Dr. Sarah Tehseen is a Pediatric Hematologist based in Canada, and a Blood Bank Doctor. Apart from medicine, her interests include, volcanoes, dinosaurs, quantum physics and painting. Join us today as she share her journey; her challenges and wins!
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Approach, cubit, curiosity, whatever you do approach with curiosity by the side, the why is going to be your saving grace.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to beyond ADHD, a ...
Dr. Sarah Tehseen is a Pediatric Hematologist based in Canada, and a Blood Bank Doctor. Apart from medicine, her interests include, volcanoes, dinosaurs, quantum physics and painting. Join us today as she share her journey; her challenges and wins!
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Approach, cubit, curiosity, whatever you do approach with curiosity by the side, the why is going to be your saving grace.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to beyond ADHD, a physician's perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a family medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers for three and four years of age.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovery, ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts, backlog, a graveyard of unfinished. And a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes the last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back. Like I have.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hello, welcome to the overachieving ADHD physicians.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As we all know, ADHD is a spectrum. It affects people in many different ways and we all deal with it a little bit differently. I created this podcast to bring awareness that ADHD is a life long disease. I will be sharing with you many physicians who along there lives have had wins and challenges, but they have learned to overachieve in life.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So my aim is to stop the mental stigma associated with this condition. When most people think of ADHD, they picture a little boy maybe running around and knowing people are distracting others. They don't picture somebody super and smart and intelligent and gifted or somebody who's daydreaming. So it does not have anything to do with your mental intelligence.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: It's just a different way of thinking. So I want to share with you that we can be adults. We can be professionals, but before I get to my very important guest today, I have to disclose something that my lawyer makes me say, which is that while today, our medical doctors, we are not your doctors. So the information that you learn here today is not meant to replace or substitute any advice of your own physician, therapist, or coach in addition, Everything that you learn here.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As we share is considered our own views, our own opinions. It's not meant to represent any specific employer, hospital or healthcare system or a particular organization. All right. That was a handful. So today my special guest is Dr. Sarah Tehseen. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Tell us all about you.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I am Sarah. I am originally from Pakistan.
I have been in Canada for two years now. I have two boys. I have a one and a half year old and a five and a half year old. And I am a pediatric hematologist and, , blood bank doctor. Oh, wow. I enjoy painting, singing, astronomy and quantum mechanics. Oh my God. That's amazing.
Yeah. And that is once again, the fact that my brain can hold five things at the same time, but usually not one thing at a time that does not apply.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: We have that special gift. Yes. Yeah. I give telling people that ADHD is a gift that we just have to learn to unwrapped, but it can be a beautiful gift. Tell me, how did you get diagnosed? When did you get diagnosed here?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Absolutely. I, when I looked back, so I was the kid who got in the most trouble, but my parents, it's not a big end.
Like it wasn't a big population and only the person with my brother, but I got in trouble with every single adult who took care of me? I got angry very easily. It was very hard for me to self sued. I was very emotional. I lost an insane amount of things. And when I say insane, Cell phones. Cool bags. You name it? I lost it. Important documents once I got to med and stuff. Yes. I was this smart kid in the school. Who would I belong to a school system? Coming from Pakistan, like that celebrated smart, but I was always an odd smart, because I would be saying inappropriate things or talking too fast or walking too fast or stimming, like constantly moving when I'm trying to tell people something or like doodling in the class.
I'm moving my legs too much wind seemed to annoy our teacher in what? Her grade I couldn't stop myself. And yeah, so like, it's, that was how school went. And then I came, as I grew older, it became more about being very daydreamy and missing details in med school and in high school, the actual content of what I was studying was always super interesting.
It still is. And that enables me to overcome. That daydreaming aspect, but there were certain aspects of my life, which were extremely difficult for me, like personal hygiene, having to lock my door in all of my dormitory, losing things, having relationships with people, being able to keep secrets where I would blurt stuff out, not, because I meant to hurt somebody, but because.
