Balancing Medicine & Content Creation with Dr. Noam Raiter

Episode 4: Women in Surgery: Breaking Barriers with Dr. Noam Raiter

Study looked at surgeon sex and long term postoperative outcomes among common surgeries

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Before we bring on Dr. Noam Raiter to chat, we will go through a little bit of relevant literature on, the topics that we’re talking about today, including women in medicine. So the first article here is a JAMA surgery publication from August of 2023. Some of you may have heard of this because it definitely made waves when it came out. The title of this study is surgeon sex and and long term postoperative outcomes among patients undergoing common surgeries. So, basically, the objective of this study was to see if surgeon sex was associated with 90 day and one year outcomes among patients who were undergoing common surgeries. This was a population based, retrospective cohort study conducted in adults in Ontario, Canada, and they were undergoing one of 25 common elective or emergent surgeries between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2019, and analysis was performed in 2022 for M. The main outcomes and measures an adverse postoperative event was defined as the composite of death, readmission or complication assessed at 90 days and one year following surgery, and then secondarily, each of these outcomes was assessed individually. Outcomes were compared between patients treated by female and male surgeons using generalized estimating equations with clustering at the level of a surgical procedure, which accounted for patient procedure, surgeon anesthesia and facility level covariates. So essentially over 1 million patients were included. I guess I’ll be exact. So we have 1,165,711 people, 151,000 of those were treated by a female, and then 1,014,657 by male surgeons. Overall, 14.3% of the patients had one or more adverse postoperative outcome at 90 days and 25% had one or more adverse postoperative outcome one year following surgery. Among those, 2% of patients died within 90 days and 4.3% died within one year. What the analysis found is that after accounting for patient, procedure, surgeon, anesthesiologist, and hospital characteristics, patients treated by female surgeons had lower rates of adverse postoperative outcomes, including death at 90 days and one year after surgery, compared with those treated by male surgeons. These findings further support differences in patient outcomes based on physician sex that warrant deeper study regarding underlying causes and potential solutions. And so, basically, in terms of this broader context, where this is a very pertinent discussion, women are historically underrepresented in surgery in the US, and in certain specialties like thoracic surgery, they make up less than 10% of the surgeon population. Despite this, they are still now making up over half of all medical school enrollments. And so there’s still this pervasive culture where female residents in surgical subspecialties, report harassment or discrimination by supervisors as just one reason of opting out. As surgeons, women are less likely to receive referrals, work on high complexity cases, and they have less operative time. They’re also less likely to have leadership positions, and they leave academic medicine at a higher rate than men. And so, again, this study, I mean, it, made big waves at the time, but to kind of look at what their analysis popped up, in layman’s terms, patients who were treated by male surgeons were 25% more likely to die within 90 days, and they were 24% more likely to die within a year when compared to patients treated by female surgeons. Similarly, patients treated by male surgeons were 5% more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 90 days and 4% more likely to be readmitted within the year. And with male surgeons, patients were 9% more likely to experience complications within 90 days and within a year. Researchers found that while in general the patients had better outcomes with female surgeons, female patients farred, fare worse than expected, and they had higher rates of adverse postoperative events within a year when treated by male surgeons. So there’s a lot that’s been discussed in terms of possible reasons or ways that we can account for these types of things, but just an example of one possibility is that maybe female surgeons are discussing more, like, perioperative care, postoperative instructions, things like that. Patients, may feel that they were more adequately prepped for, like, post operative expectations or things like that. I mean, we don’t know. More studies could be done in this arena for sure, but if it. Definitely, it’s some interesting results that came out of that study. And even more broadly, there is evidence in literature that there are differences in care delivery patterns between male and female physicians across fields of medicine. Female physicians spend more time with patients and spend more time making shared decision making decisions, with their patients and things like that. Without further ado, we welcome Dr. Noam Raiter on today.

