Listen to Your Heart - Interview with Dr. Janki Shah

[Music] this is learn it from an 80 song i am your coach patricia freiberg it is heart health month and we have a very special guest today please welcome cardiologist dr junkie shaw she is happily married with two children avi age 12 and amia age 10. she went to stanford for her undergrad usc for medical school and ucla for her residency she says she annoys her family because she roots for all three teams and sports she currently works as an invasive cardiologist at ucla she has special interests in women's heart health and heart disease prevention in her practice she treats both males and females and all cardiovascular conditions welcome dr shaw it's so great to have you here thanks for being here thank you i'm really excited especially because it's heart month i really appreciate you taking the time to share with your listeners um all this important information yes and we both have our red on today yes we do i knew exactly what i was wearing today when i knew it was you coming on i was like i've got a red dress i'm gonna go put on a dress which is the first time i'm actually wearing a dress in a long time i have to say i haven't worn anything other than scrubs like pretty much the whole year so it's fun to like dig into the red corner of my wardrobe and pull something out yes and and typically i i enjoy uh your go red for women event which happens this month every year and i attend every year and it's it's such a wonderful event and i'm just bummed that we can't you know do that this year but i hope for you know next year 2022 we'll all be together again celebrating go red for women it is such a fun community event to get together with women and talk about heart disease i really feel like talking to women is like the best way to extrapolate that knowledge to everybody else because women share it with their sisters and their mothers and their friends um so we are going to have a virtual event later this year but yes i hope next year we can go back to the in-person uh community spirits and uh yes yes me too me too i i look forward to it every year um so this is the part of the show where we have the big reveal as to what song or songs we're going to be talking about today from the 80s that best resonates with dr shaw's story so tell us first off can i get a drum roll [Music] please shaw what are the songs that you picked for this story today all right i'm going to tell you the songs and i'm going to tell you the back story so the songs are listen to your heart by roxat and i won't back down by tom petty so while they're the perfect songs as you'll hear i have to admit i was never into pop culture or music or any of that growing up i was definitely one of those like no's in my books kind of kid um so when i i was invited by you to do this podcast i was really excited but then when i found i had to link it to a song i was very nervous and sort of embarrassed but i crowdsourced i asked my family so my husband and daughter came up with these suggestions for me well i can't imagine better songs okay guys um and this is the first episode where we've had two songs so it is really a special event and the fact that your daughter and your husband know you well enough to know you know what songs best resonate with your story speaks volumes speaks volumes so listen to your heart um was uh september uh of 1919 1988 excuse me so listen to your heart is september 1988 by the swedish pop band rock set rock set it was written by gessel and titor in 1989 it went on to be one of the most successful songs and reaching number one in both u.s and canada now uh i won't back down 1989 so we're still in the late 80s here written by petty and jeff um was number 12 on the billboard hot 100 and this album uh ended up multi-platinum status so i tell you you pick some great songs well well done well done dr shaw so tell us your story well you know so i'm a cardiologist um and i chose this professional ultimately because it was a great mix of doing procedures um seeing patients in their house in the hospital when they were at their illist and really feeling like you're saving lives i love the adrenaline pumping life and death situations i get to handle as well as in the office helping people you know prevent heart disease and building long-term relationships ultimately i've been thrilled with my career um and it brings me so much satisfaction but choosing it was really probably one of the toughest decisions in my life you know i went to medical school in the 1990s at that time you know fewer than three percent of cardiologists were women um and it was really and still is you know pretty demanding job and at that time you know culturally i mean i'm indian and education was very valued my parents really encouraged me to go to medical school be high achieving but there was also this sort of paradox where in the culture it was it was expected that you were going to ultimately get married have kids and that was going to be your primary goal and your career should be there because you want to be independent but it should really be secondary and it should really be conducive to having a great family life so my dad's best friend he was a cardiologist and so many other family friends and even family members strongly strongly encouraged me not to do cardiology i'm saying it wasn't the right fit for a woman how was i ever going to get married how could i have children how could i do that to my future children so there was a lot of