I'm excited, any missing body language, missing social cues, being unable to, um, like lacking that, almost lacking almost that emotional intelligence, which I saw in my peers around my age. And that was something that became very prominent in med school. And I struggled a lot because of it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So did you notice that in med school, that was the first time that you notice that?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: The story is not over yet. So in med school, in my final year, I, would extensively, I would almost say it was, I was with a group of friends that was very, difficult for me. And I think some of, a lot of my own rates made it difficult for me. A lot of their traits made it difficult for me.
So it was, it was combined activity. I ended up getting depressed for the first time clinically depressed and I received Sidella brown for about five months or so. And it really, really helped. Let's go a little Lord by then. Everybody moved away. I started studying for my exams and that was a very good place to be because studying was something which was always relaxing.
You know, in my residency, I got even going into pediatric residency. I think paying attention to the girls was a big thing. I struggled a lot with, especially in the first few months of my residency, I had moved to a new country. I was learning a new system and I had the smarts to understand the content, but I did not have the emotional intelligence almost, or the ability to pay attention to detail part.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: How, like, were you then more or less in your twenties? 23, 24.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Yeah. I was able to overcome that by being extremely anxious and telling myself I'm doomed. If I don't and they will talk me out of the residency program that they didn't add. By just triple checking, quadruple checking my work.
[And that's how it meant to in fellowship. And I did, I was, I stopped my medication. I was not medicated. I was not aware of my diagnosis then. And my fellowship, the content in a pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship tends to be obviously for very understandable. More complex, more complicated as a fellow.
Your responsibilities are a lot more than there. Even as a resident where you are expected to know a certain amount of content and then a subspecialist will help you out. Now you're training to become a subspecialist. The stakes are high, the expectations are high. The people around you relate to you different because you are different.
And I was different. Not only because I was a woman, I was also a woman of color. And I was a woman of color with an accent because I was from a different country. I had all this. It was a very difficult year. The one thing I had always relied on was being smart and being a very capable overachiever kind of a person.
And that was a year that that part was. Criticize the most. Right. And it was difficult. I started therapy. I was still not mitigated. I still did not have the diagnosis. The next year that helped a lot. Once again, I fell back to my old coping mechanisms of bringing extreme anxiety. So like when I'm on regular therapy for a patient, I learned, I didn't check it seven or eight times obsessively before I would actually put it out.
And I still do that. That is just hard to the goals. Um, uh, and, um, the other thing which developed as a consequence of all of that, because the thing I think that I struggled with the most was the anxiety that developed as a result of that constant, never ending. Criticism. Right.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Would you say it was self-criticism or others criticizing you?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Everything? I think it was initially a lot of other criticism, right? Like, but then for the longest, for as long as I have known my inner voice has been self critical, it just got more and more and more worse. The higher I went up the chain of becoming a subspecialist and.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: It did for me too. Yeah, exactly. Like your voice tells you, you better get that. Right. You're going to look dumb or you're going to get somebody in trouble or yes. Or you can really harm somebody. You better double check that you better not get distracted. Like, it just keeps telling you that. And it's like, you said, it brings up fear because you're trying your best and you're in an area where you're supposed to be perfect because, do not be perfect. Exactly. Somebody's life is at stake. Right. And so, like you said, you check seven or eight times just to make sure. Did you have like a checklist that you would do?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I feel, I think the anxiety component of it was so strong that it was able to kinda make up for it. I did make, yeah. Then, lot of times I would make, because then I would make checklists, I will lose them when I would make checklists. I would never have the capacity. Even if they're sitting in front of my face, on my computer, I would never be able to open the folder, click on that document to look at the checklist. It just didn't happen.
