Surgery Secrets with Dr. Wynne Leung

Introduction & Quickfire Questions

[00:00] Hello and welcome to Surgery Secrets, where we go behind the scenes to uncover secrets about surgery you won't hear in the classroom. I'm Stephanie and today we're sitting down with Dr. Leung. Let's get started. So first we're going to start off with some short answer

[00:20] quick fire questions. And we'll start off easy. So can you tell us your name? It's Win Liang. And what's your occupation? I'm an obstetrician-gynecologist. Where do you work? I work at the Rocky View Hospital in Calgary. What does your job entail? It's a wide variety of things.

[00:40] everything from birth to the other end of it basically. So all of women's health, looking after prenatal care, looking after deliveries in the hospital, looking after women after delivery, and on the gynecological side, women's health in the office and in the operating room.

[01:00] Involves teaching it involves a fair amount of administrative tasks and such but yeah, I have to say, involves a lot of things are not the same from day to day. And what's your favorite color. Red. And your favorite food.

Career Influence & Early Inspiration

[01:20] Very nice. What two is your favorite superhero? Captain Marvel. And your favorite musical artist? Well, Kurt Cobain technically, but I guess that would be Nirvana as a group. And what's your favorite movie? Star Wars. Four, five, and six account as one movie. The other ones are nine.

[01:40] considered Star Wars. I can't chime in on this because I have no knowledge of Star Wars. What is your favorite organ of the body? I mean, you know, given my profession, you'd think it's a uterus, but not very nice to it. Probably the brain.

[02:00] And what's the last book you read. Times Convert by Deborah Harkness. And can you recommend to me a TV show. If you haven't seen the chef show on Netflix. Super fun show gives you recipes. The chef show. That's what it's called. Yeah.

[02:20] movie called Chef, which is about a chef, but they do a TV show with that. John Favreau, I think, and he gives you all the recipes that he made in the movie. It's pretty awesome. Okay, I'm going to check it out. I'm trying to learn how to cook new things. So all right, so you pass the quick fire round. So let's move on.

[02:40] to our more nitty gritty questions. Okay. Can you tell us your biggest influence, either personally or professionally? I mean, personally, it was probably my mom. You know, the the epitome of the working mother. And professionally, it would be all the other women that I work with.

[03:00] Both my mentors and my students. Would you say that your mom had an influence on you when you were going through your training as a med student? Not so much. I mean, my mother is an accountant so she really has no idea what it is I do. But she

[03:20] illustrated the work ethic and what you have to do to have the life that you want. In a time where not a lot of mothers are working full time, my mom worked full time and managed the family and all of those things. So it was great to have a role model that showed you how to do that.

Memorable Moments in Medical Training

[03:40] And women are still doing that now, of course, as well, and juggling multiple hats. Can you tell us maybe the most memorable moment during your training? I think it was probably one night on call, as most of these things are.

[04:00] My preceptor at the time was in medical school probably third, fourth year trying to really figure out what I wanted to do. And she said to me, you know, whatever subject you choose to do, eventually it all becomes routine. It all becomes boring no matter how interesting it was in the beginning. And you want it to be that way.

[04:20] But you want to make sure that the people you work with interest you and support you because, you know, if you do the most interesting thing in the world in an unsupportive group, or, you know, with people that don't make you feel like a, you know, don't improve who you are as a person, then that's a really long line of thought.

[04:40] So you did say that the people that you work with now have a great influence on you in your work today. Can you maybe tell us a more recent memorable moment at work? I mean, the more recent memorable moments are all around patience.

[05:00] Everything I do in my job is a fairly memorable moment. It might be my thousandth baby, but it's still her first. So that's a moment that very few people get to witness and share with others. But yesterday I was doing surgeries and I was speaking to a patient afterwards and just the joy on her face when she

[05:20] woke up because she'd been suffering for a very long time and she felt so much better after the procedure. She had a really, really big tumor and she woke up and for the first time in years she said she could breathe. So that was really memorable how her face just lit up and that was an hour of work on my part and you can change somebody's

Patient Impact: Memorable Cases

[05:40] life. I was speaking with another guest on the show earlier and we were talking about how much trust patients put in the hands of their doctors and their surgeons to help improve their life and I can't even imagine making that great of an impact on someone's life. Yeah I mean it's cheesy to

[06:00] It's easy to say but it's sort of a sacred trust right you know you're going to sleep and you have no idea what's happening so you know the person that you're putting in charge the person that you're trusting while you're asleep, you know has to repay your trust. I think that's that's our role that's our, you know, we have to do that. And as a patient.

