Hello friends 👋
In part two of our conversation with Dr. Phyllis Dennery, Ben and Daphna dive into the themes of leadership and gratitude. Dr. Dennery shares her journey from growing up in a hospital environment to becoming a leader in neonatology, reflecting on how mentorship, self-awareness, and courage shaped her path. She discusses the importance of saying “no” when necessary, embracing leadership roles, and advocating for diversity and equity in medicine.
Dr. Dennery offers insights into the power of observation, collaboration, and fostering a culture of kindness and gratitude within healthcare teams. She also addresses the unique challenges faced by women in medicine, the impact of representation on patient outcomes, and how personal and professional growth evolve over time.
Beyond her medical career, she speaks about her passion for advocacy, research, and even creative writing, hinting at exciting projects ahead. This inspiring discussion is filled with wisdom for early-career neonatologists and leaders alike, encouraging them to find joy in their work, uplift others, and make a lasting impact in the field.
Tune in for an insightful and heartfelt conversation with one of neonatology’s most influential voices!
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The transcript of today's episode can be found below 👇
Ben Courchia (00:00.753)
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the incubator podcast. We are here for part two of our special episode series featuring Dr. Phyllis Denary. Phyllis, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for taking part in this special series with the At the Bench team. We're just very excited to have you on.
Phyllis Dennery (00:20.12)
Thank you for having me.
Ben Courchia (00:21.937)
For sure. So I wanted to touch on some of the things that led you to pick a path towards neonatology. I know that you mentioned to us on the French edition of the podcast that you grew up in the hospital, you came to North America and you're and actually maybe before you came to North America that your parents were
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (00:38.281)
Hmm.
Ben Courchia (00:47.111)
truly resident and that you lived inside the hospital. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
Phyllis Dennery (00:52.078)
Yes, well, I don't remember that experience, but what I know of it is that when I was born, my sister and I, who are a year apart, my mom was a resident in the hospital in Haiti and my dad as well. And so we were born and at the time residents meant you're a resident, you live in the hospital. So.
Ben Courchia (01:16.071)
You reside in the hospital.
Phyllis Dennery (01:19.34)
That's how it was, you know, that's where I grew up for the first two years of my life. And then we moved to Canada, where we, you know, my dad and mom were pursuing their subspecialty degrees and found that that was a better opportunity, of course, and they couldn't really find that in Haiti. And there were two choices. It was either Virginia or Ottawa, Canada.
They said, well, for French, my first language is French, let's go to Ottawa, Canada, and not Virginia. And that was actually probably the best thing they ever did. Because at the time in the early 60s, there was a lot of very racist things going on, segregation in the South where Virginia was. And I think I prefer having grown up being a little less aware of that.
as I was growing up in Canada and therefore having a different view of how to handle the negativity that comes with these racial discriminations.
Ben Courchia (02:29.767)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And we'll get back to that. think while you were not truly residing in the hospital, you were a child that grew up within sort of the gravitational pull of the hospital. you rounded your father as a neurosurgeon and your mom is a psychiatrist. So it feels like you had almost no choice but to become a doctor. However, the path
Phyllis Dennery (02:44.035)
Yeah.
Phyllis Dennery (02:53.358)
you
Ben Courchia (02:57.713)
to become a neonatologist, that was maybe more up to you than the path to become a doctor. Can you tell us a little bit about the experiences that prompted you to really fall in love with the care of neonates?
Phyllis Dennery (03:01.888)
Yes.
Phyllis Dennery (03:11.17)
Yeah, so, you know, I had seen my mom first was a pathologist who then changed paths to become a psychiatrist. And I didn't really have much interest in that because that was something she used to analyze us if we were behaving a certain way and say, well, that's, you know, this and that. that I said, I don't want to really take that course.
And I didn't really want to do neurosurgery because I thought, that's just such a long road. But I actually thought about being an OB-GYN. And I thought, that could be fun. And a neurologist at one point, I thought that could be fun. then I had the experience where I went into the NICU as a third year student.
