Going into college, Heather Morein French thought that success meant pursuing either business, law, or medicine as those would provide the kind of stability her childhood hadn’t afforded her. An interest in science pushed her toward medicine, but she took a few years after college with lab experiences to make sure. She did find her specialty but not without a few bumps. Find out how friends and family often end up providing the most stability.
Going into college, Heather Morein French thought that success meant pursuing either business, law, or medicine as those would provide the kind of stability her childhood hadn’t afforded her. She had an interest in science and though the classes she experienced were quite challenging, she knew the humanities courses with reading heavy curricula would be even more intimidating, given her dyslexia diagnosis. She made it through with an eye toward a career in medicine, though wasn’t so sure about it at graduation. She took some lab jobs and tutored MCAT prep to make sure it was the path for her. She tied herself to a primary care route to avail herself of a tuition break but realized that it didn’t make sense for the long term and she needed to turn to an external support system.
In this episode, find out from Heather how friends and family often end up providing the most stability...on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Heather Morein French, MD is the Neonatology Fellowship Program Director, Assistant Director of the Neonatal Education Simulation Training Program, and an attending neonatologist with the Division of Neonatology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania. She lives in the greater Philadelphia area with fellow Dartmouth ’96 husband Charley French and their two kids.
For more stories about approaches to pediatric medicine, listen to our episode with Mary Romano, John Peoples, Kristen Calcagni Johnson, and Blair Seidler Hammond.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Heather Morein French: I cognitively just really enjoy the pathophysiology of illness of sick. For me, I'm so grateful that there are people out there that want to do primary care, but that's not the way I am wired, and I really enjoy the fast paced sort of environment of an intensive care unit.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Going into college, Heather Morein French thought that success meant pursuing either business, law, or medicine as those would provide the kind of stability her childhood hadn’t afforded her. An interest in science pushed her toward medicine, but she took a few years after college with lab experiences to make sure. She did find her specialty but not without a few bumps. Find out how friends and family often end up providing the most stability, on today’s Roads Taken, with me Leslie Jennings Rowley
I am here today with Heather Morein French, and we are gonna talk about figuring out how to communicate and teach what we know and what it takes to make it all come together. So Heather, thanks so much for being here.
HMF: Thank you for having me.
LJR: All right, so we are going to start today the way I start all of my conversations asking two questions and they are these: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
HMF: So who was I? I was a very naive, very unworldly ambitious student who had a pretty big chip on her shoulder. I came from a really large public high school in Los Angeles, had always felt that I didn't really deserve to be a Dartmouth academically. But felt I probably filled some quota some way somehow. And was really just blown away when I arrived at Dartmouth not having any idea that there was prep schools and boarding schools and kids whose schools really prepared them well for college. And I was really, really unprepared. And so, I think throughout college I worked really hard to try to catch myself up to my classmates, and so I was really hard on myself. I spent a lot of time trying to learn and really sort of feeling like I deserved to be there. That's sort of where I came from academically. But once I got to college, it was really the first time in my life where I was surrounded by other people who actually cared about school and cared about learning and cared about developing themselves.
Both of my older sisters didn't graduate from high school and probably only 30% of my 4,000 student high school actually went on to college. So it wasn't ever anything that I was surrounded by. So it was really just a unique experience for me to just, everyone I met had goals and dreams, which wasn't something that I was really used to.
I felt really connected to the college right away for just putting me in an environment that was so different than anything I had ever experienced before.
LJR: Yeah. And so did your academic lens, like blossom and you started taking things that you didn't think you would or did you always have an idea that kind of sciences were gonna be your life?
HMF: I think I always enjoyed science, but really didn't have the opportunity to, you know, kind of pursue challenging science classes in high school. So I, you know, found that the science coursework at Dartmouth was really hard for me. I felt like I had to put a lot of work into it, and I think because I was working so hard in something that I knew that I was relatively good at, I was very intimidated by the other side of the humanities arm. I mean, I was not a great writer. Was very intimidated by coursework that had a ton of reading because I do have dyslexia. So I was very intimidated by classes that had a heavy reading load. And so I did, unfortunately, I think I limited myself just because I was fearful of not having enough time or not being able to do the best job that I could.
I had a work study job and between work study and just trying to keep up with my coursework on the sciences side, it just felt like I didn't have room for, you know, courses where I was really learning something new and just constantly had a nose in a book.
LJR: So dyslexia in the late nineties though, was not supported the way that I think it is for students now. So how did you navigate your way through, probably pretty alone in that particularly, although, yes, it would be very hard on the humanities, not a cakewalk in the sciences?
