S2E7 Ilona Goldfarb - Reinventing the Wheel in COVID Crisis

How does someone become one of the top high-risk OBGYN’s in the world, and should pregnant women get the COVID vaccine anyway?

Join Laura Gassner Otting as she hosts this episode of LGOtv with special guest, Ilona Goldfarb - Doctor, Teacher, Optimist.

Timestamps:
2:35​ - Fan Goggles
3:20​ - What was it like to be a doctor on the front-line in February and March of 2020?
4:00​ - Are you the type of person who runs towards or away from a disaster?
7:55​ - "We made sure that everything we did was also an opportunity to learn."
8:47​ - "People aren't going to just invite you. You have to offer what you have, to make sure that the work that you do is meaningful outside of your little bubble."
14:25​ - "Historically, reproductive-age women were left out [of clinical studies]."
19:24​ - There's not time and energy to onboard lots of new and complex information.
24:20​ - "We need to be very transparent about what we don't know so that we don't accidentally coerce patients by promising them that everything is going to be okay."
30:37​ - "Everyone was reinventing the wheel."
33:14​ - "I have always been an optimist."
42:05​ - "I was enamored. I just remember standing there in awe of what they had done...putting the patient back together again."
43:57​ - At what point in the process were you like, "I like OBGYN but I want to do the hardest possible OBGYN?"
55:22​ - "I knew that nothing good would come from forcing myself to move when I really didn't feel the pull."

Links:
https://twitter.com/GoldfarbIlona​
https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/1...

Ilona Goldfarb, MD, MPH, is a board-certified maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She completed medical school and residency in California and a fellowship at MGH. Her areas of interest and expertise include public health, perinatal infectious diseases, and quality improvement in obstetrical care. She spends the majority of her time providing direct prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care to women with high-risk maternal or fetal conditions. In this capacity, she provides consultation on high-risk pregnancy patients across New England.