I wouldn't be too much in that moment of, okay. I have to figure this out or okay. I have to get this right. Like, and that'll help me to. Yeah, that makes sense. I hope it makes sense to you because
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, it does make sense because if you think about it, if you step back, you know, you were using your adrenaline drive and your cortisol level as a way to boost your dopamine, like you were always in like chronic, like really?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I have been an adrenaline junkie as long as I can remember, like when I'm studying and even now when I'm painting or when I am doing anything, which is giving me adrenaline/dopamine, I won't eat, I won't sleep. I would leave. I would be on the go.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So it does totally make sense that your body was trying to function. Any way it could to like self preserve what you want it to do, because here's the thing, like, you're, I'm guessing you went into medicine because it's a lot of work because you're passionate about it, right. Because not everybody, but I think at the end of the day, you know, nobody stays in something. They don't like, so it's like a love, hate relationship, right? Because like, you love what you're doing, but at what cost sometimes, right?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Absolutely. No 100%. And, I love my patients. I love my patients. I mean, their children and I have always related the best with children. Like it doesn't get better after that. It kind of gets worse as far as I'm concerned, unless you
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So were you diagnosed in fellowship?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: No. That was very interesting. So this is an interesting, because, then I came to Canada. The first job that I had was not as a pediatric hematologist only. It was a part general pediatrician and part pediatric hematologist. Oh. And when I was doing Gen-ped's I just got a lot of ADHD because in Canada, gen-peds becoming a general pediatrician equals being a pediatric psychiatrist in certain outreach areas where you don't have Pete psych support.
And we have amazing pediatric psychiatry support, but it's on the phone. Like the lesser insane nobody would ever get. And what I began to realize was my ADHD boys, the most, they're the most fun. And. Like the more I hang out, this is weird. You're like crazy. I was doing my three coordination disorder question, every one of the families and not the moment.
Like my child is a bull in the China store. And I said back to him after the mall, I don't want any.
So that got me thinking that was the first time I was like, okay, this is making sense.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Ha that interaction triggered it. Huh?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Yeah. And then my own get triggered it like my five and a half year old is exceptionally smart, but hard to self-regulate hard to self suit. Nothing seems to work in, like I was dealing with his anger and I would get quite angry myself and that was just not working out.
So I think a big trigger was that was my kids big trigger because I was like, I have to think. myself oneway or another, because if I don't, I'm not a good mom, I cannot like, I cannot do that to them and that's not fair. And the other thing was just this understanding that this is a spectrum and that on the spectrum, a lot of behaviors that I'm seeing in the children bird behaviors that I still have, or I still had, and that got me to seek the diagnosis.
So when my second son was born, For my first and I only got six weeks matleave. So it was not really a matleave, it was a recovery period. It wasn't mentorship. So it was like you were on the go. Drains tangle ever since my son was born, the older son, my, I think he became, he became somewhat of my dopamine source.
So that was actually, even though it made my life incredibly stressed and hard because of the fellow, you don't even have the money to pay for an appropriate amount of appropriate care and all that. It compensated for that someone still continues do, for which I have been very thankful . Do whatever made him my dopamine.
When my second son was born, I had a reasonable matleave because by that time I wasn't attending and I was making money and I was in Canada where matleaves are really not looked down upon or considered that six weeks is enough.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Right. And that's a blessing.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: That was the time I actually went to a psychiatrist. I got referral to the SMA, like our medical association. And I went through the psychiatrist. And start it over just saying, yeah, I've struggled with anxiety. I know I have it. I had been on SSI to a family doctor for a good two years and it made a difference and I was like, Hey, this is my life history.
And he was like, yeah, you definitely sound like that. No question asked. She did a few long questionnaires. I did a few more questionnaires and. I started, that was what I was still nursing my kid, pretty extensive. He said that was like when he was nine months and 18 months.
