The Perfect Equation for Loving Medicine with Dr. Carmen Mendez

Carmen Mendez, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the Internal Medicine Program Director at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr Mendez completed her medical school from the University of California Davis School of Medicine and her residency  from Harbor - UCLA Medical Center, where she stayed on as chief resident before joining general internal medicine faculty. Dr. Mendez is committed to resident education and serving underserved communities. Find the thing you love—really love—and go do it. Dr. Carmen Mendez’s advice is simple: We have to love what we do at work just as much as what we love outside of medicine, in our personal lives. It’s a long career, as she says, and doing the thing that really ignites us is what makes it all worth it. She advises us to get off the “hamster wheel of success,” and think about what is truly motivating us to show up at work each day. She shares stories of an upbringing filled with love, compassion, and humor, and how she developed her purpose. Dr. Mendez urges us to move toward the thing we want to do the most. Because nothing is really stopping us. Pearls of Wisdom: 1. We have to love what we do just as much as we love what we have at home in our personal lives. Find what you really love—and go after it. There’s nothing you can’t achieve. 2. Develop the perspective that our privilege as physicians gives us a greater opportunity to be an advocate for those who need it most. 3. All of us are running on a hamster wheel of success in some way. But when we put too much pressure on ourselves, it takes away from the reason we entered medicine in the first place. Think critically about what’s driving you, and know how to get off the wheel. 4. The most important thing we can do for patients is to sit down with them, and show them we’re not in a rush. And when it comes to staring at the computer—there’s nothing on a computer screen that is going to shed light on the conversation at hand.