THE ICU DOC WITH A CONCIERGE SELF-CARE SIDE HUSTLE Episode #61 – Dr. Vedica Sharma

00:24 – Introduction and Welcome Cynthia welcomes Dr. Vedica Sharma to discuss her journey as a doctor, business owner, and the many things not taught in medical school that she had to learn on her own.

01:22 – The Myth of Knowing Everything Dr. Sharma discusses the misconception that doctors know everything after medical school, explaining that learning continues for 10-15 years through residency and fellowship.

02:36 – What is an Intensivist? Dr. Sharma explains that she’s an ICU physician who sees patients and their families on their worst days, taking care of the sickest patients in any hospital.

03:12 – ICU: The Sickest Patients Every case is different and complex. No patient encounter is ever the same, which is what makes ICU medicine both challenging and fulfilling.

04:06 – Skills and Hobbies Lost Dr. Sharma reflects on being more well-rounded when younger, having played instruments and participated in track, skills she no longer has time for due to her medical focus.

04:46 – Two Kids Under Five She shares that she has two children under five, with her oldest turning five on Friday and her youngest being seven months old.

06:36 – The 15-Year-Old Who Wanted to Be a Doctor At 15-16 years old, Dr. Sharma knew she wanted to be a physician after enjoying math and science and shadowing family friends who were doctors.

08:12 – Shadowing Physicians She discusses how she never hesitated to ask for help or shadow physicians, seeing their genuine desire to help people, which inspired her career choice.

09:46 – Honesty About Not Knowing Dr. Sharma emphasizes her approach of being honest with patients and families when she doesn’t know something, then working to figure it out rather than pretending to have all the answers.

12:13 – Never Stop Learning She explains that even after becoming an attending physician, you realize you’re always going to be a lifelong learner in medicine.

12:38 – Why Choose ICU Medicine? Initially wanting to be a surgeon, Dr. Sharma chose ICU after a rotation where a patient’s gratitude and recovery deeply moved her, showing the fulfillment of turning critically ill patients around.

14:08 – Crazy Cases Like House Comparing her work to medical TV shows, Dr. Sharma confirms she sees out-of-this-world cases, though she references “The Pit” as being closer to her real-life experience.

15:14 – Recent Patient Stories She shares a story about a young patient with severe pancreatitis on life support who recovered, emphasizing the fulfillment of seeing patients survive and thank her.

17:04 – The Heavy Weight of ICU Work Dr. Sharma acknowledges that difficult cases and patient deaths stay with her, carrying emotional weight that never fully goes away.

17:50 – Coping with Trauma She explains that leaving work and coming home to her young children helps her cope with the heavy things she sees in the ICU.

18:35 – How Kids Help Her Cope Her children’s pure joy and love help her overcome the difficult cases she encounters, providing necessary emotional balance.

19:00 – COVID Timeline: Baby and Pandemic Cynthia realizes Dr. Sharma had her first child just as COVID-19 was beginning, making an already challenging situation exponentially harder.

19:42 – Training During COVID-19 Dr. Sharma had her oldest six weeks into ICU fellowship training, right as COVID was ramping up, learning to treat patients in real-time as protocols were being developed.

21:04 – Families Couldn’t Say Goodbye One of the most heartbreaking aspects of COVID was families unable to say goodbye to dying loved ones, with iPad attempts sometimes failing before patients passed away.

22:51 – People Need Human Interaction COVID case surges after every major holiday proved that people fundamentally need human interaction, even when knowing the risks.

23:00 – Changing Clothes in the Garage Dr. Sharma would change clothes at work and immediately shower upon arriving home, not knowing if it was safe to hold her newborn daughter.

24:06 – Six Weeks Without Holding Her Baby For 6-8 weeks as a new mom, she didn’t know if she could safely hold her daughter Pelomi, creating devastating emotional challenges.

25:02 – Getting Through the Pandemic Hope that humanity would get through the pandemic kept her going, though the middle period with so much death challenged even her positive outlook.

25:46 – The Support System Her training program at Mercy provided strong support, with attendings and fellows supporting each other through the unprecedented challenges.