We're now. So almost nine, eight months ago.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: This is very recently.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: It has been the last year of my life, basically that it fit together.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And then I can only imagine, you know, the pandemic might've just like boiled it over, like.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Okay. That's interesting part. Pandemic was very suiting for me because I was not required to mask. I was not required to interact with other people that you are socially required to interact with because then ever I find interacting with people that I'm not close friends who were, let me like, do daydreaming and twiddling and fidgeting and talking about random things and laughing about random things or being so excited about the movie that I watched and looked at it.
And if you are from a small entity, you're required to keep those relationships. Right? So the fact that I had the excellent excuse to not meet with people, Well, actually good. Yeah. So I'm dreading the fact that that is over now. The fact that I could attend meetings from home meant that I could be nursing my baby and I sent him the meeting and saying,
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So would you say you're an introvert?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I don't know, but it comes to that introvert/extrovert spectrum. I do know that masking makes me very exhausted and being in situations when I'm required to be a certain way, makes me very exhausted. Pediatrics is amazing because pediatrics has not requiring me to mask. Yeah. I can talk to that teacher about the schedules that they are doing, or the Netflix show that they're watching, which probably am watching at the same time.
And real guys, I know as much about dinosaurs as my five-year-old, so it's just so much more fun. And he went with the parents. I mean, even if they are very. Like properly people up over time because it's because when they can see that I care a lot, which I do absolutely 100%. And also because they see the kids bonding.
And that provides me an avenue and my blood bank job. I'm blessed to have colleagues who are very accepting of my quirks, extremely accepting of my quirks and valuing me for my strengths and. I never thought that I will get this environment in my work ever. And especially with my experiences in fellowship and residency, I thought this would never happen.
These are the, like, I'm truly blessed. I'm truly blessed. And one of them is going to be retiring soon-ish and I think it's the circle of life. She is going to be missed very, very dearly. So that's, kind of,
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: But I want to have you there and, and really emphasize something that is so important that you had an amazing mentor, right? Who welcomed you the way you are not having to like, be any different than yourself and you saw. Being in medicine that you could be, you, you could be human, you could be Sarah
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: quirky and loud and funny and late to meeting and still do a phenomenal job and be celebrated. Right. I, that, and that part is so hard to find so hard to find.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: But the more important thing is that you saw this role model and now you too can be a role model for others, right? Like you can, you, can
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I can celebrate those strengths and take them where they're at, rather than expecting them to be something that they're not absolute.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And you see, I think that's a beautiful photograph.
That ADHD has because we tend to be flexible and outside the box
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: and we that's how we do it, but that's what happening. Okay, we'll do this. Oh, this happened . Like my nurses would come to me in panic. This happened, this happened, this happened this moment and I need that story. You don't want to be like, It's so easy and so natural to trouble to think on your feet, then it is to sit down in a meeting and be proper, or, um, write a note or review a part of, because of it being elaborate like in the lab aspect.
It's very interesting. It's very fun. But the part with enjoy involves looking at like operating procedures and doing quality stuff. You will have died, is difficult. And what I have noticed that ever since I have been on the stimulant, that part is getting done on time. That part is becoming a lot more easier.
So the parts of me, which we're not getting, like I'm getting enough dopamine out of my medications to get the required work. Getting up in the morning has become a lot easier. And I will say I switched from consider to dextroamphetamine. Um, right now that's what I'm because, and what I have noticed is that even with the SSR I's onboard, that combination has helped the emotional regulation a lot.
And help the, obviously the focus and attention by this there, but the emotional regulation part is also settling. And that, for that I'm very thankful. The fact that it worked, obviously, that makes you look back on your family and who has, might have it. And, and I have my opinions about it, but I talk about it at some other point, this has been a year, year and a half of discovery. I was ever, since my little one was born, it has been a year of discovery.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: How different is it now? That you're embracing it with a curiosity point of view, right? Like having more self-compassion for yourself and loving the way your quirks are. Like you said, what makes you, you and not having to use that internal voice telling you, like, you're going to do this wrong? Like, what if your thoughts. I'm just very thorough. I just want to make sure, like, it's always how you look at things. Right? What if you're thinking I'm just double-checking and that's okay.
