The Masked Hero: Empowering Children to Embrace Diversity and Celebrate Heroes – Dr. Shan Liu

Episode Introduction and Dr. Shan Lu's Story 0:00

Welcome to a special Heartline Echoes episode of Heartline Changemaking in Healthcare, where we are so excited to honor Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by revisiting powerful stories of identity, resilience, and impact. This week, we're celebrating Dr. Shan Lu, emergency physician and children's book author who shares the deeply personal journey behind her book, The Masked Hero, inspired by her great-grandfather who invented a face mask to fight the Manchurian plague. Dr. Lu brings to life a story that shows how heroes come from all backgrounds.

In this conversation, Dr. Lu opens up about the emotional toll of the pandemic, the rise in Asian-American hate, and how those experiences ultimately fueled a new sense of purpose, connecting with her daughter, reclaiming her heritage, and using storytelling as a tool for healing and empowerment. Whether you're a parent, a healthcare worker, or someone passionate about representation in children's literature, this episode will leave you inspired. Let's dive in. What fills your cup? When do you find flow?

When do minutes feel like seconds and hours feel like minutes? For me, that's writing. Today, I am so excited to share with you Dr. Shan Wu Lu. She is the great granddaughter of Wu Lian Te. She is an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Mast Hero, her publishing debut, was inspired by her daughter Kaylee's first grade project about Dr. Wu, written in early 2020. Both mother and daughter are proud to share the story of Dr.

Wu and help children understand that heroes come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and races. Shanwu Lu lives with her family in Massachusetts. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to Heartline, conversations with healthcare changemakers following their heartline. I'm your host, Dr. Andrea Austin. I'm an emergency medicine physician, coach, and educator. I believe that healthcare needs to improve the quality care that patients receive and that supporting the workers is at the heart of this transformation.

One of the favorite things that I get to do on this podcast is talk with authors. Doctor authors are really my favorite people. And today I am excited to share with you Dr. Sean Liu. She's an emergency medicine doctor and children's book author.

Emergency Medicine, Geriatric Care, and Boarding Research 2:51

Dr. Liu, it's great to have you on the podcast. Thank you, Dr. Austin. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for this opportunity. So tell our audience a little bit about you. Where do you work? What's your story? I work at Massachusetts General Hospital and I trained there and pretty much haven't really changed positions since I started in terms of I still work in the same parts of the emergency department after all these years. We did start a geriatric emergency medicine division here and I'm the geriatric emergency medicine fellowship director.

So I started my career doing research in boarding and the adverse effects of boarding on our patients and have recently transitioned to over the last decade or so, how to improve the care of geriatric patients in the ED because those are probably the most vulnerable patients to boarding. And now I'm circling back to actually looking at the impact boarding on geriatric patients, but also leading the Geriatric Emergency Department Guidelines writing group. That is what I'm focusing on. That's so wonderful.

And I guess, unfortunately, given how much boarding is happening right now, it's a research-rich environment, I would imagine. Yes, there's no lack of opportunity to study it. And unfortunately, things seem to be getting worse, unfortunately, for our patients. Well, let's take a step back. And we like to start the podcast with your doctor origin story. Why did you become a doctor? Great question. I think I just always wanted to be a doctor and work in public health. I remember in sixth grade, us talking about career things.

And I just knew that I wanted to do emergency medicine. And I grew up hearing stories about my great grandfather. you know, did a lot of work in public health and medicine in China. And whether or not that was the story of my inspiration or just the fact that I was really interested in science, I just always wanted to do that. I always wanted to be a physician. I pretty much never wavered from it. I took time off after college to do public health work and research in Honduras. And I originally wanted to do more global health and then transitioned to trying to do more research locally.

Do you think the reason you're still a doctor is rooted in that origin story or has it evolved and changed over time? It's always been an interest in helping others. So at the end of the day, no matter how hard a shift is, feel like at least I'm trying to help somewhat during that day or during that shift as hard as it can be as an emergency medicine physician. And then the public health aspect has always been, you know, we in emergency medicine are particularly sometimes expensive in the whole healthcare realm, but we do serve such a need in terms of public health.

