Medical School Truths

Hey beautiful, 

It’s December, holidays are in full swing…I have been slowing down and prioritizing my own well being and spending time with my daughter. 

What about you?

If you have been following along with me in here, you’ve already learned: 

I used to have Lupus, I healed myself naturally and without medications.

I have a history of complex trauma, including sexual trauma.

I beat the odds and became a doctor and mama all at once.

I work with women with autoimmune and I also specialize in women’s health, mental health and being the bridge between science and spirit.

I am a compassionate, trauma informed practitioner and I believe in educating and empowering everyone I work with.

I want you to know that I am grateful for every email that you read. 

I know there’s a lot grasping for your attention and I always want to deliver valuable content. 

Please reply and let me know what you want to read more about!

Here’s another story I want to share with you:

When I enrolled into medical school for my acupuncture program, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. 

I didn’t research it.

I had no idea how much money acupuncturists made. 

I didn’t know how long it would take. 

I just went for it because there was something bigger than me that told me to do it. 

Also, I really just felt so amazing after my first acupuncture session and I HAD to know what this was all about. 

Here are some truths about medical school that I learned along the way: 

Truth #1:

Feeling like I didn’t belong didn’t mean something was wrong with me, I learned to embrace our differences AND similarities. 

Let me be real with you here: in medical school, the students were incredibly intelligent and most of them were Asian. I didn’t feel like I belonged there.

I was studying traditional medicine from China, a country I’ve never been to.

My family and friends didn’t understand it and even made fun of me.

I questioned myself almost every day… What the fuck am I doing here?

But then, I read my textbooks, or I’d listen to the lectures, and nothing else mattered…I was completely fascinated by this medicine and this new way of thinking.

Looking at my body like if it was a microcosm of nature was completely mind blowing and resonated with me so much. It felt like coming home.

The feeling of not belonging…I learned wasn’t really true.

I learned to appreciate our differences.

AND our similarities. 

I realized that traditional medicine from the Americas mirrored a lot of the same theories from Asia. 

Which made me realize: 

We’re not so different

Our medicine is the same.

Except that ours was burned away by colonists. 

Becoming a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, was just the beginning and the formality I needed. I learned medicine from the Americas and beyond. And I learned the most useful information, outside of the classroom.

So you see, this is beyond learning a skill or a vocation.

This is my life‘s calling and what my ancestors wanted for me. 

Truth #2:

I learned to trust my intuition and my gifts and that energy doesn’t lie.

In medical school, we mostly learned the skills necessary to be able to create a diagnosis, come up with a treatment plan and pass our boards. It was a lot of memorization.

We were also forced to give medical presentations every week.

So it was great for my fear of public speaking… It completely went away.

Yay!

While it was challenging to learn basically a new language in medical school and learn how to be a professional exam taker…

That was actually the easy part!

The real test came when you had a patient in front of you and none of the symptoms matched what you studied in school. 

Because it never is that way lol! 😹

I had to slowly learn to trust my intuition and my healing gifts.

You see, I wasn’t born into a family that knew how to see, let alone nurture my gifts. So I learned early on to suppress them.

I think we all have been doing this for generations and generations, due to slavery, genocide, and other ancestral trauma. 

Another topic for another day...

Anyway, being in medical school, and around other Healing practitioners speak about energy, about using our intuition was eye-opening, heart opening, and mind opening.

It Resonated. 

It felt right.

And it felt like I was in the right place. 

I finally felt seen.

Truth #3:

Failure and being pushed out of my comfort zone became the new norm.

Yikes.

This part was hard.

I’m historically an overachiever and a perfectionist.

I usually had somewhere between a 3.0 or 4.0 GPA

Medical school made me look like a joke lol  😹

I was lucky if I ever got a B!

Haha!  😹

I thought something was wrong with me.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation with the dean explaining how academically

 rigorous this program was.

I remember, he told me: 

“if you get a C it’s a solid C. be proud of it.”

I remember thinking:

“are you fucking kidding me??” 🙄

Eventually though, he was right. 

I mean, I was learning bio medicine, pharmacology, herbal medicine in Chinese and English, the Acupuncture point and Meridian system which included about 1000 points, diagnosis and pathology, esoteric medicine I had never heard of before, a bunch of new techniques, like cupping and moxibustion… It was no easy task!

I was on campus for about 12 hours, in clinic for half the day and in class for half the day… 

Every day for several years.

WHILE I HAD LUPUS.

It really is not for the weak. 

What did I expect from myself?

I stopped caring so much about getting A’s and B’s. 

And I just cared about learning the material. 

I was also a horrible test taker.

We had exams to pass onto the next level and I always had to retake them.

Which did nothing for my confidence.

The place I felt most confident in, was working with patients.

I knew I could understand them and I knew what they needed. 

I didn’t need a book or an exam to tell me that.

But I was so worried because exams were part of the game.

You couldn’t get to the next level without passing that exam. 

The more I failed, the more test anxiety I got. 

And, I still had lupus.

I remember I would always get flares during exams. 

I’d blow up in a rash or swell up with joint pain.

I’d get shortness of breath and heart palpitations.

Which just made matters worse.

One day, I realized:

I have been so stuck on these exams that I failed to see the end goal:

Being a great practitioner

After that, I stopped caring less about exams, got used to failing, got used to being uncomfortable, and cared more about being a great practitioner.

When it came time to taking my licensing exam, the only one that really mattered, I created a plan:

Study hard

Rest hard

Eat well

Don’t do anything else

I forced myself to imagine what would be the worst outcome. 

A retake. 

It really wasn’t that bad.

I realized that being OK with either outcome and visualizing it, helped to relieve the pressure.

I ended up passing on the first try with a really high score.

Better than many in my class 🙌🏽

I started my acupuncture practice soon after and finished my doctorate about 2 years later. 

While I had my daughter, all at the same time. 

This month marks exactly 10 years since completing my Masters program. 

9 years of starting my own practice and business. 

7 years since completing my doctorate.

From where I started, I can honestly say I have learned a lot, impressed myself along the way and realized I am capable of more than I thought. 

So anyway, here I am with all of these lessons learned. 

I made it, even though I failed a lot along the way.

I realized that failure is just an opportunity to rise. 

I healed from lupus and became a doctor, despite all of these obstacles.

If I can do it.

You can do it.

Whatever IT means for you. 

I hope this inspires you to step fully into your power and trust yourself. 

Sending healing vibes, 

Dr. Z

 



P.S. If you need support on your journey back to wellness, EMAIL ME. I have several ways to work with me.