Because nobody's going to ever fall to you for double-checking. But hopefully now, as you have been doing things more often, It becomes second nature to you. And hopefully with your medicine, you don't have to double-check seven times, hopefully you're double checking three times, but it's a process, right? Like you said, some things are ingrained. Right.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Yes. The other thing is also that I'm able to say that to people. Hey, people, I tend to forget to let me just quickly look at it and make sure I'm not missing anything. I just say that out loud. I say that to my residents. I say that to my students. I say that to my colleagues and I'm just not.
I don't hide in shame because I think that has been the biggest gift. I don't hide in shame. That's why I struggled with driving for the longest of time, because it's just so much sensory integration and it's so much stress and I would just try to put it off as much as I can. I mean, I have a license, I can, to my life, but I have a husband who loves to drive in a single car house hold so I avoid it as much as possible. And I think a big part of that had been number one, I learned really. You don't like, it's not the right of passage in Pakistan. So I learned in my residency with a woman who, whoever she from, she goes to somebody somewhere in Eastern Europe and you go like,
Hey, she would be yelling at me. When you yell at me like, like this, I go into massive shutdown. So yeah, of course, because your driving instructor is screaming at you. When you're driving here, you're not going to panic. Yes, exactly. So that was the background. And then, like I can see that I struggled with it all the more and other people do.
And I'm sure if I put in the time and effort, I will get good at it, but couldn't bring myself to, especially with so many other things in life, I just can't bring myself.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Sure. Yeah, no problem. I mean, I didn't learn, to drive till I was like 17, 18 also. And I remember like, my dad was teaching me to drive and he was
So, he didn't want to pay for the course. Okay. He didn't think I should drive. But then he like wanted to, evaluate me, you know, as I was driving, to the store where I worked, I was a cashier at a grocery store and like, it wasn't even two miles away.
And I think I, it was an, like an orange light and I like ran. Like, I, I just went like curved and he was like, pull over. That's it. You're taking the class I'm driving. I was like, okay. Like, I guess. I had to be more careful, you know? And so it is what it is.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: So I think there are two kinds of people. There are people who find joy in it.
And the ones that you find joy in it, like who actually enjoy driving, it becomes a hyper-focus just like procedures become a surgeon's hyper-focus and they're able to be really in the zone and have a good time with it. And then. Who start over. Yeah. Right. So it just, it's just what grabs your attention.
And it's so difficult for you to do things which are not your attention. And with my son, I am recognizing this more and more that, you know, when he struggles with
I'm like, okay, it's gonna be hard for. It's going to be hard for him because he has no dopamine to brush his teeth in the morning, or he has no dopamine to take a bath, or he has no dopamine to what does that he struggled with? To do whatever, like multiple things, for example, we were doing some reading and he has to use his brain for it.
Right? Like you have to make an effort, you have to make mistakes, you have to figure things out. And he's not really good at it. Nobody is right. And I'm pushing him over to, I'll be honest, but he was all excited. And I was like,
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: But what a big gift it is for you to be his mom, because one, you now understand like, how, like that there's nothing wrong. It could be that maybe there's some dopamine or maybe he's just being a kid, but at least you're now more in tune and more aware and not going to judge him a call him lazy or whatever. Like sometimes parents, sometimes our parents mean to do well.
Right. But sometimes what they say can be kind of hurtful because they're just.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Say it was act and it was not just your parents, it was everybody else in your community, in your friends. Right. And it was not just one year. It was 30 years old, 35.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Exactly. You internalize it. Like, it's like a character flaw, right?
Like, like you're doing it on purpose, but you're not like, this is just our brain and if we could help it, like, why the hell would we make it harder on ourselves? Right. Like, oh yeah. I love losing the keys 30 times and you know, like nobody..