We're on the front lines of everything, right? Of the opioid epidemic, motor vehicle accident, gunshots, and violence, and so much in the world. So basically, unlike many other specialties, we actually have to think of how many people are in the waiting room. So it's not just the person that's in front of me that I'm taking care of, but it's also everyone else that is still waiting to be seen. So that public health perspective has always been a part of a career in emergency medicine for me. So I think whether or not it's directly related to the original reasons why I wanted to do medicine, it still has always been those two things.

I really want to help people and I really want to help the general population in terms of the broader perspective. Yeah, that duality. And I think what's kept me in emergency medicine is we are pragmatic. We have to be. At the end of the day, you can be very lofty and have, you know, all of these ideas, but it doesn't help the patient in the moment on the shift. So there's that duality of what does somebody need right now. And, you know, for us that get to do fun things like research and podcast and educate, you know, we're also moving the needle in a different arena.

So and I think for me, that's been what's kept me in emergency medicine. If I was only doing my shifts, that would be really challenging right now, given the current environment.

Why Dr. Lu Became a Doctor 7:18

Exactly. I think they both... That duality, I love that term. I think sometimes it's like, what can I do to impact on a broader perspective all the reasons why my patients are coming to the emergency department? But sometimes thinking on that abstract level and trying to improve things on that abstract level makes it feel like there's nothing better than when you're actually impacting somebody in front of you. But I think it has to go back and forth. So there is this really... dependent sort of relationship of, you know, how can I help my patient on a day-to-day basis?

Well, you know, maybe looking at things upstream, like how do I prevent, you know, visits to the ED for these reasons? So I think it kind of goes back and forth, and they really do complement each other. Let's turn to your book, The Masked Hero. How did you get involved in writing a children's book? So this all started, as I mentioned, my great grandfather has been a story that my parents have always talked about, not all the time, but I grew up with stories that he was the equivalent of the surgeon general in China.

And We learned more about him when we went to Harbin, which is in Northern China, and learned about there's a research institute in his name and a university that honors in his name as well. And so I brought my whole family, my kids, and then we weren't my parents. And I learned so much more about the work that he had done. So fast forward to COVID, where obviously emergency medicine physicians were on the front lines. And there was a lot of just debate at that time in the United States about masks.

Meanwhile, my family in Beijing, obviously everyone in China and much of Asia had already pivoted very quickly using masks. I just felt this frustration that we weren't taking necessarily best practices from other countries. We were pretty slow to adapt some of the measures that were immediate in other countries. So that was one issue. And then all of the racial tensions and anti-Asian hate crimes that were happening really made me think, I just don't want my kids to be ashamed of who they are. So I'm Chinese American and they're Chinese American and Irish American.

I didn't know where the country was going at the time in terms of the things that were calling COVID, like China flu or Kung flu and China virus and things like that. And I just felt helpless. And I wanted to, as a mom, somehow impact my kids in a way that would make them proud of their ancestry and who they are. So it really stemmed out of those two issues and pivot to when the school shut down, my daughter was six at the time and I wasn't doing a very good job of teaching them at home. And so I turned to this online course out of desperation just to help her have some structure.

Inspiration Behind The Masked Hero 10:21

I basically just said, please just for 20 minutes have someone talk to her about X, Y, or Z that would outsource some of the burden. And so it was a writing class and she had to write a nonfiction piece. And again, at that same time, there were still a lot of... debate about masks. And I said, you know what? We're just going to talk about your great grandfather because you should know this story and you should write about it. And her four pages where she wrote two sentences on each page into the illustration really was the first version of this book, even though we didn't know it at the time.