pressure not to pick this as a career and you know these all came from very loving well-intentioned people whose judgment i absolutely trusted so it you know it was hard to make that decision and then in medical school i also had an experience during my cardiac surgery rotation where basically they were all men very sexist very um it was very clear to me that it was going to be an uphill challenge to go into a male dominated field so ultimately i think i had to sort of listen to my heart weigh the pros and cons and kind of stand up and say i'm not going to back down this is what really excites me and this is what i'm going to do wow i'm thinking about you in the 90s you know going up against such resistance you know you know with your family's resistance um and and like you said you trust their judgment they've been you know you're guiding light you know throughout your life and you know myself included i mean i i always wanted my proof the approval of my parents and yeah and it sounds like no and i mean they were always supportive but it was always with the best of with all their love that they just really wanted to guide me in the right way my dad said why don't you do ophthalmology or dermatology you'll have like a great lifestyle you don't have overnight emergencies and all of that's true um marrying an ophthalmologist so yeah yes so hey you know it's like the bargaining chip someone's gonna be at home watching the kids when i have to go in the middle of the night so right well and then i'm just thinking about your your uh your drive and i'm thinking about you know the resistance that not only from making the decision and your family's response but then also coming into a male dominated um as you put sexist uh environment and to come in as a woman um that must have been challenging like how did you get your you know like those days uh where you feel defeated you know how did you walk back into the office and just continue like what was your mindset yeah i mean luckily as time has gone on there have been more and more women you know going into the field there's been more recognition that it is a very sort of harsh uh field and people need to you know make it more conducive to recruiting women and other uh people who would be an asset to the field so i will say that over time things have gotten better i was very lucky to train at ucla where there were several women cardiologists and so and that's unusual i mean like i said there was very few at that time you know i would say when i was younger i sort of i did take it more personally when i came across sexist things you know when i got pregnant i worked in the setting where um it was very frowned upon and had all sorts of negative comments thrown my way but you know you kind of grow and mature and you realize that you know you're not going to take that and you be as polite as you can and stand up for yourself and at the end of the day i'm there to take care of my patients and i just do my best at that wonderful wonderful i mean and how lucky we are to have you as a cardiologist representing women too because you know um and i know you're you're going to touch on this later but just knowing that heart disease oftentimes people think about it just happening for men but um as i learned from your go red for women events it is it is just as prevalent in in women um actually so for decades more women died of heart disease than men oh wow it was always thought of as a male problem and all the research studies were done on men so women have really just been sort of under-diagnosed and under-treated for decades isn't that interesting so we're honestly we are so fortunate um to have you leading the cause and how lucky for us that you you uh made it through those obstacles and the resistance so um one one lyric that i'm taking from tom petty's song because it reminded me of what you just said you know um was uh well i know what's right i got just one life in this world that keeps on pushing me around but i'll stand my ground and i won't back down and i just like can you i just got my gave myself my own goosebumps i just think of you and your perseverance and you're going to talk about the strengths that you have uh here in a second uh but um and how lucky we are so thank you for oh thank you for for being a cardiologist and taking care of women and i'm standing your ground and doing what's right thanks i'm really happy i made that decision and you know if i had if i could foresee you know 20 years later how happy i would be it would have been a much easier decision you know yes 20 20 but i'm glad i did do what i ended up deciding to do you ended up exactly in the right place isn't that so isn't that so interesting yeah love it um so looking at your strengths i have them here and i'm gonna list them off uh for everybody um so we have number one uh is honesty her number one uh via strength is honesty uh perseverance is number two and i'm sure you guys after hearing her story you're already spotting her strengths you're already seeing him judgment is number three uh love is number four kindness love of learning hope bravery and forgiveness the via strengths guys for those of you who haven't taken the assessment they are who you are to your core our brains are hardwired to see negative so by taking the via strengths assessment you were able to really tap into who you are to your core and let me tell you after taking it twice um for myself they completely are spot on to who i am as a person and now i lean into