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: First thing I did and the first job I got was lose the keys and those keys had the car keys on it, but not only did they have the car keys and everything else, those keys were like, , one of them would be the common keys for an office where we have our facts.
Yeah, totally. Oh, great. New job. New boss, new boss.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: I cannot tell you how many times in residency and in my, um, where I was working, I went to residency at Baylor college of medicine in Houston. And then I started working at strawberry clinic, which is like an underserved clinic. Do you have to Baylor, but they had lockers, you know, and you were supposed to use those like little things too, like combination.
I don't know what the combination, but if I would forget my combination. So like the janitor would come with their big flyers. Break it up. So I, so I could get into damn locker so that I could get like my coat or my stethoscope or whatever, like, you know, I would go on vacation and then I would come back and like, I forgot the code, like one week or two weeks or whatever.
Like how do you just forget that? Finally, my husband was like, okay, you need to download an app where you put all your passwords in there and that way you just need one password to get into there. I said, okay.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: , I think, I think the other part. Which is true for a lot of ADHD people, and especially the high-functioning ones, I feel like we rely on our spouses a lot to run the life, picking kids up from school or dropping gets to school, making sure we are on time for our taxes and our appointments and our deadlines.
And, the bills are paid on time and all of that, like. I think me and my husband worked out well, that aspect very well, because he is unnaturally organized person. But think about it and that he's got that by now, but I'm going to think about it. I think that. It's probably because he has ADHD organization as is hyper focus, but that's, and that's part I definitely want to put out there ADHD can cause dysfunction in any form, just because you are organized at work does not mean you're organized in life, just because you're organized in life does not mean you're organized at work.
Some people with ADHD will have organization as a hyper-focus, which gives them dope. So they are going to be organized for the heck of it. So for some people, and that includes me, this organization and emotional dysregulation is the hardest thing to deal with for other people. It's their jobs or addictions or, learning to read and write or doing math or being hyperactive. So it's, it presents in every person differently. Even if you are a mom with ADHD and you have a child with ADHD, you're going to look very different from your kids. And that's okay. The underlying. That pathways are the same. And I think if you are a parent of a child who is struggling with this, or you yourself struggled with this, you have to, I think, it's a good idea to learn and understand how yours present versus how theirs present, because in any relationship be it. And I see that with my colleagues and my nurses, my residents, my patients, my son, my husband, my friends, anybody, if you approach things from a place of, I'm trying to understand why you're like this.
And compassion. It's lot easier both when you and for them.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. That's a very big point that you're bringing out that I don't want a listeners to miss that when you approach somebody from love with love, then you really are being under like curious and not judgy. And when you're curious, Then the other, person's able to share how they're thinking because they feel safe in that space and they don't feel judged because remember we already judging ourselves.
So, and then it feels horrible to be judged by the people we love because. We want to be loved, just like every other human being and to spend out for the wrong reasons, like makes us like freak out and almost shut down sometimes. Right. And so that's so important to understand, like you just said emotional dysregulation, even though in the DSM 5. It's not like seen as one of the components of ADHD in Europe.. It is okay.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: That I didn't know because it should, because that's the biggest problem. And, I'm going to jump because I'm going to interrupt. When I was looking my son is not diagnosed at, but when I was looking at the diagnosis, diagnosed children who ended up having it, there was a study.
I don't know that it came out of, and it talked about the fact that as a preschooler or as a toddler, as a baby for them, the hardest thing was self-soothing. And that makes sense. This is the one thing they struggled with and they struggle with it as they are little babies who are not here to the night, to the point where that 26 year old and somebody tells them they don't do a good job.
This is a lifelong thing. And, and the sooner they realize that somebody is holding space for them and giving them a chance to work it out, the easier it is for them to actually learn to work it out in their way.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. That's so powerful. Tell me, what are your goals in the next five years? Do you want to travel somewhere?