Dr. Noam Raiter is a family medicine resident and lifestyle influencer

Welcome to this week’s episode of promising young Surgeon. This week, Dr. Noam Raiter joins us to discuss her exciting life as a family medicine resident and lifestyle influencer. Soon to be attending Dr. Noam Raiter is a family medicine resident in Toronto and a masterful lifestyle influencer. She has truly done the impossible. Make the life of a resident look glamorous and chic. Her followers are able to get a glimpse into the life of a medicine resident while also covering such universal topics for girlies, including female friendships in your twenties, living alone, finding beautifully aesthetic cafes to study in I really admire the way that her content is this balance on a knife’s edge between one’s identity and life as a physician with their identity and life as a trend setting young woman. I love that you’re real about your medical career and don’t sugarcoat things to make them look impossibly easy, which is very easy to do on social media. But even while keeping it real, it’s great how you can make the hospital and scrub life. Also, like I said, aesthetically pleasing. Dr. Noam Raiter has also just completed her board exam, so huge congrats are in order for that.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here and very, honored by all your kind words. I’m looking forward to our conversations today.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Absolutely. Well, and so, seriously, congrats on finishing boards. And, you know, I know that you’re just one month shy of basically attending life, so.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yes, almost there in the home stretch. very excited to be done.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: That’s such a fun time.

It really started when I was in medical school

Well, I’d love to just start by, you know, taking people back to the beginning. How did you get into influencing.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, it’s a great question. it really started when I was in medical school. I was in my first year still, and we were just sent home because of the pandemic. Classic story. So I was in my early, like, pre clerkship or didactic years of med school. So everything was virtual for, like, six or eight months before I started clerkship, and I had so much more time on my hands, and I’ve always really enjoyed both, you know, expressing my creativity, but also social media. I was such a consumer of, you know, other content creators and, whether it was fashion content, food content, wellness content that I really wanted to just explore that, you know, for myself personally and to feel creatively fulfilled. But, beyond that, it was being in medical school. I noticed, one, the importance of mental health as medical students and how little we were talking about that, at least in ways that were actually impactful and in ways that were actually making a difference in medical student wellness. I mean, we have lectures on wellness and things like that, but I really started to realize that, one, my mental health was beginning to struggle during med school, but two, that of so many of my peers around me and so many people who I saw and still do see as so successful and, you know, looking, I look up to all the peers and people who made it to med school. Right. But I can see that there was a bit of a discrepancy when it came to taking care of our mental health. And beyond that, I also noticed that there wasn’t as much of an emphasis as I thought there would be on the mental health and lifestyle medicine for our patients and learning more about approaching patient care from a more holistic perspective. so I really set on social media to try to talk about those two things. One of student wellness, but two of, you know, looking at patient care from a more holistic, preventative approach. So that’s kind of where I started and more so the wellness space. But over time, it kind of transitioned more to lifestyle and started sharing more of my journey in medicine and more of myself, my personality and anger, my following. But that, that was the origins of it all.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Wow. Well, that’s very interesting. No, and I appreciate you going far back and kind of explaining the initial impetus for it. you know, I didn’t get the opportunity to come across your content and follow you until you were a little bit branched out from even, like, that initial core wellness era. But, like, that’s really cool, and it’s crazy to think. So, when you went to medical school, like, when you got in and then, like, you did your white coat ceremony and you started, you did not know that any of this would lie ahead for you.

Dr. Noam Raiter: No, I, have no family members in medicine. Like, no one’s a doctor or a nurse or even anything like that. So, I mean, people told me, like, oh, medical school, it’s gonna be harder than you think. And I’m like, okay, like, sure. Like, what does that mean? but I didn’t really know much about really. I guess it’s the culture or the hidden curriculum, however you want to put it. But I think that’s something you either learn from firsthand experience, or, if you’re lucky enough, for people to tell you in advance. That was a huge part of the social media piece as well.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Right.

Dr. Noam Raiter: I felt like if I could talk about my experience now to other, people who don’t have family, members or friends in medicine, to give them a bit of an insight, and irrespective of regretting my decision or not being happy in medical school, just from a perspective of, okay, I see these gaps and these disparities. How can we work towards changing them, but also letting people make informed decisions about what’s in store?