HMF: I was diagnosed in the fourth grade. And, you know, did a lot of extra sort of classes where I got, you know, a lot of special therapy sessions to learn a system that worked for me.
And I was granted, you know, I had like extra time for tests and things like that at Dartmouth. So that did help. You know, in the sciences I didn't really need it. By that time, I had developed a sophisticated enough system that worked well for me, but reading really still continues to be something that is very time consuming for me. And when I was tired, I would certainly make a lot more errors in comprehension. So just making sure that I was getting enough sleep so that I could, between all the coursework and my job, just to be able to continue to do well in my coursework.
LJR: We all could have learned from you in that regard, I think. So as you were taking a lot of these classes, what was your major?
HMF: Actually, I was a biology modified with environmental science.
LJR: And did you have medicine in mind at some point in the college career?
HMF: I think it was always in my mind, I feel like…And, and probably I had an idea that heading into college success meant you were either going into business law or medicine. My childhood was pretty chaotic and lacked a lot of stability, and I think I saw an interest in science overlapping with medicine and thinking that medicine would be something that would offer stability. And so I think I had always sort of gravitated towards it, but really was interested in environmental science, so just wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, and so didn't apply to med school during college, but took a few years to figure out that that was indeed the right thing for me.
LJR: Okay. So how did you do that and what, I think some other things were falling into place personally that felt like this might be the right thing. So how were you navigating all those things as we were leaving?
HMF: So as we were leaving, I took a job in Boston, in a lab at Harvard Medical School. So I was still sort of toying with medicine as well as environmental science. And I got a job working in a lab that was also running a clinical trial using monoclonal antibodies to treat AML and CML, which are two types of leukemia. So it was really nice that I got to do both the basic science component of it, but also interface with patients, enrolling them in a clinical trial. So that was a really nice way to sort of solidify my interest in sort of the foundational science as well as the clinical aspects of medicine. And I think just doing that job sort of convinced me that pursuing medicine was the right thing for me. I did think for a while about environmental consulting, but again, I think my childhood experiences really drove me to wanting true stability. And I think in my mind, I thought that medicine would offer more of a stable future than, you know, environmental consulting or environmental law.
LJR: Yeah. Well, at least the next few years it was stable because you knew that you were gonna continue to be a student and have all those regimented things. So what did your path look like?
HMF: So I lived in Boston for a few years and worked in that lab. I also had to get a second job because the lab, I think I was making like $14,000 a year, [LJR: Oh God.] which barely covered food. I mean, I'm so grateful to my Boston roommates, KC Danzansky and Lauren Currie Uppington, who fed me a lot.But I got a second job working at the Princeton Review teaching the MCAT, which then gave me some money to be able to apply to medical school. But was fortunate enough to get into medical school in California where I got instate tuition. So I went to UC San Diego for medical school, which was great. But I also decided without really any education decided to enroll myself in the primary care loan program, which would pay for medical school as long as you spent at least four to five years in a primary care specialty. There's no physicians in my family and my only exposure to medicine really at the time, short of working in the oncology lab, was like, you know, my, my pediatrician growing up, so I thought that that's sort of what doctors really were. I didn't have a sophisticated understanding of all the different specialties and subspecialties, so went to med school on this scholarship program to avoid taking on debt. But once I was in medical school in San Diego, I was starting to get exposure to lots of different specialties, and by the time I ultimately decided on pediatrics and then once I was in my residency, realizing that primary care pediatrics was not the right thing for me. So fortunately, throughout this entire experience there's been constants in my life. Most importantly is CharleyFrench, who's I met when I was on the first day of freshman year. [LJR: No!] His doorwas directly above me and in New Hampshire Hall. So we met first day and dated on and off for 10 years before finally getting married. But he has been a constant in my life as well as just my, my really close group of Dartmouth girlfriends who have always been exceptionally supportive. But anyone that knows me well would laugh now in retrospect that I ever thought I could do primary care. I'm a sort of very intense and driven person. I like, you know, lots of making lots of fast decisions and so by the time I got into residency and realized that primary care was not for me, I had to pay back that loan in one fell swoop. [LJR: Oof.] Fortunately, Charley and I figured out a way to take out a second mortgage on our house.
LJR: Oh, wow. Actually, can you drill down—I'm not sophisticated enough in medicine—to tell me why someone who's intense, driven and prone to fast decision making would not be a good fit for primary care?
HMF: I think, you know, primary care is office-based. You're doing a lot of preventative health. And so, you know, it's in, particularly in pediatrics, it's sports physicals. It's earaches. Its “I don't feel well.” It's, you know, growing pains. It…there's a lot of behavioral health and I cognitively just really I enjoy the pathophysiology of illness of sick. For me, I'm so grateful that there are people out there that want to do primary care. But that's not the way I am wired, and I really enjoy the fast paced sort of environment of an intensive care unit.