Do you want to go to the Hawaiian? Did he didn't want to go to Hawaii? Just want to see those plants that are able to stand right next to the volcano. And they actually stopped. They're actually able to close their forest when the knock system like a mob. So my son is very science driven. And I got science driven as a result of it.
So all the stuff about quantum mechanics and astronomy came out, and we'll just keep asking questions. And when somebody asks me a question, I have to find an answer like there is no other option and that's it, it has to be given an answer as to be fact-based, because now I'm thinking about the question.
So, that aspect of parents find annoying. I find it fun. It's caters to my natural curiosity. We already interested in volcanoes. I wanted to go to Hawaii. So are you thinking like Maui, is that what you're thinking? I'm thinking actually, I don't know, but I learned to look at a semi active Volcano or maybe like the, is it the big rock?
I don't, I don't know. Good geography. I know I've been, I've been to Maui and I've been to Honolulu and in Maui, we did see some volcanos. I'm pretty sure there's different parts in Hawaii that you could fly to, but yeah. Do your research don't take me.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: No, no, no.
And for the short term, I definitely want to go to Victoria. I'm getting a week off in August because I have, I, I miss the ocean. I haven't been there in a while, so, and I think everyone moved here. So that's do, in terms of like goals, some of them are funny and some of them are. Passionate. I want to, as a part of my job, we did a lot of very grassroots groundwork here in Canada, which was very.
But it was a lot of work, but was very accomplishable because all the systems were set in space, but it was still a grassroots work. It was still ground work of developing something from up top. And I want to take these skills and I want to use them and maybe other countries, but definitely back then.
So I am. I'm connected with some people in Paxson who are already doing some of it and just kind of working to make it a better, better place. Obviously I keep forgetting to schedule meetings, obviously it's difficult to accomplish, but it's in the works. That's all I can say that these are two kind of this is the not so funny goal. I've wanted to have more time to me because I have finally learned that when I have more time to me, I can spend it in ways which are enjoyable because for the longest of times when I would get vacation, I'd be like, I don't know what to do with myself. I would be all over the place and I would be miserable.
And I'd be like, what's the point? And now that I know that I can do certain things and have a good time in my vacation, I want to be able to have some myself. I want to, and there's something that's skilled scares me. I dunno how much of it I can do, but the medical students and the residents and the fellows and the trainees who I see, and I think this will be true for every physician with ADHD.
I want, if I see them acting the way I acted, I want to hold space for them and give them compassion and tell them that, Hey, there is a way out of it. I may not, I don't know how I'm was. Yet disclosing my diagnosis, but I definitely want to hold space for them, even if I'm not giving them a diagnosis and maybe share skills with them that helped me and did not have, but as are on having a self-feeding inner voice..
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As you know, that's part of why we're doing this podcast, right. To like bring awareness and to help normalize it and to help our fellow colleagues, right? Because to you or to me, like we just knew we had to maybe work a little harder and we liked what we were passionate about what we were doing, but why do we have to work so hard?
Right? Like when there is a way a medical way to get diagnosed, right. And to help, like you said, all aspects of your life. And so, that is very important that you are going to hold space for them. And like you said, you will know at that time, what you share or don't share. But I don't know if you're aware, there is a journal that just came out the Canadian ADHD, put out the leadership journal.
July 4th was when it got published. and it's talks about physicians with ADHD and the work in the workplace. And if you haven't read it out, I'll send it to you so you can look at it. But it's really good because it really shows like. On one side, it shows like how to diagnose ADHD kind of, but then it implements, like how would you see it in yourself or in colleagues in the workplace?
So it gives you like the connection with each, each symptom and each like way of presentation. And then it just says that, Hey, be in the lookout because who you might think is unprofessional. They might be struggling and they might have ADHD and they're not trying to be unprofessional. If anything, they're putting in probably 20 or 30 hours more than you are trying to just stay on top of things.