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: I love that. To me, that exactly hits on the heart of, like, a lot of even what I try to do, you know, with the podcast and with rethinking residency and stuff, because this is twofold. You’ve actually described, like, you want to be able to reach people at even the pre med level, because there’s more we could do to kind of educate the next generation younger. Like, hey, is this truly what you want to get into? Like, they don’t talk about this in college or kind of in the pre med, formally as much. Certainly nothing of the hidden curriculum. And not only that, but then there’s also this other level of students who might just be right smack dap in the middle of it. Like, they might be deep into their studies at medical school on clerkship rotations, or they could just be in residency when they get to that point of kind of questioning or disillusionment and being like, is this really the best way for this system to operate? You know, is this the best way for me to learn? Is this the best learning environment? Is this the best even patient care and things like that? So it’s great for those people to have a place to turn and almost like someone to help them walk them through it when they’re in it. Like, yes, part of it is it would be great to reach younger people and say, look at what you’re going to get into. Just seriously, you know, and that way, if you. If you still pick it and when you still pick it, that you are well informed. But then additionally, some people are just trying to get through day by day, and I think we can’t do enough to give them resources to get through it when you’re in the middle of it.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, for sure. And that’s something that’s been really important to me in posting on social media is not just posting, you know, everyday med content that’s maybe only interesting people who are already in medical school or now in residency, but also just posting content that can maybe reach a wider audience as well of, people who, again, are premed or even just, you know, contemplating or honestly just curious at what life in medicine is like. Because as much as, yes, one part of it is people should, you know, be informed of what they get themselves into and what being in medical school and residency is really like. I think also I hope that in the future, we also start attracting more people to medicine, maybe beyond that traditional archetype of people who enter medicine, people who also, you know, want to prioritize their work life balance, want to approach medicine in a way that’s, more holistic or in a way that really prioritizes the patient first. And not to say there aren’t tons of people in medicine who do already do this, but I think the, you know, commonly a cohort, you see, in medical school, it’s pretty, you know, uniform and personality types and things like that. And I think we really benefit from people thinking outside the box. And we saw that in, you know, over recent decades, so many more women are females in medical school and residency, and people from other genders or, other sexualities as well. And that’s improving the field so much. So how much more can we improve it if we also begin to humanize the field and attract lots of different kinds of people into medicine and to be physicians?

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Absolutely. And I agree, you know, there’s a lot of literature we’ll include, you know, of course, in the show notes and everything about how female surgeons have better outcomes for their patients than male surgeons. A lot of this has been popping up in the literature in about the past, past year to year and a half. And so certainly there’s a lot that we can look at that’s even evidence based, but it also makes logical sense, you know, as the patient population is increasingly diverse, our workforce should reflect that as well, and diversity more than just in, you know, female versus male versus non binary providers and things like that.

I would love to hear how your life outside of the box has made you a doctor

This is just really an important question, and I feel like I’m getting right into the meat of this, but I would love to hear how your life outside of the box, like, as a medicine resident and influencer at the same time, has made you a better doctor, because I totally agree with what you’ve said. Like, these out of the box people, like, non typical physician archetypes, I just think that they bring a lot to the field of medicine. Like, I think they offer a lot to their patients and offer a lot to the field and kind of make us all better. And so I’m always a huge proponent of that. And in your case, of course, you do have this, like, incredible perspective that most residents don’t have access to. And how does that change? Yeah. You know, your practice and you as a physician.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there’s so many layers to that. I think first and foremost is just having work life balance, but also having things that I enjoy to do outside of work, having something to put my energy into that isn’t just, you know, academia or clinic, etcetera, is going to make me happier. And we know that when physicians are happier and healthier, they have better outcomes for their patients. We know that burnout makes you impatient with your patients and, makes. Affects your clinical reasoning. So, I mean, I think in that way directly, by just improving my own mental well being. I hope it makes me a better doctor. And I can feel the difference when I’m taking care of myself and I show up to clinic versus when I’m not. But beyond that, being on social media, you’re obviously interacting with so many people, probably more than the human brain is meant to process. And I think with that one, it allows me to gain some of that perspective, to interact with people in my messages and hear perspective people, whether it’s their experiences in the medical field as patients or as doctors, or as people who are in premed. And what are they struggling with? What are they wondering about the medical field? engaging with lots of different people with lots of different opinions. I think always just, you know, opens your eyes in terms of how you can approach medicine in the way that’s best for your patients, but also in terms of how, what changes should we be working towards the medical field? What are people waiting for, looking for, hoping for, et cetera.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: That’s great. That totally makes sense. As you’re even going through all this, I’m kind of thinking of a third prong, which would be your time management skills must be phenomenal to juggle.

Dr. Noam Raiter: They’re working on it. Yeah, I hope so, I hope so. But, time management is definitely huge.