And the attending physician, it was a different world, of course. So the baby was in a warmer bed and the attending physician just reached in there with her unwashed hands and just took the finger of the little baby and held the, and the baby that took her little finger and put it in there. And the little baby wrapped its little hand around the finger. And I said, my God, this is.
amazing, this little tiny person who's going to grow up to be a person, a real person. And that impressed me so much. And I said, I want to be an endocrinologist. And I realized that in order to be an endocrinologist, I had to be a pediatrician first. And at first, I wasn't as thrilled about that concept. But as I did pediatrics, I love kids. I love adolescents. I love all these people.
They're so wonderful. They're so amazing what they do and the joy of being in a children's hospital and seeing kids and so forth. But neonatology still was my real passion because it combined the caring and the loving with the procedural aspects and the urgency of things that we had to do. But also I thought that the research that could be done in neonatology was extremely
Phyllis Dennery (05:32.64)
appealing to me because there was so much we could learn. So that's how it kind of went to neonatology and to a research career. And as I was saying before, that, you know, I just thought, wow, the lung, you know, everything you got to breathe. And, you know, a lot of people wanted to do the brain and other things, but I thought, wow, the lung, look at this lungs are so damaged. And what
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (05:48.713)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (05:59.896)
can we do to help change that? that's what took me to looking at lung research and honing in on signaling and what triggers the response of the lung and how could we mitigate it. So that's kind of the way I got to where I am in terms of my career interests.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (06:18.495)
that and actually it sounds like your interests are actually quite varied, right? You've, you've dabbled in so many things across your career and it seems like you really bring your whole energy. You're this energetic, charismatic person to, to, to every facet of neonatology, of pediatrics, of leading your team. Um, I wonder for some of our new early career neos trainees.
What if you're one of those people like me who likes so many things? How, how do you navigate? like you said on the previous talk, balancing the yeses and nos, but not missing out on the quote unquote, right opportunity.
Phyllis Dennery (06:49.335)
Yeah.
Phyllis Dennery (06:59.79)
So I used to say, stick to your guns, and I'm the worst person to talk to about that, but stick to your path of what you're going to do. You look at people who have not chosen to take leadership positions, have been really super duper in terms of their lab roles and how they're recognized for the science that they do. Folks like Alan Job and...
you know, like Jeff Witzett and others, you know, who are singly focused on that and not bothered with being chief of this and chief of that. So I don't work like that, but the thing too is to realize that when you start your career, even if you've done a bunch of different stuff, you may not know exactly what your passion is. And whatever you do, you have to have
passion for it and you have to really embrace it and like it beyond just saying, okay, I've never like gone into something quotes. I'm not taking offense to your word, but dabbling. I've sort of been able to say, okay, I want to spend energy here and then say, well, maybe now it's time to modulate that and to reinvent myself a little bit. But when I was
at Stanford, they asked me to serve on a curriculum committee for the medical school. And I said, okay, I'll do it, whatever. I was, oh, it was so painful to me. It's not my thing. I didn't like just rules and regulations and all that stuff. And so I begged off of it. And I had the courage to say, no, thanks. I don't think this is for me. I have
you know, too busy, whatever you want to say. And sometimes you just, you realize it's just not what you're going to want to do with yourself. So it's okay. You know, you can make that decision and make that choice if it's better for your health.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (09:13.439)
And I love that term, the courage to say no. Sometimes people, I think, find themselves stuck in a path that they didn't really want or don't see themselves being happy in. it's brave to change that path. And that actually, I think, brings me to your leadership career.
I actually love the interview, your sister interviewed you about changing the culture of changing the culture of medicine from the top down. And in that, you talked a lot about how do we know for ready for leadership? How, you know, we don't get any training and leadership or leading people really throughout our medical careers. So how did you know you were ready?
Phyllis Dennery (09:40.686)
Yes, that's right. Yes.
Phyllis Dennery (10:01.09)
Well, you start noticing that, for example, you're bothered by the status quo or you want to see things change in a different direction than where they're going. And even though you think these people are great who are doing the work they're doing, maybe you're like, gosh, I wish we would do X, Y, and Z. We'd focus more on something. The only way you can really make a change, you can talk as a participant or you can take the lead on something.