LJR: Okay. And is that then where you started to specialize? In the pediatric part of that?
HMF: Mm-hmm. Neonatology. So I took, I did three years of pediatric residency and then did a three year fellowship in neonatal perinatal medicine. So I only work in a neonatal intensive care unit. I only take care of patients up to the age of one. And it's the kids that are admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit are premature kids or babies who are sick at birth or babies who are born with congenital birth defects. Whether it's any sort of organ system can be involved, but it's to me, cognitively much more interesting than an earache. [LJR: Yeah.] Grateful for the general pediatricians out there in the world that do that. We, we need it. But it's nice that there are personality matches that sort of fill all of these super subspecialties.
LJR: Yeah. Okay. So by the time you figured this out about yourself and what your, where your interests are pulling you, you have a second mortgage on a house, which means you've been with Charley long enough to also be thinking you might not just be two people in a house. So as you're thinking about the, like motherhood and all these things, how can you be looking every day at like these traumatic things, having babies, like I could barely watch Kleenex commercials when I was pregnant. How did this work with you?
HMF: Well, I, I, I will say that my, I was pregnant during my fellowship with my first son and I will say that every week, you know, my unborn child had some different…
LJR: Catastrophic something
HMF:…that I was terrified. Yeah. So, Charley really thought I needed like, behavioral health support because I was so anxious all the time. Cuz it is truly amazing that, you know, born from two cells, that cell division and genetic, you know, rearrangement occurs like perfectly 99.9 percent of the time when there are billions of cell divisions. It really is just mind boggling that the majority, the overwhelming majority of babies come out normal. [LJR: Yeah.] So, yeah, it was it was hard being pregnant as a, as a neonatologist, that's for sure.
LJR: Yeah. But it probably would've been hard in any specialty doing all those things, being intense in that way. So how many kids did you end up having and where in your career did that happen? I had my first son when I was a second year fellow, so second out of three years. And then my second son, when I was a first year faculty member.
LJR: That's intense.
HMF: Yeah, it was, it was busy. And you know, I have to say, you know, there are just innumerable ways that I'm grateful to Charley, but one of the, you know, most important ones is that he was such a supportive and willing partner and parent, and he really did, particularly for our first son, because I was still in training. I mean, he raised him on his own really. I was working all the time and when I wasn't working, I was just so tired that I felt pretty absent. And, you know, he never complained. He never, you know, was, felt like, never expressed frustration with me. Just always was supportive and, you know, what else do you need? How can I help you? And I'm, you know, grateful that he had this job that allowed him a lot of life flexibility so that he could be that present parent when I wasn't able to be so.
LJR: Yeah. So important. So as your medical career kind of continued and you were doing the clinical, it sounds like you were also in a teaching hospital setting, how did things morph for you and what now in the next chapter are you looking at?
HMF: So I am, I work at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which is the Children's hospital for the University of Pennsylvania. So I'm on faculty at Penn. You know, in academic medicine you have to have sort of your academic niche, what you, you know, are going to study and contribute to the community at large. And I came out of fellowship having spent three years in a basic science lab doing basically neuroscience research, but knew that that wasn't really the right thing for me long term. I really wanted to get back to my environmental science interests. So spent some time actually doing research in looking at perinatal epidemiology, so maternal environmental exposures in the outcome on the baby. And that was really interesting, but I just needed more schoolwork to be able to do that well and to be able to do research independently. And I think Charley wasn't—and I myself, too—we just weren't really up for me going back to school at that point in time. Because I would've had to also have my full-time job while going back to school. And with two little kids, it just felt like it was not possible. So while I was kind of figuring out what I wanted to do next in terms of my academic interests, I got pulled into a lot of different educational projects within our NICU and was really enjoying that. So ultimately, I went back to school, but I was able to do it part-time. I went back and got a master's in education and focusing on adult education and streamlining the ways in which we create curricula for the adult learner. And that has been…I graduated from that program in 2016 and since that time I have my academic interest and my academic research has solely focused on optimizing education for the adult learner, for the busy adult that is, you know, juggling, you know, their personal life and their professional life. And so that's been incredibly fulfilling and I've really enjoyed that.
LJR: And has that dovetailed into medical education like?