Something I realized as I was applying to medical school was developing sustainable habits

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: And so one of the things that I have liked, like, in your content, you even have alluded to or talked about days, like, let’s say that it’s a weekend day, you know, and it’s a weekend off, whether it’s a golden weekend or not, you know, you have a weekend day, you know that there’s something coming up that you do have to study for, but you just don’t necessarily feel like studying. What are some of your tips and the way to get into the right headspace that you’ve used that have helped you get there and make sure that the environment’s right and promote a studying environment.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah. Something I realized as I was applying to medical school because, I mean, I was doing my undergrad degree and probably already starting to get burned out. I think we all start undergrad or college like bright eyed and bushy tails with so much energy, and by the end of the degree, you’re kind of starting to dwindle. I noticed that and I realized, well, I’m about to go into another degree. And following that degree is residency. And following that, I mean, there’s always learning and work as a physician and work after hours, etcetera. So I realized that I really have to develop sustainable habits or I’m not going to be able to pursue this. Like, if I’m going to treat every exam like I treated those early exams when I was 18 in my first year of undergrad. I wouldn’t be able to, you know, stay up till 03:00 a.m. every single time or two, lock, myself in my room with no distractions and write an essay all day or cram it last minute. So, developing those habits I was entering medical school was really important for me to be able to sustain that work ethic throughout. And that means a few different things. I mean, sometimes, one, not procrastinating, you know, starting to work on things earlier, but two, also not staying up till 03:00 a.m. not beating myself up over, you know, every last point on an exam, and just taking care of myself in the process. So, all of that to say, I think my biggest tip for getting something on the weekends is, one, don’t put it off till last minute, and then you don’t have to spend your entire Saturday studying. If you start a couple weeks earlier and you do a couple hours each day, it can be a lot easier. And you don’t realize how exhausting it is to work, you know, full time hours, if not more, as a resident, and then still have to study. So just pace yourself. but the other part of it is also just making it as enjoyable as you can. So instead of just locking yourself up in your room and, you know, saying, I can’t get out until I’m done writing this, go to a coffee shop, you know, put on an outfit that you like, get it, make a matcha, whatever it is. Put some music on, study with a friend. It sounds cheesy, but, you know, like, romanticizing. The experience of studying make is something that’s enjoyable because you have to do it. If you’re going to spend your free time doing it, you may as well make it something that you can enjoy. And I think some of that is honestly just mentally reframing it in your head rather than I have to study of, oh, I get to, you know, go to a coffee shop and get my favorite matcha and study with my friend, and then after that, I get to take a break and, you know, go to my favorite workout class or something like that. So, yes, it sucks this time, the weekend, but I think a lot of it can also just be about, like, mentally reframing it and convincing yourself you want to do it.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Well, we definitely love reframing techniques on this podcast and talk about it a lot. And so, like, I really appreciate that insight, and honestly, I don’t control, like, who’s the queen of what? But I think that you’re the queen of making that, like, just kind of that mental shift, going to a cafe, making it vibey, making studying on a weekend enjoyable. that’s something that we can all access. Like, you’re talking about, you know, kind of like dress for success. Why not make it a little bit of fun? And then once you’re all dressed up, you know, you feel good, you love the fit, you’re there in the cafe, you have your matcha. the vibes are good at the cafe, then, okay. Like, maybe some magic can happen, and you’ll get through your reading or your Q bank questions, whatever, you know, whatever you’re there to knock out. But I think that that’s great.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, for sure. I think it’s part of me posting on social media for myself, at least selfishly, is it forces me to do that. Like, it forced me to, you know, romanticize my life and make things pretty and aesthetic. And, of course, that’s not what matters at the end of the day, but for me, it’s what I find fun. And now, not everyone listening might want to, you know, be a content creator or care to take photos of their lives, but it can be so easy once you’re in exam mode or you’re in medicine or in any busy profession, to think, well, if I even take, you know, ten minutes to myself to just, like, do my skincare in the morning or put on a little bit of mascara or pick my outfit, like, I’m wasting time and not studying and doing those little things to take care of yourself makes such a big impact. yeah, so love all that stuff. I I’m sure I need to learn more from you as well.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Well, you know, certainly to even piggyback on that, I do think that I’ll use the example of, I guess I was in medical school, like, almost a decade ago now, which I don’t love that for me, but it was a little bit ago, and at the time, you know, selfies were just, like, not that cool. You know, selfies, like, setting up little photo shoots just to have fun, just because you love the fit. Very uncool. I still. I was like, I’m married to the game. I love it. Like, I just, you know, I like to take selfies or, you know, again, like, take care of my skin, have a fun fit, even if it’s a fun studying fit, you know? Because that is one of the ways where truly I expressed myself during medical school. Like, yes, Instagram, you know, was just a fun, like, side type of thing. But to me, it also was a genuine creative outlet. And so even if there is definitely some cheesiness to taking selfies or posting a selfie or being like, yeah, I want to remember this moment. Oh, I want to remember this sunset. If it does bring you joy, you know, don’t feel like, okay, a serious student, a serious physician wouldn’t be taking, you know, these kinds of selfies, photos and things like that.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, totally. I think in general, I mean, medicine aside, in so much of society, there’s so much minimization of hobbies that are traditionally feminine, you know, whether it’s taking photos or doing your makeup or putting on a cute outfit. And that’s not, even looked at as a hobby. I think for a lot of society, it’s kind of slipped on as a waste of time. Rather, if you were doing something like maybe, I don’t know, riding your bike or watching football game, yeah, that would all be totally fine in a way to express your creativity or if it was, you know, more serious forms of creativity, like painting or music or something like that. But why do we take away from, you know, maybe your creativity is, like, making your oatmeal look pretty in the morning and, like, placing your chia seeds nicely on it. So just enjoy those little things and don’t let people tell you it’s a waste of time. If it brings you joy, it’s worth your time.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Yeah. And, like, I will follow your chia seed account. Like, I love food staging. I’m interested. Like, I’m sold. So I would definitely, you know, follow all that. And, yeah, I have a lot of girlfriends where their makeup game is incredible. You know, they’re studying the youtubes. They do it for relaxation, they do it for enjoyment. And, you know, I think that fortunately, people are finally starting to come around and see the true artistry. And I think, like, genius behind a lot of that type of stuff. But agreed, it’s funny because historically, you could be like, well, I’m gonna go, like, fashion a chair out of this, like, lump of wood for 300 hours, and people will be like, wow.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Right?