You know, the people who can do that are usually not going to ask a bunch of questions about, waiting for somebody to discover them or whatever. They're going to say, when they're given an opportunity, I'm going to do the best I can do with that opportunity. I'm going to do a thorough job, work really, really hard at doing some things, right? And then people go, wow, this person is really good. They're doing a good job. They're contributing.
they're speaking because if you're on a committee and you say nothing, nobody's going to care about you or even know you're on the committee. And so you have to speak up and sometimes speaking up is a little bit risky if you think differently than the group think. But it gets, not to say you always throw yourself out there, because there are people like that, rabble rousers and nobody cares because they're always saying something to our.
you really uninformed. But if you've reflected about it and thought about it and say, well, you know, this may be better the other way. Find a nice way to say it. You know, say like, I call it the little bit of a sandwich, right? You put the flowers on top. Oh, it's wonderful. I'm so happy. It's a great committee. And then you say your meat, which is, okay, you know, but we could probably do this and that and the other thing.
And at the end you say, yeah, thank you for everything. So it's like this little sandwich of love and then hard love and whatever you do to help people see that you're not trying to destroy everything in your path, which I used to be a little harder about that because I grew up in a family where it's like, you got an A, why didn't you get an A plus? But you can't bring that to the conversation or else people shut down and they don't want to.
Phyllis Dennery (12:25.506)
be a part of your team because you're mean. But if you can understand that you're giving them either tough love a little bit or that you're helping them guide them in the right direction. So I love working with people. That's what I like about leadership is helping people see a way forward. That's also what I love about mentorship, helping people find their path and getting inspired by something.
Ben Courchia (12:28.455)
You
Phyllis Dennery (12:55.116)
So it's hard to say what makes you choose this path. You feel it in your bones. It's just, I want to not be the one just listening. I want to be the one who's saying something, contributing, putting good energy to a committee, and maybe changing things. And when you change things, and in a good way, or you augment things.
You're so proud. It makes you proud and you're happy that you were able to help. You know, that's the fun part.
Ben Courchia (13:31.783)
I think that one of the places from where this motivation comes from is a place that you've often referred to as gratitude and how gratitude is such an important part of your career and of the decisions you make both in leadership and administration in the lab at the bedside.
Gratitude is a very tough concept because it's always easy to be grateful when things are happening to you in a positive manner. But sometimes it's not going your way and you still need to remain grateful. Can you tell us a little bit about your vision of what gratitude is and how much of a role does it need to play in the unfolding of our careers?
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (14:04.327)
So true.
Phyllis Dennery (14:16.226)
Yeah, I can't say that I was always that grateful person. As I said, I grew up in a very critical environment, you know, people criticizing and know that's not good, this is good. And to change that to where you don't try to express that and to say, well, what's good about this? What am I going to focus on instead of the negative? How am going to use what I see to say, this is actually positive. This is a good...
thing. And we, I came to it not from the beginning at all. I came to it along the way as I was thinking about the people who helped me. You know, I've made crucial mistakes. I remember once receiving an award and my mentor was in the room, but I was trying to establish my independence. I didn't thank that person. That was horrible. And that was something I did that I could never
Forget, because you have to be thankful to the people who helped you get there. And you didn't just get there magically. Somebody helped you. So now every presentation, I have a slide full of mentors. This one helped me, that one helped me, because you can't forget to say thank you and to appreciate how you got to where you are because people helped you.
Ben Courchia (15:42.545)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (15:44.026)
And sometimes you go blazing around and you forget that you didn't just get there on your own. Someone helped you. So that's a very important concept. And we, as a group, every meeting, we start with a moment, a gratitude moment. And sometimes people are like, God, here she goes again. But the reality is that usually people think of something and they can say,
Ben Courchia (16:06.695)
You
Phyllis Dennery (16:12.482)
I'm grateful to my colleague because they took the call, or they did, or whatever. And it morphed into something. We do kudos, which also have to do with people, they published this paper, they got this award, whatever. And the group itself decided they're going to do a kindness kudos, like something where you talk about how people were good to you, or nice to you, and helped you, and highlight how they helped you.
I didn't do that, but that's how things start to evolve is people start thinking about it in a different way. And you could, a lot of times the first thing you think of is, God, these people, this administration, this, these idiots, they're doing this to me or that to me. And if you do that all day, you will be an incredibly bitter, stressed, disappointed person.
not see the good. You know, I talk about it in research where you have to be able to see what's in front of you to be able to make a difference, right? Same in all these things. What's in front of you? What has changed or what has been helpful to you and what do you see there? And be thankful, you know? So, yeah.