I think a couple of months later after we had spent nothing else over the summer, but read books, you know, basically because camps were shut down. just noticed that there were a lack of books about Asian heroes. So there are some books, but certainly not a huge number of people featuring Asians or certainly not a lot that are featuring East Asian figures. And so I looked at my daughter and I said, no, we're just going to do this. We're going to write this. And so I met with another author and said, I don't even know where to start.

Why do I do this? And basically that opened up the doors to writing something, finding a illustrator, and then eventually finding an agent and a publisher. And it took a while, but years later, three years later after writing it, it finally came to press October, 2023. Congratulations. And it's such a beautiful, beautiful book. I was so happy to hold a physical copy of it when we were in Philadelphia for the revitalized reception and we gave out a few copies of your book. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was so exciting.

I think that day was our launch date and so how better to celebrate than with a room full of amazing emergency medicine physicians for women who are doing amazing and inspiring things. So thank you for inviting me and thank you so much for organizing that event. I also want to just encourage people as they're thinking about their holiday shopping list I've already bought one copy for my best friend's daughter, and I think this would be a fabulous gift for our listeners that are looking to get some books for the children and their wives.

Most listeners know I'm actually not a mom. So what ages would you recommend for this book? So it's listed as four to eight, but I think it's probably better for at least five to maybe a nine or so reader. There's just some themes. It basically talks about the origin of the first respirator. So my great-grandfather invented the predecessor for one of the N95, but it is in the middle of a plague outbreak. And so some of the themes may be a little bit heavy for someone four. Having done a couple of talks with preschoolers, they can understand some of the things, but some of the things obviously are a little bit heavy.

But I would say five to nine are great ages for this book. Yeah, and I imagine even though it is a bit of a heavy topic, I think, you know, the message is that humans always figure out a way. And the story of agency that your great grandfather innovated and created something, you know, that saved lives. exactly that when there is need, you know, people have to step up and basically try to manage it. And I can't be more proud of, you know, now that it's been three and a half years since COVID, really just watching our colleagues and I know nobody wants to go back to COVID, you know, in terms of, you know, the original, you know, that first wave, but the innovation and just the community that we saw in terms of certainly in the emergency medicine field, but, but even in the whole hospital, right?

Like people like surgeons coming down to translate for our patients and people coming out from clinic to like be in the ICU and retrained because there was just a need. And I think we'll just look back on this time as, as yeah, being super hard, but really, you know, in terms of science, like getting a vaccine in a year and pivoting to homeschooling for a year and a half and just how much innovation there was, particularly, I think, among our colleagues in the emergency department because we were just on the front lines and terrified, right?

And we stepped up to the plate and I'm just really proud of what we achieved because it was really scary, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a long tail, longer than I think any of us really realize that the impact on us personally and the whole healthcare system that I worked a shift day or two ago and our boarding times were up to 20 hours and it's barely the start of fluid. I said fluid. It's the start of flu-vid, flu-covid. Call it the flu-vid test when you do the combined. All these words that came out of the pandemic.

Health care ran on this razor edge before the pandemic and The amount of disease that was left unmanaged from diabetes to cancer, we're still seeing that fallout of delays in treatment. and the impact that has. And so that's challenging. And so holding both things that this work is still really, really hard, but then also pausing and reflecting that it is amazing all these things that we did. I want to spend a little bit of time on how you were able to access profound amounts of agency. during that period, because many people, and I will raise my hand as one of them, it was hard to access agency.

And I think if I have one regret from the time in the pandemic is I think some of us felt being on social media and complaining, in some ways we thought it was educating, like I'm saying these are the conditions on the ground. but I feel like if I could have pulled a little bit back from that and put my energy towards writing a book or something like that, how were you able to access that agency? Was that something you had always done or was there something that got lit inside of you during that period?

That's a great question. I think it was sort of seeing this silver lining and also having these passion projects.

COVID, Anti-Asian Hate, and Finding Agency 17:27

And going back to even just going into medicine, there are certain things that I felt have just been these callings, right? So choosing to do emergency medicine, we're just like, this is what I need to do. And I think it was the same with this book in a way that was just this, I have to do this and we have to do this and it has to get out there and I am just not gonna give up. I originally was gonna do a self-published project, which is great. There's a whole industry in that, but eventually it made its way into an agent's hand, into a publisher accepting the manuscript.