those strengths when i have obstacles and you can hear even in dr shaw's story how unknowingly she leaned into these strengths so tell us a little bit um about that so you know i did this assessment a few years ago definitely a lot later than i wish i had now in retrospect but yeah i can definitely see how the top five for example really played in i think the love and kindness is probably you know i'm i'm assuming a lot of doctors have this that he chose a career to help people um and i chose cardiology rather than surgery or something like that because you really get to develop long-term relationships with people and that's what really brings me joy and satisfaction the perseverance i mean listen i trained for 10 years after college and it was before work hour regulations crazy hours so i mean that definitely required a lot of grit um but i think ultimately the judgment and honesty which are high up there as well is probably what i used at that time to really analyze the situation weigh the pros and cons um and really look inwards to see what would be the best fit for me and what was going to bring me long-term joy 100 and um from dr nimik's book uh via strengths uh assessment interventions uh we have some interesting research on uh honesty so with honesty you know you had to be honest with yourself um and go up against the resistance of your parents at the time and honesty having that strength um you had to lean into that quite a bit and uh be honest that like this is the path i want to take and no matter what you didn't back down and you just kept moving forward same thing when you went and encountered sexism in the workplace the same thing there you were honest to who you are and where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do and and thank god you had those mentors mentors at ucla also paving the way like you have um looking at judgment oh also i want to say about honesty it's in the top five for most endorsed so people who have people who are hiring or you want a doctor you're gonna want you know somebody with honesty and their top as their top strengths okay so it's one of the most endorsed but not only that perseverance is your two strength number three is your judgment judgment is also one of the top five highest endorsed so you've got two of them right there in your top ten and what's interesting about judgment is that here's the quote says uh it's a corrective virtue um it counteracts faulty thinking and biased options which can help in decision making and with doctors it's like you want somebody who's going to give it to you straight you know and have that critical thinking and they are really skilled people with judgment are really skilled about resisting the power of suggestion and any manipulation so yes and so that's another thing i mean you look at i'm sorry to have to bring this up but you look at 2020 and the covet 19 there was a lot of manipulation happening and um you know and and and i'm married to a physician and when i saw that science wasn't looked at uh as the primary um factor in 2020 and dealing with covet 19. uh let me tell you we were very upset in this household right because my yeah because my husband it's it's it's all about you know judgment it's all about what's right what is the science telling us no biases of politics or whatever the heck is going on and um and and i can't imagine a better attribute to have in a doctor like you dr shaw thank you i completely concur i mean i think judgment like love and kindness i'm guessing judgment is in there with uh you know for in the strengths for most doctors it's definitely something that we're trained to do you know really evaluate the the science and the data and the quality of the science and the data and apply that to our patients and then you know apply it to public health issues like this too so yeah it was it's been a frustrating year yes yes but um i feel a lot of hope now um and that we're headed in the right direction so that's that's great news for all the physicians out there and our scientists that have been working tirelessly tirelessly on this and i understand um dr shaw you've you've been working with some covid patients you've been called in for working with covet as well as your cardiology yeah so you know cardiology cardiovascular complications of covet are fairly common um both in hospitalized patients and patients who are recovering or who have recovered um so yes i've seen a lot of covered patients and yeah you know it's it was a harrowing experience it is a harrowing experience to go into the icus and just see these critically ill patients and um and it's a scary time in the hospital too because families can't be there and so it's very lonely and isolating and you know families are struggling the patients are all alone in their rooms it's it's it's i wish that in the last year when these decisions were being made they could have just the people making these decisions could have just spent you know five minutes in the icu to see what it's actually like and to see in the hospital just how overwhelmed they were in december and part of in early january where literally spaces that are used for elective procedures became icus and you know every last bed and every last corridor in the hospital was used because they were just so overwhelmed and i think it's easy to make these decisions from political standpoints when you haven't actually been in the shoes of the caretakers in the hospital it would have been great if someone had just taken