HMF: Yeah. So I'm focused on how to optimize medical education for people who are pursuing, you know, fellowship training residency training, and even once we're attendings. How do we create programs that work for the busy working adult? So it's all medical almost all neonatology focused, but it's been a really, really fun line of research. I've got a great research team, a lot of collaborators at programs across the country and have really built a nice space for myself in the world of neonatal education. So that's been, and along which, you know, is nice and in alignment with my clinical work. So it's been really a fun way to sort of see my career evolve over time.
LJR: Yeah. From that early MCAT tutoring, right? It feels like a little bit of like teaching.
HMF: And teaching was never something I ever thought I was good at. I don't think anyone would've described me as patient when I was younger. Maybe having kids really taught me and my patients, too. I mean, neonatal medicine, it moves in baby steps and some of those baby steps are really small. So I think my patients and my own family has taught me that skill over time.
LJR: Yeah. So you keep saying there are a lot of things that your younger friends would say, this isn't for me, or this or that. So what about reflecting on your younger self: If you were to go back to, let's say 21 year old Heather, back in the day…she knew med school wasn't right away, but maybe around the corner, and you said, let me lay it all out. This is what's happened personally, professionally, what do you think her response would be today?
HMF: I think…I do a lot of mentoring and if I had had the opportunity to mentor my younger self, I think the very first thing I would've said to my younger self is grace. Allow yourself space to try things and be wrong and make a mistake. I think one of the biggest challenges that I feel like we've, we face in these, you know, academic circles and you know, when we're kind of high achieving people is you never hear about people's failures. And I think every single success anyone has stands on the shoulders of like five to 10 failures. But we never talk about that. And I think particularly for younger people and my younger self, you know, when you all you hear about is success. We're so hard on ourselves and I think I couldn't…I was really hard on myself, and I think as a result of being hard on myself, it was probably pretty hard on other people, too.
LJR: We could all be kinder to ourselves, I think.
So you had this vision that medicine would provide stability and was it the medicine that provided stability or was it, I think Charley had a, a big part in that…but would you say to people now, considering medicine, that it's across the board stable. Like how, what's your perception of stability in that world now that you've reflected on it?
HMF: For me, you know, I mean stability, when I was first thinking about stability really was financial, cuz that was not something I ever experienced growing up. So financial stability and just my parents jumped around from job to job to job. So it was also job stability. So, Those two things I think, you know, is what I early on envisioned the stability would be. But now looking back, yes, I definitely have financial and job stability, but I also have a job that I, from a stability standpoint, like I don't wanna do anything else because every day I am challenged by what I do every day. I make connections every day. I feel like I do meaningful work every day. I feel like I help families, you know, in a variety of ways. And so, the stability is also sort of, you know, this idea of cognitive stability, that I am not bored by what I'm doing and I don't feel like I don't get antsy or feel the need to sort of jump, you know, jobs or companies. So I think, you know, that's sort of how I would describe it now.
LJR: Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot.
Well, Heather, it sounds as though. You kind of bucked expectations along the way and then you recalibrated and did all the things and have really put yourself on a path with your family. That sounds like just the right one for you for right now, and it sounds like who knows what the next chapter will be, but for, for now, we're really pleased that you could share this with us. So thanks so much for being with us.
HMF: Yeah, I think my path has been pretty straightforward. It's not, you know, I haven't had a lot of deviations along the way, but, you know, it's funny when someone says, if you could go back and do it all over again, I would. I really love the job that I have. I love the family that, and the life that Charley and I have created. I love the community that I'm in. So it's pretty sort of boring and I really don't think I would do anything differently. You know, I really feel so grateful to Dartmouth for taking a chance on me and creating all of this opportunity that I feel like I never would, you know, I see my sisters don't have, and that I feel like I never would've had without Dartmouth just taking a risk on this kid from L.A.
LJR: Well you took some risks too. So I think you were, you had equal, equal say in your success. So thanks again for being part of this.
HMF: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
That was Heather Mara French, the neonatology Fellowship program director, assistant director of the Neonatal Education Simulation Training Program, and an attending neonatologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She's also professor of pediatrics at the Pearlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in the Greater Philadelphia area with fellow Dartmouth ‘96 husband, Charley French, and their two kids.
While our guests tend to be similarly all in the family, we're delighted that we have amassed a group of listeners from a wide variety of backgrounds, many with only tenuous relationships to anyone featured here. I think that speaks to the universality of many of the themes uncovered on our show and the quality of conversations that we have. As such, I think there's something for everyone on our show. So we would be delighted if you spread the word to any and all, telling them to find us wherever they find their podcasts or at roadstakenshow.com.
Ratings and reviews apparently help spread the word too. So thanks for all you do, and we'll catch you next time with my guests and me, Leslie Jennings Rowley on Roads Taken.