I also just think it was my sister works in the political world and in terms of diversity and representation, and she was going to rallies. And I just thought, I wasn't ready to go to rallies during COVID, but other people were. I applaud them. I just wasn't one that was that comfortable doing it. But this was my way of making my voice known was I wanted to basically have an impact. And I just felt like as horrifying as COVID was, it just opened up all of these discussions about racism. And I just felt like this was this calling to make somehow an impact on our younger generation.

And I think my takeaway for myself was like, well, maybe I can't change the minds of people who are adult, but maybe I could change somebody who's six years old in terms of just giving them different people that they can look up to. And that was, I think, just simply my goal. And then to be honest, in COVID, I was just really looking for places where I could find joy. And this was one of them, which was, how can I just really share a story that might inspire other children? And there was another thing in COVID that we did with my daughter, which was I put out this chalkboard and we put out a bunch of paper and we wrote down, like, where do you find joy?

And neighbors came out and wrote down. We did it for about a year on and off and I think that was also just like desperation of being like, I want to find something happy in this dark time. And it was amazing. I just felt like it really developed some community. Even in all that social distancing that we had to do that first year, it really was a need. It came out of a need that I had to connect in a new way, right? We weren't necessarily socializing with people, but we were people were leaving anonymous messages like, where do you find joy?

What brings you happiness? What are you grateful for today? And it was just some structure to our day that my daughter and my son would just cut out this chalkboard. And so I think it goes back to that idea of finding joy in places even as dark as it was, because you can always find sources of joy, I think, even in places that you don't expect. or times I'm sure that you don't expect that you can find joy. It's hard to find and I'm not saying that life isn't hard at many times but I do think there is probably some aspect that we can find whether or not it's an interaction with someone that you wouldn't otherwise have or just being grateful for the time for the things that we do have.

And so that was a lot of work that I needed to do because believe me, I got you down the rabbit hole of this being just a miserable time. But I think it was out of this desperation of finding help and finding some way of having light during that time. Yeah. I think I have an idea for your next book. Did you take pictures of those chalkboards? Do you have a lot of those? Yeah, we took pictures I think of all day. I actually kept them all and thought about how to make it into something because I do feel in this crime of just such a fractured political landscape that it still just goes back to community.

And we just don't talk to our neighbors as much as we used to back a generation ago. And I think we live in America and it's okay to have difference of opinions. And we should be able to have differences in opinion and still have community because we're not gonna really change things on a national level. We can't really communicate with our neighbors or people of different opinions. I think Mayor Wu, who's the mayor of Boston, she has really wanted to foster these neighborhoods sort of communities.

And I just think it's important. I think we need to reach out to our neighbors. And I could do a better job, but I think it was a special time during COVID because people weren't doing 10 activities a weekend, right? They were walking and walking around and nothing, everything else was canceled. So they would walk around and come to our house and answer these questions. I love that. That is such a great story. And I think a good call to action for listeners along with buying your book is maybe trying to make one connection this week with somebody that lives close to you.

We have a lot of older people in our neighborhood and I'm so proud of my husband. He is very passionate about trees and people having gardens and promoting what can do that. And so some of the older people in our neighborhood have trouble maintaining their trees. So this one person, he helps her cut one of her trees every year. And I just love that so much. It's small and profound, all wrapped in one. And it doesn't take a lot of time. It's not really that big of a deal. But if more of us did that, would we start to feel more connected?

Oh, I love that story. That's exactly, which is, it gives him, I'm sure as much joy to do that. And certainly the, the neighbor is, is probably just like touched and really just needs help from other people. So I love that your husband's doing that. That's great. Something a great man. For one of our listeners, if they're thinking, you know, I've got this idea for a book. And you mentioned that one of the key steps was getting an agent. Can you explain to listeners what they are just starting to dip their toes into the industry and what that would potentially look like?

