where we are. Every day we kind of set the tone,” Dr. Choi said.“ The visual mentality I had was of crossing a big river, but you can’ t do that in one sitting. Every day, I put a rock to make a bridge across this big body of water. Now I’ m on the other side. I made it this far, so let’ s see what big body of water we can cross next.

Kathryn Vance is the Communications and Event Coordinator at the Greater Louisville Medical Society.

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