Ben Courchia (17:30.951)
Mm hmm. I've yeah, I've often been reminded by my parents that we have two eyes, two ears, but only one mouth that we should we should listen and watch twice as much as we are speaking. one of the things that caught my attention that you mentioned in your conversation with Misty and with David is that creativity, you said, means observing things. for you, the power of observation and just being able to
Phyllis Dennery (17:41.122)
You
Ben Courchia (18:00.199)
take inventory of what you're seeing and then acting on these signals. Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of sometimes just not taking part, but just remaining an observer so that you are gathering this information? How important is that?
Phyllis Dennery (18:22.39)
Yeah, that's a hard one to do, isn't it? Because we're like, yeah, trying to solve every problem. But I think that's a recipe for burnout. If you think you're the only one who should solve every problem that ever came along, you're going to burn out and let others think about a problem. Think through how they might approach it. And at first, sometimes you go, that's not going to work. But if you sometimes let people try their way,
you'd be surprised. And when I was that child, I called, you I could do that because it was just my division called all the people in one by one and say, hey, tell me what's your passion? What do you want to do? How do you want to contribute? And each person had something they loved or wanted to do. Right. And so they decided that they were going to embrace what they were doing. And boy, the
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (19:07.283)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (19:20.622)
product when you are so psyched about what you're doing, what you bring out is tremendous. And if I had gotten in the way in micromanage, okay, this and that, no, you have to let people think things through and you can, you want them to report to you. Of course, you don't want them to go wild and not tell you, but they have to also own what they did and you have to say, okay, that sounds good. Why not? Why not?
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (19:21.577)
Hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (19:29.375)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (19:50.582)
Okay, sometimes that's what I say, why not? Or if I think of something that I want to change, sometimes I sort of listen to see, is it possible? And I look at the cues that I'm receiving, people might say, okay, and they're not really able to do it or they're not into it. You got to pay attention. And having a psychiatrist mother really helped with that because I can.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (20:00.445)
to see is it.
Phyllis Dennery (20:18.722)
pick up on signals. You know, I see somebody looking like they're uncomfortable with something or you're proposing something and it's just not going to go ahead. That's important. That's you have to pay attention, in other words, right?
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (20:20.601)
Mm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (20:34.835)
love this description of your leadership style, which is really helping people's own skills set and passions shine. I think that is lost in some leadership styles. I really respect that. And what I hear you underlining and the other times I've seen you speak, just a lot about collaboration. How has collaboration played a role in your life?
Phyllis Dennery (20:56.748)
Yes, absolutely.
Phyllis Dennery (21:01.364)
every day pretty much because, you know, if you come to a new environment, some people say, you moved from here to there. If you don't pick your allies and collaborate with people and say, you helped me with this, you helped me with that, then it's all on you. And when I first came to Brown, it was a small department and they had these set meetings with this leadership group. There's like three or four people from the department who are relatively senior.
We'd just sit, have a conversation, and I'm like, what are we doing here? We're not getting anywhere. We're just sitting around. And so I decided that better to kind of engage people to get them to do certain aspects of it. You know, not everything to everyone and, you know, me as a leader having to be the mother of everything. No. How can I get you to help me and help yourself?
by distinguishing yourself in this particular path. And so we recreated the org chart and I appointed people to be vice chair of this and associate chair of that and gave people titles. And at first people were like, I'm not a vice chair, I'm not this chair or that chair. And you can't, everybody can't be a chair. And you have to be able to demonstrate that you're going to.
follow through on what you're being asked to do as a whatever, associate chair or something like that. And now they're like creating those same structures in their little world. you know, because they see the value of you can't own everything. You've got to let somebody get the benefit of having done something, you know, well and having shone in that in that space. Right. And
And I love that when I see them just take it and run with it and do something great, then I'm very pleased with that. And it looks reasonably good on me as well because I'm the leader, right? Yeah, it does. And it's not the purpose of that, but it's more, at the end of the day, there is something for you in there as well as a leader.
Ben Courchia (23:10.887)
Yeah?
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (23:13.068)
It's funny how that works, yeah.