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Yeah, that’s it. That’s art and nothing else. Nothing the girlies are doing.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah. Yeah. It’s unfortunate, but I do agree. I think there is a change in the conversation. And again, I think that that starts by having different representation within medicine. And I don’t think that’s because there weren’t always women in medicine who love to do these you know, again, more traditionally feminine hobbies. I think they just thought that they couldn’t express that they wanted, that they were actually doing it or that they wanted to do it, or we didn’t really have social media for them to be posting on it. So I don’t think that it’s necessarily even different people in medicine, I think people are just learning that they can embrace their individuality and their own hobbies or interests and still be respected in medicine.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Absolutely.

Well, I’d love to hear about some of the collabs that you’ve done

Well, I’d love to hear about some of, like, the collabs that you’ve done that you’re the most excited about or most proud of. Anything that comes to mind over the years now.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, I mean, I think anything where I’m just, I’m working with any brand who won, you know, I, whether it’s a product like I love and use every day, but more importantly, just finding brands and, companies, organizations that I really align with their values and helping to, you know, working together to spread messages that I agree with. I try to be really intentional with anyone I work with. but it’s, it’s always just a really fun, creative process to bring that to life. I don’t know if I can think of anything specific off the top of my head, but it’s always just, I don’t know, really fun and a really cool part of this journey that I’m so grateful to do.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: That’s awesome. When you sometimes do have a full day at the hospital and then you have an event to go to that night, and you’re changing from scrubs to, I don’t know, event wear, do you ever feel like Lizzie McGuire? And also my second question is, is that too dated of a reference?

Dr. Noam Raiter: No, I love it. I mean, I always say, I guess, kind of similarly that I am embracing, you know, my energy of being like Hannah Montana because growing up, that was like my favorite Disney show, and I thought she was so cool, and I didn’t think that my diabell life would exist in the way that it does now. But, it’s fun. I mean, it’s hectic, but I think I’ve learned to kind of love some of the chaos and, you know, do my makeup in the hospital bathroom or getting changed in my car. But, yeah, I think it’s when you enjoy it and you have fun with the process and you love both of those careers. It makes it so much easier to balance it all.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: I love that. Yeah. No, what? You are like the doctor. Hannah Montana. That’s great.