[06:20] really know much about what surgeons do. I can't really imagine what the training was like to be able to be qualified to do your job. What's one thing that people don't understand about your job? I mean, there's two things really. If I do my job well and properly, nothing

[06:40] Nothing. A lot of what we do, especially on the obstetrical side, is prevent bad things from happening. So if we're doing what we're supposed to, then everything goes fine and people wonder why you put so much effort into it. It's the same with any other sort of performance sport. The people that put a lot of work into practice and training

[07:00] make it look easy. So people wonder why did you work so hard to do that? Well, I work so hard to do that, so that it goes smoothly and it looks easy. And it's definitely not easy. Not all the time. Not all the time. What would you say is the best part about your job? Still the people, right? The people I work with.

Understanding the Role of a Surgeon

[07:20] I have a lot of fun with my job if anyone's ever been to the operating room with me. It's a pretty, you know, most of the time things are going well it's a pretty fun place to be. The patients are wonderful, you know, I chose a profession where the patients are quite involved, right, most of them are fairly young, especially with obstetrics people are very into.

[07:40] aspects of their care sometimes have very strong opinions, and it's an interesting discussion. So it's very different than, you know, the old days where they say you know doctor what do I do now they have. They've googled it they've looked this up they've talked to their friends and their moms and they want to know what you think. They may not always agree with me but that discussion

[08:00] The other, my colleagues, both male and female, you know, we tend to gravitate to this specialty because we have somewhat of a similar personality. So we get along very well. I can say, you know, my best friends, both in and out of work are the folks that I interact with on a daily basis.

[08:20] today. What's it like, I guess, juggling all the different information or opinions that a patient might hear about their particular situation? I mean, it's not easy, right? So you know, I think COVID illustrated that looking at all the various sources of information is something that's very difficult to do on a

Challenges of the Job: Handling Patient Opinions & Misinformation

[08:40] good day. We have had practice with this. There's multiple differing opinions that are published or unpublished, expert opinion and all these sorts of things. What you're trying to do at the end of the day, the art is to figure out what's best for this particular patient. It's almost impossible to take your data and tell them precisely what their risk is of this

[09:00] And the other thing, we just try to help them understand how much information there is and the pathway we're using to try to work all through it to give them a recommendation. I think as a patient, like I would appreciate that knowing the different options within what is like the best pathway for my care. Yeah.

[09:20] Luckily, a lot of things in gynecology, there's time. You have the ability to reflect on it. Sometimes the problem with obstetrics is you don't have a lot of time. So we have to get good at conveying what our thinking processes and what the options are in a very stressful situation for the patient and in a very limited

The Toughest Part: Unpredictable Work Hours

[09:40] found out time. Kind of on the other side of things, what is the worst part about your job? Oh, the hours. There's no secret on that. Babies never show up and you want them to. They show up and they want to. So I mean, if you're not the kind of person that does well at 4.30 in the morning, probably not your life.

[10:00] My cousin actually is a nurse who helps to deliver babies. I don't know what the proper term is for that, but yes, she does work crazy hours. I can attest to that. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of professions where you can look towards a better hours later in your career.

[10:20] metrics and kind of isn't one of them. That's something to note everyone who's watching in case they might be considering this field consider that. What is the weirdest or messiest or grossest kind of thing that's happened to at work? We've had a range of answers on this question

The Weirdest & Most Unexpected Cases

[10:40] We've had everything from a ghost story to objects that were in places that they're normally not. Yeah, so what's like the weirdest or messiest thing that you've encountered at work? You know, there's such a long litany that I probably couldn't pick one.

[11:00] This is a specialty with a lot of bodily fluids. So you name a bodily fluid and you think of a place on your anatomy, I've probably had that there in that place. Those aren't even remarkable anymore. The number of different objects we find in body cavities are again not particularly remarkable.

[11:20] because they're actually so commonplace. I mean, I guess the weirdest thing is still at least once a month, somebody will come in and have a baby and have no idea they were pregnant. Like I still think it's really weird how they just didn't clue into that. But it happens. I didn't mean to think yeah, that that's super con because I know there was a TV show a long time ago that

[11:40] Like I didn't know I was expecting, but I never thought that it was very common. Yeah, it's been about once a month for the last three months at least. Wow. So maybe like when that kind of happens when you've delivered a baby and the person became a mother and they weren't really expecting to, how do you kind of deal with

Work-Life Balance & Support System

[12:00] Do you like remark about it to your coworkers or do you go home and tell someone the interesting story or I mean you're not really allowed to share those things right so from a confidentiality you know I don't really talk to my friends or my partner about these I mean we do debrief for the other folks at work so you know the the nurse

[12:20] that were in the case and such. I mean, mostly I go do something physical from a coping strategy. You know, if my husband knows if I've had a bad day, I'm going to go for a run. So, you know, he's going to deal with the home front for a little bit. But yeah, there's a lot of these things where you remark and you're like, well, that was interesting.