Yeah, that is a great question. So there's a lot that I learned through this whole process, because it's completely different than what we've learned in medical school as far as different skill sets and different networks that we need to tap into. So I think the first question is, what's your story, right? And creating the best story you can and sharing that. And I do think everyone has a story and like everyone has like amazing experiences and it's just crafting that story to the best that you can is sort of divide of like, do you want to self publish or do you want to try to go the traditional route?

And there's lots of pros and cons to both. I think I was willing to do both. I was willing to first start as a self-published author just to get it out there quickly. But what this other author told me was she basically had a list of 100 agents and publishers, small publishers, and she said, well, there's an email about 100 of them. And if I can't get someone to bite, then I'm going to go the other route. And that felt like it was putting it out there and seeing if you could go down the traditional route.

And then the other plan would be to self-publish. So I took that list that she had, which she was nice enough to share that with me because there's all sorts of different agents in terms of what they specialize in, whether it's adult versus nonfiction versus romance or X, Y, and Z. So this list was for children's books. Yeah, basically, it's going through and finding a list and looking at all of them.

Writing, Publishing, and Finding an Agent 25:18

and seeing how to pitch to them. Do they want to form manuscripts? So it's a lot of work. And like many things in life, it's basically like emailing and just going through a bunch of different contacts and saying, are you interested? And then following up. And eventually it ended up being a friend of a friend. Originally looked at it, said, this needs to be whimsical. I don't know, Dr. Austin, if you know me at all. I'm not the most whimsical person and the book is about a plague. And I think I laughed and I thought, well, this is a little challenging because I don't know how to make this like fun, but it had to be something that appealed to kids.

And so we had to go back to the drawing board and make it more kid friendly. And this is where my daughter, who was six, helped a lot because she, if anything, gives me honest feedback of this is boring or I don't want to read this or this is weird. Which is cool because she's the perfect person to tell me like this is not an appropriate name or this is an appropriate theme. So yes, I think first starting with what is your sort of game plan? Are you going to only self-publish or are you only going to go down the traditional route?

And if you are willing to go one way or the other, what are sort of the criteria of like, are you gonna try to reach out to 100, 200, 300, you know, groups and agents and then say, I will go back to the self-publishing route or is it a timeframe? Like in three months, I don't get a response and I'm gonna do this. So sort of the calendar of like, is this something you need to get published for yourself or for whatever reason in the next year or in the next three years as it was in my case? I'll say this to the listeners is that it takes a long time.

I literally wrote this like an emergency medicine person in November of 2020. And then I often wonder what takes so long, but it does take a long time. I think the publishing industry just has a backlog of books to publish. And so you kind of have to stand in line and go through all the distribution routes and just literally the shipping of books takes time and scheduling that. It has to be on a calendar. So like many things, the whole process of publishing, first to get it accepted by a publisher.

And then it's knocking on a lot of doors, metaphorically speaking, and not hearing much. And then similarly, right now, once it's launched, that's where a lot of the work begins in terms of just getting it out there. And so emailing many, many people to put it in bookstores or mailing it put to our media. And so it's a lot of just writing out there and emailing schools and saying, would you like a speaker? These are all things that I never knew went into launching a book. but I've learned a lot and it's been really good to learn something completely different, like a whole different industry in the last three years.

Yeah, I mean, just so many threads to tug on there. I'm listening to that story thinking about learning a whole new industry. Medicine was this whole thing and we're still learning all the time in that, but using a whole other set of skills, public speaking, writing, persuasion, all different skills. So that's a great reason for people to think about branching out and doing something completely different. Were you naturally a public speaker or is that something that you've had to grow while you're doing the book launch?

So my mother was a big debater and speech person when she was younger in college. So my parents used to say when I was in kindergarten or maybe even younger that they made me stand on a chair and just speak. And I remember Somehow I got into speech competitions a little bit in high school. I don't mind doing. sort of prepared speeches. We do that all the time in academics. I think it's always harder to do things where you have to speak the cuff. So I'm much more comfortable doing land talks, but what's been challenging is sort of some of the...