And just having a conversation with them can like change their life. Right. And so I thought it was such a powerful journal. It was like a really good like call to action saying that as leaders, it is our responsibility to like look up. Each other, because at the end, everybody wins that person wins. Their family wins, their patients win, the whole institution wins.
So it's just, it's just a beautiful journal that I'll share with you. You haven't read it, but I think it made me feel like validated. It made me feel like, okay, finally, somebody is talking about it and it's out there, you know?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Yeah. I mean, and just because somebody comes across as hyper organized does not mean that they don't have it. 'cause some people will be tremendously organized, but how they it's.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. Some people do have ADHD plus OCD on top of it. It's just spectrum
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Yes, exactly.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Cause that's their overcompensation mechanism. Yes, exactly. Yep. Awesome.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I think that's all I want to share.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Oh my God. You know that you and I could probably talk for hours.
That's the way we are. We tend to be like into everything and understand each other without really having to explain much, you know, and even though we're a little bit different, we're still kind of the same and it's so nice to see that across cultures, like this is something that is seen like, and this is something that it's okay.
And, it brings us closer. Just one last question, in case like somebody wanted to reach out to you, maybe they wanted to ask you a question or something. Would you be comfortable giving an email address or a website where they can look you up?
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: I think if there's a website, I would prefer that, , the website have to be linked to by email. Otherwise I will never check the website, but yes, that should be fine.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Okay, perfect. So we will get that information out to you guys. Is there any one last piece of advice you would like to share? You gave us lots of awesome advice. But if there's one last thing.
Otherwise, we will close it up because I loved everything you said.
Dr. Sarah Tehseen: Oh, thank you, approach cubit, curiosity, whatever you do approach with curiosity by the vibe, the vibe is going to be your saving grace and the ones who have kids. And they have ADHD, the first words that get thrown around are conduct, and they're going to be an addict in the future.
They're going to be sociopath and they're going to be this. They're also Einstein. They're also scientists. They're also anyone that I know who is like exceptionally successful in their field. And when I say successful, I don't mean like they're making a lot of money or have a big house or a car or a stable job.
I mean like people who actually broke the grounds of discovery. I am sure they were on the new neurodiversity spectrum somewhere. Find what you love, find what your kid loves and then grow it, grow it with every single piece that you have, because I can promise you that it will, it will change the world.
Yes. I've started speaking very well. And that's between you and me. I mean, you can say whatever. I did not use to speak like that. I was a very stumbling over. Stumbling over myself, making sure that I am not saying something which is offensive. It that's changed a lot. That's amazing because you stepped into yourself, you, started to be curious and you embraced yourself and that made the whole difference.
Yeah. Well, we made part of the difference because of the work in progress.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And that's the thing, right? Like that's the part that we're here to keep it real. Like we're not here to pretend like life is perfect, but at the same time, we want to say, we are passionate about what we're doing. You can do whatever you want.
Sometimes it can be a little bit challenging, but anything that's worth pursuing can be challenging and it's not that you're going to become better or the person once you accomplish it. Because if we keep trying to get to a destination, you're going to miss the journey. So the point is trying to live in the moment and keep remembering, like you said, why am I doing this?
when you live in the moment, Then you're already happy that whether you accomplish it or not, it's who you had to become. To pursue whatever you were becoming, that's going to make the whole difference. And like you said, taking time for yourself is going to be how you feel your own cup, so that then you can turn around and be present for everybody else.
And make the world a little better. Right? Some days it's awesome. Some days it sucks, you know, it's 50, 50, but that's okay. That's part of being human. As long as we keep showing up, that's all that has to happen. Right. So it was such an honor to talk to you today. There you have it guys. So please tune in.
[If you want to give me any feedback or ask any more questions, please reach out to me at overachievewithadhd@gmail.com. And we will see you next time.
As someone who understands that time is your most valuable asset, I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe. And join my Facebook Group: Beyond ADHD A Physician's Perspective so that you never miss an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends. So they too can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