[12:40] But unfortunately, you can't really talk about it. Yes. Yeah, there is a quite a line between that. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit more about your support system and what they mean to you? You know, my family is my number one support of a very supportive partner and husband. I have three kids and now

[13:00] Now that they're older, they're more of a support system than they are of a burden. So it does get better eventually. So when I'm with my family, I try to be with my family. I have, again, great friends at work and I have friends that are outside of medicine. So if I need to decompress,

[13:20] I do call people I'm a talker. I'm sure you've noticed so we do a lot of chatting on the phone and just going out 20 we used to go out and eat, but now we just go out for a walk or a run or something. We've it's nice to have that like those different perspectives the medical kind of perspective and the non medical perspective to be able to lean on

[13:40] both people, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, especially with the pandemic, it's been fairly critical to have non-medical friends, just because you can't talk about it all the time. You need to talk about something else once in a while. If you weren't doing, sorry, when you were at school, did you ever imagine that you'd be living this current life?

[14:00] Yeah, I mean that's pretty much what I figured. Like, you know, when you had some really good mentors, you know, and they were fairly frank with me when I got into the business of, you know, if you want a family if you want a career, this is what it's going to look like. So far, that's pretty been pretty much what I expected.

[14:20] There are things that I, you know, you kind of wish you could go to all the recitals and then the soccer games and you know some people make more of an effort to do so, but, you know, my family is understanding of what I need to do and where I need to be.

Advice for Aspiring Doctors & Final Thoughts

[14:40] When I thought about having a family, it was never a question of if, it was always a question of when. This is the number one top question, when should I have kids when you decide to have kids? I mean, there's no good time. But there's no bad time either. I think what people forget is that if that's a part of your life that you want,

[15:00] going to work the rest of your life around it. Having kids is your priority. The career will work itself out around it. Did you ever imagine that you'd work in medicine? Did you always think you'd work in medicine? Yeah, I pretty much always. It was one of those kids that I was fascinated

[15:20] by squishy things and I always enjoyed biology and you know pretty much everyone always said oh you're going to be a doctor and ended up being a doctor. I didn't always know I was going to be a surgeon but pretty much from the get go knew I wanted to be a physician. So if you weren't doing your

[15:40] job. What do you think you'd be doing? Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, probably something with my hands, you know, building things, arts and crafts. I mean, weird in a way. I mean, surgery is an art and a craft, right? It's a very special

[16:00] I'm not a special one but I work with my hands all the time so I'd probably still be doing something working my with my hands. For everyone who's watching this who may be considering either just going into medicine generally or specifically into surgery or even in your field.

[16:20] you would give them? I mean, you know, with the whole growth mindset thing, right? It's very rare to know what you want to do from day one. One of the weird ones that never really wanted to do anything other than medicine. And you know, short of a couple of days when the kids

[16:40] I still never wanted to do anything different than medicine, but it's not uncommon to wander a bit to think, okay, I'm going to try this, that, and the other thing. There's a lot of range within the specialty. There are many physicians that have very, very different interests and we're all physicians. And even within the specialty, everything is different.

[17:00] Everyone has a favorite problem, a favorite patient group, a favorite subject that we all kind of like to work with and you can tailor your work to do that. I don't know. I think trying to map out your entire life is really hard to do and probably not that necessary.

[17:20] Things will fall into place whether you try to control it or not. Yeah, I mean you become different people as you get along in life and things that you wanted before may not end up being that important to you in 10 years. Yes, I think that's good advice for anyone who's kind of

[17:40] figuring out their own career path at the moment, whether it's in medicine or not or in something else. Found advice. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Leung, for joining us on Surgery Secrets today. It was a pleasure to have you. It was a pleasure being here. Thank you. And there you have it, everyone. Join us next time for another

[18:00] exclusive look into surgery today. Follow us on LinkedIn for full episodes of Surgery Secrets and check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as well to see what we're up to. And for more information on Surgery 101, check out our website, surgery101.org. Thank you and we'll see you next time.

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