Ben Courchia (23:24.623)
Yeah. Yeah. I think this this segues really nicely into the next sort of theme that we wanted to touch up with you regarding the role of women in medicine, women in leadership as well. I come from a home of professional women, mothers, sisters. My wife is a physician. My daughter looks like she wants to be a physician. And my mom was a was a was a health care provider as well. So I'm just wondering
looking at your successful career, I think it can be so dreading for women when entering this space of medicine, which is so cutthroat, so toxic sometimes that the prospect of even being successful and reaching the heights that you've reached can be sometimes not even thought of. And I'm just wondering for people listening and for my daughter as well, what are some of your advice?
Phyllis Dennery (24:19.886)
Yes.
Ben Courchia (24:21.447)
on how to conduct yourself.
Phyllis Dennery (24:25.038)
Well, you know, I must say that my most inspiring mentor was my mom who, you know, she had six of us. She had us, as you know, in residency, my sister and I. Then she waited seven years, had another pair of kids. Then she decided she's changing field, going into psychiatry from pathology, what a difference. And she had two more children.
during her residency as a pathologist, as a psychiatrist. And they told her there was no such thing as maternity leave. So she had to pretend she wasn't pregnant and leave a couple days before she'd deliver and say, okay, I'm gone and come back two weeks later. It was a really horrible time for women. It's much better, obviously, but there's still a lot of things that come.
to suppress women's ability or confidence in thinking that they can do something. So oftentimes, you might think you want to do something and then you feel timid because women are more likely to feel that sort of imposter syndrome timidity and saying, I don't know if I could do that, than some guy, but they might be able to do an even better job of it.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (25:47.775)
they might be able to do an even better job of that.
Phyllis Dennery (25:50.668)
But sometimes you have to be courageous. keep coming back to that term and say, okay, I'm putting my hat in the ring. Okay. And it works sometimes. It doesn't work other times, but it oftentimes it works if you've been someone who's been dedicated, serious, doing the things you're doing. So that was when I put my hat in the ring for being at the American Thoracic Society. They put me up for a chair of
of membership chair. I did that. And then I went to the pediatric session and became the chair of the pediatric scientific committee for putting together the program. And I just had fun with it. I kind of worked with people. I'm not an extrovert. I really am not. I'm a weird introvert who can publicly be an extrovert, but you know.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (26:22.975)
I did that and then I went to the pediatric session and became the chair of the pediatric scientific committee for putting together the program and I just had fun with it. kind of worked with people. I'm not an expert. I really am.
Phyllis Dennery (26:49.292)
Sometimes it's like, please, I don't want to talk small talk to this one or that one. So being out there, being able to overcome that and getting in someone to talk. I was much better before to do that. It's just go talk to somebody, say, hey, can you help me or can I help you? More so say, can I help you? And so that's how we, know, things work. But there's, I used to think there's no glass ceiling. There's no such thing.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (27:03.187)
Hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (27:19.071)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (27:19.246)
You can do whatever you want. And that is not true. And I'm sorry to say it isn't. As you go into the rarefied atmosphere, the higher you go in that, the more barriers there are to you. And not to say abandon your ship or to just give up, but that is really, it takes a certain fortitude.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (27:35.646)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (27:48.398)
to keep pushing ahead when they're not pushing with you, they're against you. So, you know, for me, at one point I thought I wanted to be a dean and I explored that. And it was strange for the few things I looked at, I always would come in second. How is that even possible? But I think it's because a black woman, you know, there's a...
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (27:52.852)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (28:17.89)
what, there's a few in the country, 14s, and one time, this one opportunity, they said, well, we thought you'd be a little shy. What? What are you talking about? That is not true. But here's what they put on you, because they think that's what women are, unable to do it, shy, unassuming. huh?
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:20.34)
Mm-hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:29.993)
Hmm.
Ben Courchia (28:44.838)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (28:45.454)
Everybody I told the story to was like, are you kidding me? That's first thing I've ever heard. But that's the perception. So sometimes after a while of getting that feeling of, okay, I can't seem to break that one, I realized I really kind of like doing what I'm doing. And the more you stop focusing on what you're going to do next, be in the moment, enjoy what you're doing.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:48.936)
Ben Courchia (28:49.563)
Yeah, the pod.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (28:51.401)
Yeah.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:05.437)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (29:13.986)
work with the people you're working with and embrace that and find ways to be creative in that space. And if something comes, great. If something doesn't come, you're still happy. You're not always looking, you know, to some other thing. And people notice when you're always looking somewhere else, right? And it's hard to do when you're actually actively looking for something, but that conveys a message that
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:27.08)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (29:43.464)
usually backfires. So what if you don't leave? What if you want to stay? What if whatever? You end up losing out because people say that person's not loyal. They're not going to stick around. So you kind of have to think through how you express yourself.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (29:45.311)
Mmm.
