Today we’d like to introduce you to Giselle Carvalho.
Hi Dr. Carvalho, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
A few months ago I got together with my friends from medical school. We sat in my patio and reminisced for hours about our time as students. We laughed, ate, drank and cried together. Then each one of us began to talk about our lives now. We all complained about our work and how hard it is to be an employed physician. One of my classmates looked around and said, “Who here would do medicine all over again?” She looked at each of us and we looked at each other waiting for someone to respond. They all nodded their heads “no” except for one person in that circle. For weeks after our visit together I’ve thought about that moment. Why is it that less than half of doctors are happy with the career they chose? Is being an employee a part of the equation?
I’ll tell you a bit about my life but also tell you how I went from an employed doctor to opening up my private practice and how that changed my life. Being a woman, Latina, a doctor and a business owner are a combination of characteristics that you don’t see very often. I am a minority in all of those boxes and now I get to tell you the story of how it happened and perhaps inspire you to follow your dreams too.
I was born and raised in Culver City, California. My father immigrated from Brazil and my mother from Ecuador. I grew up with a single dad and my older brother. My father married and remarried several times, so there was always a stepmom in the picture. Life was not easy when I was a child because there was the constant shuffling back and forth from my dad’s house to my mom’s. My brother was emotionally lost to drugs and gang violence when I was pretty young. He was constantly in and out of our lives and this caused a lot of disruption. I was very saddened by this. He later died during my first year of medical school. That always left a void in my life. I had a yearning to be a beneficial presence on this planet so as to make up for the wrong he did to others. Not sure why I took that burden on but I did and as a result, I decided at a very young age that I would be a doctor.
In 2010, I decided to go to medical school abroad. I suppose my spirit was adventurous then as it still is now. During my time there I remember I took a semester off and flew to Africa to volunteer at a small clinic. I went to remote villages and worked with the doctors helping to deliver babies, treating diarrhea, tooth infections and other diseases. I saw babies die from starvation. I saw another side of suffering I had never seen before. It was a part of my journey and really just the beginning. In June of 2014, I graduated and became the first doctor in my family. It was truly a wonderful feeling. I remember my mom whispering in my ear, “estoy orgulloso de ti, eres mujer, latina, mi hija y seras una gran doctora”. I suppose she was proud like any parent would be. Her voice has always followed me. Throughout the years, she reminded me to be proud of my culture.
After I graduated from medical school I learned that only less than 3% of physicians in the US are Latinx and only 2.4% are female Latinas. I was shocked to hear these statistics.
Especially given that 40 % of the population in California are of Latinx descent. How can it be that I am only one of 2.4%? I can’t tell you how many patients I’ve seen over the years tell me how happy they are that they found a Latinx doctor. They say, “Ay doctorcita que bueno que eres mi doctora, ahora si me siento agusto”. Having gone to school in Mexico helped me understand further the culture. There is a sense of warmth in the Latinx culture that is invaluable. My parents gave me that and now I get to give it to my patients.
I often offer my patients a holding hand, a hug and even a kiss. Human warmth is exchanged and sometimes worth more than the medication I prescribe. They tell me about their children, their jobs, they complain about their spouses and I sit there and listen. We exchange looks, stories and most importantly our energies. I’ve had patients leave the office saying, “Ya me siento mejor” and I can’t help but respond, “But I haven’t given you your medicine yet”. I’ve often pondered why that is. I now understand the power of the human connection. It’s so often missing in the patient-doctor relationship. I’ll always be proud to be an American but also truly adore my Latinx heritage. Some of my favorite things are the arroz con pollo, the salsa music, the cafe con leche, las maracas, the Spanish and Portuguese language and so much more. Now I’m grateful that when I was a child my mother only spoke Spanish because that’s why I can now practice medicine in three languages. It is a gift. A gift I get to give to my patients.
My first job out of residency was at a community clinic in El Monte, CA. I had the opportunity to work with immigrants and patients from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. I loved my work there but it was also exhausting. Being an employed physician for a big corporation is not the dream job I had envisioned. As an employed physician, you have to see the amount of patients they put in front of you and you have no autonomy. They began double booking the doctors and had mandatory weekly meetings where they often focused on the “numbers” and reminded you of how many more patients you should have seen that month. As an employed physician, I realized I had no say and as a result I quickly burned out and decided to leave after only a year and a half of working there.
I knew at some point I wanted to open up my own practice but at the time I wasn’t ready to do it. I was so burned out that I decided to take a couple of months off. This gave me time to recenter my focus and remind myself why I went into medicine. I asked myself over and over again why I had chosen a career that had now been pummeled by corporations in order to extract the most money out of us. During that time, I meditated a lot and tried to reignite that light that drew me to medicine. I remembered thinking, well I’ve always wanted to be a prison doctor so why not go for it. I took a contract working for a men’s prison in Norco, CA. I had always been fascinated by correctional medicine. I thought about my brother when I looked at the faces of the inmates. He had been in jail many times and I’m sure at some point treated by a prison doctor. I heard their stories, listened to them regarding their ailments and most importantly reconnected to myself and remembered why I had gone into medicine. One of the days I was working in a prison I had a realization that my work there was helping me reconnect to my purpose. Wow, I had come to prison to find my path again. This was in 2020, during the very peak of Covid. I saw Covid spread among the inmates like wildfire. I told friends that I was working as a prison doctor and they couldn’t help to think I was crazy to do it during Covid. I remember thinking, if not now then when? I was only there several months before I decided to take off for my next adventure.