a walk through the hospital yes yes yes and thank you i want to just say thank you for all of your service during this time and being one of the our essential workers here so um so much gratitude and you know i can't imagine what it is like um but i've wanted to hear stories of what it is like uh we had a nurse on just a couple weeks ago uh talking about it and um you know i was getting my information from the news like a lot of people but until you talk to those you know essential workers and people who have been in there you really don't know the story and we can't even imagine yeah i mean i think probably you should even consider talking to the patients who've lived through it i mean some of these patients are in the hospital for literally weeks if not months on end without any contact other than with you know strangers who are the staff at the hospital it's i mean it's just so sad what advice would you have actually so you know i take care of both men and women i take care of all cardiovascular conditions but i do have a special interest in women's heart disease partially as i mentioned to you because more women were dying than heart disease of men for many many years it's the number one killer of women it takes more lives than all cancers combined which is crazy when you think about all the different kind of cancers you can have a woman in the united states dies every 80 seconds of some sort of cardiovascular disease but what really draws me to it is as i mentioned before women have been understudied and underrepresented and often very misdiagnosed you know sometimes women will come into the emergency room with a heart attack and be told they're just anxious um and that's terrible so women really need to know that heart disease is their greatest health threat um and what's scary in the in recent years is we're seeing that younger women so under the age of 55 are dying and having heart attacks more often than men and more often than the the rate of those heart disease and heart attack events are rising in the younger age group so i mean that's obviously a major concern so getting the word out about heart health screening is really important to me yes and i understand that females they also have slightly different symptoms than men like um is nausea one of them or i'm trying to remember i've been studying for my my health board exam uh for uh health and wellness coaches so i've got uh cardiology is you know heart attack stroke all that information is on there so but i read somewhere that the symptoms are slightly different absolutely so that's part of the reason women are sometimes misdiagnosed and sometimes don't recognize it themselves so when we think of like a heart attack we think of like that classic hollywood image of a man clutching their chest breaking out in the sweat and collapsing to the floor it's pretty dramatic and you think that if that's not what you're having it might not be a heart attack but in women it really truly can be very vague it could be chest pain but it could also just be shortness of breath or jaw pain neck pain arm pain sometimes just dizziness or excessive fatigue so what i tell my patients is if something just feels really off to you it's always better to be safe than sorry and to get it checked out okay yes that's that's great feedback um what are you talking about with your patients uh regarding prevention these days so you'll be shocked to hear this but 90 percent of women over the age of 40 have at least one heart disease risk factor at least one and again it's the number one cause of death in women but the promising thing is that if you know about your risk factors and you manage them 80 of heart attacks are preventable which is so i mean it's it makes me so optimistic that we have the ability to really turn around that statistic of one in three women and dying of heart disease so i do recommend that women get regular heart checkups um it's really important to know your family history before you go in to talk to your doctor because there's a huge genetic component and even though you can't change that there's a lot you can do in terms of being more aggressive about screening and then when you go to see your doctor they're gonna you know evaluate a few numbers and these are really important numbers to know your weight which we evaluate using something called body mass index also your cholesterol values your blood sugars whether you're diabetic and also high blood pressure so a lot of these we think of as silent killers because you may not have symptoms of high cholesterol or high blood sugars or high blood pressure so unless it's actually tested for specifically and you ask for it you may not even know you have these conditions which will increase your risk later in life of having heart problems very good very good so um physical activity i imagine is is really important um eating a healthy diet for prevention you know like you had said making sure you schedule your appointment with your doctor to get your heart checked especially those over 40 mm-hmm what else so the as far as you were the things you were mentioning as far as um exercise the american heart association recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise cardiovascular exercise because that has been shown to help reduce the risk um eating better you know i think that deserves a word what we mean by that definitely sort of the common sense things avoiding refined in processed foods but we really do advocate for a mediterranean diet