Ben Courchia (30:00.175)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (30:01.147)
Yeah. Thank you for sharing some of those very real challenges that they're not going away, obviously, if anything, they're becoming more difficult in the current climate. And something else that you have spoken about in terms of women in medicine is, and I think you were such a good example of this, your mother was such a good example of this, that you didn't have to pick
Phyllis Dennery (30:13.602)
Yeah.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (30:28.805)
one thing or another thing that a woman in medicine could be many things, maybe not all at the same time, but they could be many things. And maybe speak to how that has changed throughout your career.
Phyllis Dennery (30:45.368)
Yeah, I think that I don't think you can be everything to anyone again, as you say. And there's a certain risk you take when you try to pursue one thing or the other and, you know, in pursuing career opportunities, leadership, and so forth. My kids were still young, you know, and they were, you know, they were vulnerable and they
when I was gone or on a trip or somebody invited me and I was secretary treasurer for SBR and I was on a study section and I was doing this and that, then they're like, oh, you're gone again. You're, you know, and there's no way to make that up. However, I know that I had to do some of that for myself because it, you know, it depends on your nature. If you say, okay, I'm going to quit.
everything and I'm going to stay home and be with these kids, you know, that's your choice. My daughter chose to do that, which is always frustrating to me to think that everyone thought my path was not good in my family. My son chose a PhD path. My daughter was first a teacher and then she's now home with her daughter. And you know, whatever floats your boat, do what you want. But for me, it was important to do the career piece because
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (31:59.679)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (32:14.286)
A little joking is that when I was on maternity leave, they gave us three months, which was great, except I was losing my mind. I had no one to talk to. And it's not like the old days where you had a village of people you can interact. So my poor little daughter, she was a little baby. I'd say, say something. What are you trying to say? Oh, this child.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (32:22.111)
Mm-hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (32:29.886)
Meh.
Phyllis Dennery (32:42.796)
was so verbal, so early. And I think it's because I was like, say something, talk to me. And she was really amazing in terms of her vocabulary and so forth. So anyway, everyone is different. Some people would relish having six months, whatever time at home. To me, I knew I needed the balance of being home and also being engaged in something else.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (32:44.679)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Courchia (32:44.775)
Hahaha!
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (32:59.817)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (33:11.736)
That's me, but it's not everyone and people can make choices. And I'll give you one other quick example. One of the people that I hired, again, that talent management piece, she came to me, she was in her late 50s, had been a private pediatrician for all that time. And she said, you know, I kind of want to do more. I want to be...
involved in academics, for teaching and for community engagement, for research. I said, yeah, she sounded, said, yeah, okay, I'll hire you. And she's like, really? And we went through this, do you know that she was one of my most productive folks who did so much, my God, she did so much to transform our environment. And now she's really retiring because she's...
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (33:53.279)
huh.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (34:02.367)
Mmm.
Phyllis Dennery (34:03.646)
in her seventies and her grandson is in Hawaii. And I said, you have every right to go, but I'll miss you. I'll miss you a lot because you're so exceptional. But sometimes you find out that it's later that you can devote your energy to doing something. And most academic environments are not too gracious about that. But, you know, if you as a leader can be and allow people to have a different course and then change
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (34:18.793)
Hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (34:25.087)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (34:33.015)
paths, then you you're amazed at how much energy an older person can bring to the table when they're really excited about it.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (34:43.647)
I love that. I love that. What excellent pearls. I'm recognizing that we will soon be at the end of our time together. And we talked a lot about your lung research and lung injury and gene regulation, but you've also done a lot of work in healthcare disparities and how absolutely critical that is to the care that we provide in the NICU. And I have kind of a philosophical question about
the impact that neonatologists have on a, a, not, maybe not everybody's going to go into advocacy, but on a day to day unit, one-on-one basis, what responsibility do we have to tackle kind of dismantle healthcare disparities in our units with individual families, in our staff, every single day.