It's pretty like a radio interview or where it's live because I think there's always that fear of not saying the right thing and then it's just out there, right? Those are harder and more challenging. But again, that's part of the whole process of this and learning. And there is a school skill set behind it. and you'll only get better by doing it more often. So unfortunately, right? In life, you only get better at things by trying it and then improving and practicing and breaking down sort of like the components of what you need to do.

So that has also been a great learning experience. So I think, as you said, all components of this whole new experience has been things like networking, right? I would say your amazing event at ASAP where it's networking has always been a little bit challenging for someone like me because I'm much more of an introvert. And so to walk in and maybe know one person or two people for someone who doesn't drink, it's always been sort of not my comfort zone. But if you actually read the book, How to Make Friends and Influence People, and it's great because you can break it down into skill sets that you can learn rather than try to just change your whole personality.

And I think I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed your event and just meeting a bunch of really amazing other women. This was fabulous. And men, there were men there too, but it was just a lovely experience. And so I applaud you for bringing all these people together. All these really cool people are doing interesting things. It's one of the best parts of Revitalize and I am going to put it out there that we are looking at a West Coast event for spring of 2024. So obviously all listeners and everyone that subscribes to our newsletter will be in the know right away when we're ready to share that.

And we want to hear from all the listeners. So hit us up on social or send me an email message about what in-person events you're craving right now. From what we're hearing is people are more interested in regional things that maybe they could drive to. But certainly the energy of a national event is amazing. and then maybe trying to piggyback on national events that a lot of us go to already is also a formula we're looking at. But we want to hear how do people want to connect? The energy was amazing in the room.

We sold out and we even had a few people that were trying to come and we were able to accommodate. So the need is there. It's just how do we create that collaborating and thinking about ways to have more of those in-person events because the virtual space is great. But there's conversations that happen in person that would never happen virtually for whatever reason. Yeah, I think it goes back to human connection. And there's so much that we learned by pivoting to the virtual world during COVID, but we all crave this human interaction.

Community, Book Launches, and Closing Reflections 32:27

There's amazing amounts that can happen online or virtually, but there's nothing that kind of replaces just having spontaneous conversation with someone that's just in person. 100%. Well, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I'm guessing there's several listeners that are ready to buy their copy of The Masked Hero. What's the best way to buy a copy of that book? So it is available online. Probably the best way is through the website is my website is www.MaskedHeroBook.com or www.shamwulu.com.

S-H-A-N-W-O-O-L-I-U.com for ways you can buy the book, but it is available at your local bookstore. If they don't have it, they can order it. It's also on Barnes and Nobles or Amazon. And certainly, like I said, the local bookstore, if they don't have it, they can order it for you if you want to support your local bookstores. Yeah, which that's another great plug for community. I mean, there's certainly a lot of convenience and online and sometimes that's what we need to do. But on my goals for 2024 and the holiday season in 2023 is to make more connections with local bookstores and seeing if I can work out those conveniences that I want, but try to use a local business owner and support what they're doing.

because I love bookstores. I have to be ready when I go in because I'm going to leave with several books, and I don't want that to go away. No, that's for sure. It's funny, every time we have a book talk, my son comes out with five books, which is great. I love that the kids love reading and supporting other authors. Yes, we've had great experience with so many bookstores on this tour, so we always love supporting them. Yeah, I didn't want to go to the toy store when I was a kid. I was like, I want to go to the bookstore.

I know. That's probably why you're a doctor, right? Probably. Yes. Yes, in part. And hopefully I'll be joining the author group in the next few years. So I'm working on my own memoir. and a book about my journey to healing as a healthcare worker, really informed by COVID and my experience as a veteran as well. So I'm right in the thick of all the things that you're talking about, and I'll be really excited to share it with. Obviously, this community will be the first to know when I'm ready to share more about it.