which is very high in fiber so lots of plant-based sources fruits vegetables nuts whole grains oily fish and white meat are fine but we really recommend minimizing red meat full fat dairy and then obviously desserts in processed foods as well you know smoking is the single most important preventable cause of heart attacks and strokes so if you're smoking absolutely stop and try to we have a lot of tools in our arsenal to help people stop um and then you know managing your blood pressure cholesterol and sugars will often require assistance from your doctor with medications but a lot of what we talked about exercising eating healthy will also help control those underlying issues as well very good yeah that's all great and all that just sounds i feel so much hope knowing that there are so many ways that we can control um heart disease right no it's i mean it's i think all it is about getting the word out we i mean who's not gonna say oh there's an 80 chance i can prevent dying from the number one cause of uh death in the united states like who's not going to take these precautions it's just about education and getting the word out which is why um you know we do all the community outreach we can absolutely and that's where go red for women has really been it's been great i've learned so much at every single you know event i've gone to and um and i did remember you talking a lot about plant-based and the mediterranean diet which i actually um have been adhering to um as well so i appreciated learning that from you guys so what action items would you have for our listeners today if like top three one if you haven't already scheduled your physical for the year make sure you do and when you schedule the physical with your primary care doctor um make sure you specifically ask for a heart risk assessment so they will check all of those things we talked about some of it will include blood tests and then if you have any risk factors you know be referred to a cardiologist to do sort of more aggressive screening tests and things like that all of which are non-invasive um and then number two and three would be what we just talked about trying to eat as healthy as possible and trying to stay active keep moving get your exercise in not only obviously does it help heart health which is what um we're talking about today but it helps emotional health it helps your bones it helps every organ system from head to toe so both of those things eating healthy and staying active i mean i think it's the i think it's the fountain of youth 100 agree with that especially since i'm in the fitness industry i also know that um you know the 150 minutes it sounds daunting to some people and especially you know during covet where you may not have access to you know a gym right now um but those minutes can be done throughout the day you can take 10 minutes here 10 minutes there and spread it out throughout your day throughout your week and let me tell you the hundred and fifty minutes you know comes up pretty quickly um if you do that it's a little more than 20 minutes a day you know for seven days a week so if you do a 10 minute something and a 15 minute something later in the day and it doesn't you don't have to go to a gym you can go outside you can just take the stairs in your house and go up and down them a few times take some laps around your backyard get some sunshine people think it has to be some sort of like exercise class or something and it absolutely does not need to be it can be playing hoops in the backyard with your kids you know it can be anything that's getting your heart rate up very good yes great advice and even you know we are being virtual right now you can get access to a lot of free workouts you know on youtube you know you can look up you know cardio classes and you know all different things so there is a lot of affordable ways to exercise right now and there's also a lot of great ways to exercise uh you know virtually so if you want it there's memberships you can get you can you know find your favorite instructor and i guarantee they're teaching a class online somewhere you know whether it's instagram or facebook or another online platform so um you know that's the time to be proactive and reach out because even though we all get this pandemic fatigue and and trust me i know it's real um you know we have to find those ways to keep our immunity up and we have to find those ways for heart health and most of all right now i mean for a lot of us it's emotional health as well so yes and um dr shaw i just want to thank you again for for all this information it is really helpful um before we go to 80s trends um can you tell us um how we get a hold of you and um we're going to put the go red for women and a link in the show notes so you'll be able to access that if you'd like to donate and find more information about heart health thanks um like i said i'm not into super super into pop culture and that kind of goes along with social media as well i do have a twitter handle at john keyboovasha um and then if anyone wants to see me for a consultation i work out at ucla and you can find me on the website there ucla health ucla health and everybody get their hearts checked all right so 80s trends um i know you were very busy studying um in the 80s uh so if you if you we saw your closet or you were at school what would you be wearing now or in the 80s no no in the 80s sorry [Laughter] you're like scrubs yeah it's an athleisure i was in the comfy clothing back then i