Phyllis Dennery (35:39.392)
It is really tough and some of my toughest moments are being on service, which I don't do as much because of my other responsibilities. But as I've evolved, because now I'm on the National Board of the March of Dimes, so we do a lot around advocacy. In fact, we're going to go to the Hill and talk to the legislators and stuff. And right now, you know, with maternal mortality issues, perinatal mortality, et cetera.
And what happens is that sometimes it's overwhelming to see how we take such a cavalier attitude to, it's not that we mean to do that, but you know, when I see some of the recommendations that come out about, you should limit your screen time and blah, blah, blah, great. But if you live in a single room and there's a TV on and there's no place, there's no real bedroom for the kid,
How do you demand such things? Same way, we have mothers, one mother came and they said, well, you have to put the baby in the crib to sleep, you can't go sleep. She doesn't even have a crib. She doesn't have a room for the baby. She lives in a motel. So what are you saying? Right? So we're not paying as much attention to, can they really do the things we ask them to do as we release them into the,
terrible world, right? We can resuscitate all kinds of kids, right? But what are we sending them home to? And do we care? So that's been really philosophically challenging and also seeing how staff sometimes are very dismissive of people. But sometimes they're wonderful too. So you have to try to work role models. So one thing I do when I go on rounds,
I say hello to the cleaning person or to the person, you know, just say, why are you only going to say hello to me or to whoever? Say hello to everyone and treat them as if you realize that, they are, that everyone's equal. They all bring something to the table. You couldn't do it without the cleaning person. You couldn't do it without the whoever, right? So don't treat them like they're nobody because they
Ben Courchia (38:00.902)
that.
Phyllis Dennery (38:06.434)
They save your life on a day to day in the NICU.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (38:08.127)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Courchia (38:09.485)
This is something that in our unit, we've paid very close attention to our cleaning person, Clara, our stocking person, Denton, our people that are integral part of our unit. We know them by names. We greet them every day. So yeah, go ahead.
Phyllis Dennery (38:19.246)
Yes.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (38:23.453)
Yeah, and we recognize that they play an absolutely critical role in our being able to do our part at the bedside. We really can't do it without them. I am so taking to heart what you said about when we make suggestions that families can't even fathom doing. mean, we certainly alienate people in our strict
Phyllis Dennery (38:46.978)
Yes.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (38:50.557)
You know, not, not that interplay of tell me what your life is like, what is feasible in your home. and I think that's definitely something that, that I'm taking away. I wanted to ask, another question that's related and, you commented on this early on about, your parents and their choice of where they, went for their follow up training. And obviously our country is in a time of.
I don't know, transition and controversy. I'd like to, you know, for you to describe what an impact of having a staff and faculty that look like our patients and families on a broad number of factors. How important is that to improving outcomes?
Phyllis Dennery (39:20.512)
God.
Phyllis Dennery (39:42.35)
That is so important. We know that. I mean, when I read this thing, what was it in? Some really great journal about how babies in the NICU had a higher chance of survival if they were cared for by people who were like them. That made me so depressed. You're talking about a baby, not talking about a big person that you could say, I don't like them or whatever. It's a little baby.
And so I don't understand how that happens, but it does. Bias is inherent to everything we do. So we have to be able to change that mindset and role model and show people we don't treat people differently because they are different. Our population is very Spanish speaking. It has very little, the ones that come from very impoverished environments. We have
a majority minority city in Providence, Rhode Island. So, you know, we have to embrace our patients. And sometimes you just have to be an advocate. You know, we had no signage in Spanish. You know, we have over 50 % of the people in this place speaking Spanish. We had no signage in Spanish. So when COVID came, it was chaos. Nobody knew where they were supposed to go. So I kept bothering them. Sometimes you have to be a nat. I kept bothering them.
and saying, hey, there's no signs in Spanish. Here, we'll try to translate some of these signs. There's no signage in this. There's a... I bothered them so much that now we have signage in Spanish, Portuguese, know, English, but they were happy to just act like these people didn't exist. And sometimes that's how we do it. We say, well, they don't matter. To change the...