It was January 2021 when I received an email from a recruiter about a job in Chinle, Arizona working on the Navajo Nation. It was a job working solely with Native Americans who were suffering from Covid and needed to be cared for because the community hospital was overflowing with patients. I looked at my husband and said, “I’m going to Arizona for a few months to help those in need”. My friends and family didn’t quite agree with my decision but that didn’t matter. I went anyway. I had never seen so many people with oxygen masks. I remember thinking, this disease is robbing us of our life source, our oxygen, our vitality. I listened to their lungs, proned them, checked their oxygen saturation over and over again. I had never seen anything like it. When I had the chance I liked to sit with my patients and listen to their stories. I shared my humanity and they shared theirs.
In 2021 my husband and I desperately wanted to start a family. We tried for several years but nothing. Finally, we decided to see an infertility specialist who ran tests and found that we were both healthy and able to conceive but for whatever reason it was not happening. The doctor told us that we could keep trying or start fertility treatment. I was distraught that my body was not doing what I had expected it to do. I later learned that the infertility rates among women in the US were about 1 in 5 and for doctors, it was even worse, 1 in 4. At the same time that we were deciding whether to try fertility treatments, I got a call from a business development director at CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center who told me they had an offer I wouldn’t be able to resist. They had learned that I was looking into starting my own practice in the area and wanted to help me do so. I said to them, “What? You want to help me? Why?” They said that they were in need of primary care doctors to help serve that specific area and I qualified for this opportunity. I was shocked. I had wanted my own practice for so long. I said ok and took it. In the meantime, my husband and I decided we would start the infertility treatment. But no treatment was needed because miraculously two weeks after the initial consultation I didn’t get a period, I was pregnant. I had been through this before, having had three miscarriages in the past, I knew I couldn’t get excited. I called the doctor the next day and he started me on progesterone. I was terrified. I quickly made an appointment with my Ob/gyn. I remember laying on the table while he did the ultrasound and I said to him, “I can’t look at the screen, just tell me if there is a heartbeat”. He responded, “Yes, there is, you’re pregnant”. Why had I been granted both of these enormous wishes at the same time? Was it destiny? I wasn’t sure but I knew I was willing to go for the ride.
Toward the end of the pregnancy, the hospital finalized the documents and gave me the green light to start the private practice which I chose to name InspireMD, Inc. People have asked me why I name it that and I told them that I wanted to inspire others to be the best version of themselves. Inspire means “ to fill with urge or ability to do or feel something” but it also means to “breathe in”. This is what I was doing at this time in my life, I was breathing again. I was breathing in my unborn child, the love for my career and the passion I had for humanity. I still don’t know why but it was all happening at the same time but what I did know was that I felt alive again. On May 30, 2022 I gave birth to our 7 lb 6 oz baby girl. She was healthy and beautiful. It felt surreal. . . I inhaled . . . Ahhhhhh, this was oxygen to my being.
It has only been a few months since I started the practice and gave birth to our baby girl and let me be the first to tell you that it hasn’t been easy. You go to medical school to learn medicine but not to learn the business. I’ve had many days where all I can think about is quitting and staying home with my daughter but there is a fight in me that keeps me going.
In the clinic, I spend a lot of time connecting to my patients and remind them of a few things. I remind them that food is medicine. I believe health is money (sort of like time is money). Relationships are the cornerstone to health. Physical movement is crucial to our overall health and well-being. Physical touch is healing. And the exchange of energy among humans is imperative for continuous emotional growth.
I believe humanness is our greatest asset. Being vulnerable is essential for true human connection. I love what I do because I get to share my humanity with my patients. Nowadays in my clinic, I can say that I enjoy my work as a physician more and more each day. Probably because my journey has been bumpy. Perhaps it was the struggle to get through medical school, my despondent childhood and the struggle to conceive. I have found more grit in me than I knew existed. This struggle emanates from me through the energy of love that I offer my patients.
I tell you my story so as to help you understand that although I am a minority in my field of medicine and as an entrepreneur, really anything is possible. I have met very few women that open up their own businesses and even fewer female Latinx doctors. But we’re out there and it is possible. I don’t care if every box you check says minority in gender, race, sex, social economic status, etc. The world needs you to go for it. . . YOU must be the creator of your own destiny and believe in yourself.
Oh and in case you’re wondering, I was the one in that circle that said “I would do medicine all over again, I love it that much”.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about InspireMD, Inc.?
I am proud to be a female Latinx business owner of a medical clinic in Los Angeles, CA. I am a primary care doctor who sees patients for a number of conditions including but not limited to pap tests, annual physicals, upper respiratory infections, mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure and much more.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
That I had to overcome fertility and that the road to where I am today has not been easy. As I mentioned in the earlier entry.
Contact Info:
- Website: Gisellecarvalhomd.com