Dr. Noam Raiter: That’s the goal. The dream.

You chose family medicine after going through residency

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: So to kind of move back quickly to your medical practice and everything like that, can you walk us through some of just your decision making when you chose family medicine and as you were going through residency interviews and, you know, you already were balancing both sides, both aspects of your career, and these parts of your life by then.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah, I mean, there’s a few reasons why I chose family medicine. The first one is that I couldn’t pick what I wanted to do. I really liked a lot of things, and I realized that I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself into anything too soon. And I liked how family medicine gave me the flexibility to, one, do a little bit of everything, you know, in comprehensive family medicine, but also focus and specialize into different things in different parts of my career, whether that might be women’s health or mental health or dermatology or whatever it might be. So having that, flexibility was really nice, and I realized that I’m not someone who feels like they need to know everything about just one thing, and I didn’t need to be like, the be all and end all. I like that I can send a referral if I don’t know the answer and ask questions, ask the specialist. I realized that that sort of medicine, and being more of a generalist, was more up my alley and on kind of a similar scope. I, as I mentioned earlier, in medical school, I really realized how important focusing on medicine from a preventative standpoint was to me, and lifestyle medicine. So that being exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress, relationships, all those things that, really help strengthen our health rather than only dealing with disease, were something that I was really passionate about. And I found the easiest way to do more of that was through family medicine, where you’re doing so much more preventative health and screening and such. but finally, it was also, I just liked that I could have the flexibility to pursue social media on the side to. I mean, residency has been busy, of course, but now, once I’m done to work, however many days a week I want or tailor the days that I have, and not just social media of, you know, just Instagram and TikTok, but whatever that might be in the future and just have the flexibility to pursue those endeavors as well.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: That totally makes sense. And what do you envision? Like, this next era is going to look like kind of the post residency era?

Dr. Noam Raiter: That’s such a good question. I don’t entirely know. I graduated in a month, and it’s, definitely very nice to be able to take a little bit of time off. It’s been a while since I took a break, so I’m probably just going to take a step back for a month or two, travel a little bit, think about what I want those next steps in my career to look like and try to figure that out. But I definitely know that I want to incorporate both patient care, but also endeavors outside of medicine that help me, you know, explore my creativity, whether it’s through my podcast, social media writing, so on, and trying to reach a kind of a bigger audience than just my direct patients with some of these messages, I still can’t figure out exactly how I want to put that into action, but, it’ll be nice to take some time to really brainstorm and be intentional with it.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: That sounds incredible. Well, and again, congratulations on your upcoming graduation, because that’s huge.

You do travel a lot. You’re kind of a pro traveler

You do travel a lot. You’re kind of a pro traveler, and so I’d love if you could kind of leave us with maybe top three favorite countries, locations, anything on your list.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Oh, that’s so hard. Places I’ve already been, you mean?

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Yeah.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Yeah. Okay. One is definitely the Azores island in Portugal. I went, I think, a, little under two years ago. It was so beautiful. I loved it. And food and wine was really cheap, which is a nice plus to a very beautiful city or a beautiful island.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Okay. Love it.

Dr. Noam Raiter: where else? I love Paris. I’ve been a couple times. I need to go back again. I feel like I need to just, like, move there for a few months and really embrace the city. So that’s definitely up there. And I also loved Costa Rica. I was, around Nicoya, ah, when I was there, and did a yoga retreat there last year, and it was just amazing. I need to go back and spend some more time there.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Wow. Well, I love all your picks. I’ve been to, Paris and Costa Rica, and. Yeah, like, I’m. I’m very midwestern, so Paris, like, never gets old. And how long was your yoga retreat?

Dr. Noam Raiter: It was a week. It was so nice. I need to go on another one. Need to rejuvenate.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Okay. Well, again, I I need to be you when I grow up. So, you know, thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It’s always fun to chat with you and hear about your updates in your career. your Hannah Montana double life. That’s what I’m going to call it from now on.

Dr. Noam Raiter: Oh, I’m flattered. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure.

Dr. Frances Mei Hardin: Follow me on Instagram @francesmei.md and rethinking residency, visit my website, rethinkingresidency.com, to learn more about resident physician stories and ways that residents can most effectively navigate the game of residency. I cannot wait to connect with you on the next episode of Promising young Surgeon.