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (41:27.901)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (41:37.998)
cover of our little magazine so that they included children of color was like a nightmare when I first joined. We had a person who was, she said, but that doesn't sell and you know, the donors don't like to look at that. And so I said, it's going to happen. So I brought my little cousins, little cousins who live in Creston, Rhode Island. And they were on the cover with, you know, the other person who's
Ben Courchia (41:44.615)
Hmm.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (41:45.171)
Hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (42:05.516)
Child, adopted child was from Peru. anyway, you kind of have to be bold and put yourself out there and say, no, I will not tolerate this. You know, when we look at applicants or someone says something crazy, you say, did I hear you right? And why, why do you think that? What's making you think that? Sometimes just not going, you idiot, you know, just saying, help me understand. Why do you think that?
you know, instead of, you know, alienating right up front, you say, why do you think that? what makes you, did you really say that? What, what are you saying? And by being the advocate, people really are happy and, they thank you for it, you know, and say, wow, but you have to, it's tough. It's, it's really tough. Cause I hate having to fight the battle all the time.
Ben Courchia (42:53.467)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Courchia (42:57.744)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Courchia (43:02.425)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (43:03.168)
around any aspect of diversity. Now with this craziness, you know, we have transgender faculty, we have transgender residents. And what am I going to say or do, right? I can only be, you know, you have, there's some dynamics, you know, you don't want to lose your funding, you don't want to lose this or that, but you want to protect people and defend them as best you can.
And that's what we have to do for everyone in our environment.
Ben Courchia (43:36.951)
I really appreciate that. And I appreciate you being a voice for this message. One last question for you today. And I would like to shift gears a little bit just so that we end on an optimistic note because the subject we just brought.
Phyllis Dennery (43:51.5)
That's optimistic, because you're telling people you can do it. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (43:54.897)
You can do it. We can be the change, as they say.
Ben Courchia (43:57.861)
Yeah, no, I see. I see my conversations with you. mean, you remind me of what they talk to us about in physical chemistry, about the photons. You are a bright light full of energy, in my opinion, and you shine the way forward. You have done so much. What is getting you? Yeah. But what gets you excited about the next 10 years? I just want to know, like, what are you looking at in the future? And you're like, this is something that sort of piques your interest, Dr.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (44:15.679)
And very modest, very modest.
Phyllis Dennery (44:30.094)
yeah, it's actually, it's not, you know, advocacy, being more engaged in advocacy is very interesting to me to be able to, you know, see through the projects that I'm doing in the lab in terms of discoveries that are going to be meaningful in terms of therapeutic interventions, if that ever comes to bear. And, you know, also,
Ben Courchia (44:37.564)
Mm-hmm.
Phyllis Dennery (44:58.636)
continuing to reinvent myself. find that fun when you, you know, you find some other passion. I have this book sitting in my shelf somewhere, like that I wrote this novel that I don't know how to get it published. And I'm kind of like, but I never give up. So I'm going to figure it out and I might, you know, publish it, you know, also we have a little children's book with me and the surgeon, you know, and
just trying to get those things out there, just having a different kind of fun, you know? But still being passionate and caring about, you know, mentoring and, you know, helping people make it through this.
Ben Courchia (45:31.259)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ben Courchia (45:42.203)
I love that. The prospect of doing different things is alone, the source of excitement. That's quite awesome. Phyllis, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us, share your career, to share your knowledge. It is invaluable. You do not, I don't think, comprehend how much this has an impact on us young career neonatologists. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Phyllis Dennery (45:49.228)
Yes.
Phyllis Dennery (46:07.1)
you're welcome. And I'll just end by saying one last thing I'm really looking forward to in the next 10 years is retirement.
Ben Courchia (46:15.783)
You say that, we'll see. We'll see if you, if you hold your, if you're, we're to hold you accountable.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (46:21.085)
Well, it seems like you have no shortage of very interesting hobbies also, so that's exciting too.
Phyllis Dennery (46:26.83)
That's the point, not necessarily medicine, but other.
Ben Courchia (46:28.399)
I can imagine your retirement be like a list of things that you're planning on taking on outside the duties. Thank you. you, Phyllis.
Phyllis Dennery (46:34.19)
Well, it's been really great to hang out with you guys and thank you for having me. yeah, bye.
Ben Courchia (46:43.387)
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Daphna Yasova Barbeau, MD (46:43.711)
yours is ours.
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