think in the 80s you know when i was not in my school uniform i was wearing just like leggings and oversized sweatshirts which is super cozy i wish we could go back to that exactly exactly the oversized sweat yes and i think it's kind of coming back so i thank you your wish might be coming true leggings and they're definitely back i don't know about the oversized sweatshirts but i hope they come back yes yes me too and then leg warmers like can we oh yeah and the jelly bracelets i had a lot of jelly bracelets yes yes they were you twisted them and put them all the way up your arm all the way up yes i remember i remember uh as a kid we'd go to the jersey shore and ocean city new jersey and um there was some of those shops on the boardwalk that would sell them and they were like a penny i think you know just for for each one but we would get as many neon colors as we possibly could ones with sparkles you know so definitely the jelly shoes i do remember the jelly shoes those were fun yes i was slip sliding exactly all the colors and i was joking about how i slip sliding in the uh jelly shoes because when your feet would sweat and i know i grew up in tennessee so and the holes didn't make any difference at all they did not ventilate very well now now um any any other um anything else that from the 80s that you remember that's that's trend or show or anything at all um i remember like having like a big boom box and had like two uh tape recorder things and i used to make my own mix cassettes because that's how i listen to my music like my parents wouldn't let me buy you know records or tapes or cds when they finally came out it was all my mixes from the radio and you know you kind of cut it off right when the gj starts talking and stops talking exactly together yourself that was a fun memory from the 80s it really was and it was so much work like so much work went into because i used to record it off the radio as well and you had to get there so fast hit record and then like you couldn't you had to stay focused on the song because you had to stop it right at the right moment so i definitely remember that and then making the mixtapes and and what a great i mean honestly what a great era for that you know i mean we it was delayed gratification yeah and the shows back then i mean i just loved all the family sitcoms that we could watch with our family and not be like embarrassed or have awkward moments because they're like you know risque like they are now like it was just fun to watch things like you know family ties and growing pains and the cosby show and i really wish we had some innocent shows like that now to watch with kids you know yeah and and there's just so much to watch too there's just i mean especially during this pandemic you know and we're all watching four different shows you know so what jeffrey's watching is usually youtube and then you know george is watching in totally different shows like community with his friends and then greg likes my husband likes certain shows i like certain so we're all together you know but we're all watching four different things that's right yeah back in the day it was like you had three networks pretty much to choose from and you didn't have ways to record it and watch it later that was easy so it's like we all had to get together at eight o'clock on you know whatever night it was to watch sitcoms so it kind of really all brought us together and we didn't have options to leave and watch something else we didn't even have different devices to watch them on you know it's true we had one television you know in our house and and we had you know i remember there were times that um i didn't want to watch star trek i was not into sci-fi you know and um you know but my siblings did so it was like we had to have all this negotiation you know going on so um anyway it was uh i think there were a lot of skills that we developed from having to negotiate and there was a lot of togetherness like you said that we all had to commit to one show and and and open our eyes to something that we may not normally watch i did watch star trek you know because i had to right yeah otherwise i wouldn't be able to hang out with them so [Laughter] and now you can understand stark talk references when other people make them because you know absolutely and my husband loves sci-fi so i can kind of talk about it you know broader general knowledge of the world exactly exactly well thanks again you know for being on the show today it's it is great to see you i'm missing you our our kids are in school together and and i haven't gotten to see you inside forever it feels like all right we haven't seen each other in a year which is crazy i it it really is it's it's uh yes and i i'm feeling hopeful for this year that we will you know we'll all get vaccinated and you know get to get to some sort of normalcy i think whatever that might be definitely light at the end of the tunnel i think it's going to be a longer tunnel than people hope but it's gonna be over it'll be there is an end inside yes and um you know everyone uh get your heart checked get your exercise in uh eat healthy thank you again dr shaw and i really appreciate it yes and until next time [Music] you

Channel: Learned it From an 80's Song

Views: 121,718

Keywords: UCLA Health, cardiologist, American Heart Association, 80s trends, 80s songs, Go Red for Women, heart disease, Dr Janki Shah

Id: OyJpxzek9LE

Length: 38min 22sec (2302 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021