Yeah, well, I can help you. Dr. Austin, I'd be happy to help you if there's a way I can do that. Yes. Yes. And I think that's a really great message of why we're doing this. And I have to relearn this lesson all the time. It's been mostly in the sim lab recently. I'm building a sim lab at my new workplace. And there are all these problems I run into with a new space. And for some reason in our medical education, we were taught as interns that you fix it, you problem solve on your own. And I'm learning over and over again that there's so many people in the hospital that want to help me.

that have expertise in biomed and other things, technology, other issues that come up, they're like almost sitting around like, oh, I have capacity to fix a problem where right now I have low capacity from a time standpoint. So I would really encourage people, whether it's writing a book or making some other change in your workplace, looking around to see if there are people that actually do want to help. And it's very rare that I run into somebody that's a flat no. Maybe it's like not right now or this isn't a good time or reach out to this person, but it's rarely a full stop no.

That's exactly true. I think we went into medicine, right, not to say no to helping people. It just may be also part of not burning out, right, is having some boundaries. And so it's not always that, no, I don't want to help you. Of course we want to help you, but it's be like, I can't do this right now, or I can do this. But usually you can do something, right? You can do some little thing to help someone out, whether or not it's, yeah, that doesn't take that much time. So whether or not it's helping someone, here's my agent's address.

here's just a book to start with, right? Or here's one part that someone else can edit or take a look at. just because it takes a community. And writing a book really, like particularly this story is my daughter and I are the ones sort of going around sharing it, but it really represents so many people's work and so much effort that went into it that I feel like we can hardly take much credit for it because it just was dependent on so many other people. And as you're probably finding out, that's just a great part of the whole project of writing something and putting it out in the world is just who you meet.

and then just be clear excited and want to support you. I love that. There's no better way to end that. It really is a core value here at Revitalize that it takes a community and your community will grow and shift over the course of your career. Most of us are very centered in our specialty when we start, but now look, you're a book author. You have your geriatric fellowship. There's so many other facets. And so to continue to form these connections through inviting interesting people on the podcast, in-person events, and the virtual community is really our vision is to have this network of amazing women and allies.

that you always have somebody that's got your back, whatever you're doing, whatever endeavor, whether it's super focused in your specialty or branching out into this new exciting endeavor. So I thank you so much, Dr. Lou, for sharing your beautiful story and your book with the world. Thank you so much, Austin. It's been such a pleasure and I just really appreciate all your work. And I know how much time and effort this takes for you, but you really are helping our community. So thank you for everything.

and I'm gonna receive that gratitude. I'm gonna savor it. I'm trying to do a better job. That was one of our messages this month of pause and don't brush it off. Sit in it and savor that when you receive that gratitude. So as we're recording in Thanksgiving week, I hope our listeners when they hear this will send some gratitude and take some time to receive it this week too. Thanks for listening to Heartline, conversations with healthcare changemakers following their heartlines. I'd so appreciate it if you could take a quick moment and hit the like button and also the subscribe button that you'll find within your podcast app or platform that you're listening on.

It also really helps if you can leave a review. I would certainly appreciate a five star review and a few comments about what you liked about this podcast. Don't forget, you can also forward this to people in your network. People love getting new podcasts and changing up what they're listening to. So sending a podcast to a friend or colleague or even to start a conversation about a change that needs to happen in your organization is a great way to be a change maker. This podcast represents the views of the host and guests.

It does not represent the views of any entity we work for or with. It is also for informational use only and does not replace any professional advice, including medical or psychological. If you are interested in unlocking your true potential, reach out to me. If you're an organization interested in supporting the well-being of your people, I'd love to connect on innovative solutions. Schedule a strategy session at andreaaustinmd.com. Sound editing services are provided by Better Podcasting Services, and you can find their website at betterpodcastingservices.com.

And I'd also like to thank our future doctor, Caitlin Dinn, who is the production assistant for this podcast.