26:57 – Everyone Grieves Differently Some colleagues needed to talk about their experiences at home, while Dr. Sharma needed to compartmentalize and spend time with family before returning to work.

27:18 – What People Don’t Know About ICU The general public may not realize that ICU physicians support not just patients but entire families, ensuring they understand everything happening.

28:10 – Supporting Families, Not Just Patients ICU doctors must be multifaceted, providing honest expectations about recovery possibilities and supporting families through impossible decisions.

29:00 – Interest vs. Bring Them In, Bring Them Out Patients and families can feel the difference between a doctor who genuinely cares versus one just going through the motions.

29:32 – Can’t Deal with Sick Kids Despite being a physician and mother, Dr. Sharma only treats adults because she can’t emotionally handle sick children, even texting her daughter’s pediatrician for fever advice.

30:04 – Physicians Are the Worst Patients Doctors are universally terrible patients, getting recommendations at annual physicals but rarely following their own advice.

31:22 – Why Doctors Don’t Follow Their Own Advice A cardiologist patient once asked if the doctor followed his own weight loss advice, highlighting the difficulty of doing for yourself what you do professionally all day.

32:18 – The Birth of Vivia Concierge Near the end of COVID, Dr. Sharma noticed all patients asked for one thing: more time. This became the foundation for Vivia Concierge, co-founded with Dr. Catherine Moretz.

33:52 – People Wanted More Time Every single individual values their time, regardless of who they are, which became the core insight driving the business.

34:18 – Meeting Through Their Husbands Dr. Sharma and Dr. Catherine Moretz met through their husbands who were radiology partners, forming a friendship that led to their business partnership.

34:22 – What Services Does Vivia Offer? Vivia Concierge offers 56 services including facials, massages, manicures, pedicures, personal training, house management, cleaning, car detailing, and medical aesthetics in homes and businesses.

35:44 – Starting with No Business Plan With no business experience, degree, or plan, they naively started the company and built it from the ground up as the first of its kind in the Midwest.

37:23 – Errands and House Management House managers handle all errands while clients are at work—returns, grocery shopping, organization, and anything else needed.

38:36 – Building on Customer Service The company was built on customer service and loyalty, with someone from the company following up after every first-time service to ensure satisfaction.

39:03 – No Business Degree Required Neither founder has a business degree or MBA, learning to run a business in real time through trial, error, and customer feedback.

39:41 – We Need Help All the Time Dr. Sharma emphasizes they couldn’t have started without family support and have no problem admitting they need help constantly.

39:56 – Why Women Won’t Ask for Help Women have a much harder time than men admitting they need help, with societal expectations that stay-at-home moms should handle everything perfectly.

41:13 – Staying Home Is Harder Than Working Dr. Sharma believes being a stay-at-home mom is harder than going to work because you’re pulled in so many directions with always something to do.

42:11 – The Modern Mom The company was initially created for modern moms who couldn’t leave home with multiple kids, offering services from 7am-10pm, often after kids were in bed.

43:29 – This Sounds Amazing Cynthia acknowledges the business sounds like a unicorn, questioning how they built it without the inevitable obstacles and learning curves.

43:51 – Learning Through Trial and Error Dr. Sharma admits they did things that didn’t work, learned from mistakes, and used that real-time learning as more valuable than an MBA.

44:31 – Actively Seeking Feedback They actively sought feedback since people, especially women, often won’t give criticism for fear of hurting feelings, using it all as constructive input.

45:18 – Following Up After Every Service To this day, someone from the company calls after every first-time service to ensure expectations were met and identify any needed customizations.

45:59 – Services at Work Vivia performs services at corporate offices, including manicures and pedicures while clients are in Zoom meetings, allowing them to multitask.

46:38 – Massage During Lunch Hour Clients on lunch breaks get massages at work before returning to their day, and house managers come during work hours to handle errands.

47:00 – Nobody Else Does This Some companies offer focused services like medical aesthetics only, but nothing like Vivia’s comprehensive offerings exists elsewhere.

48:57 – Allowing Joy Through the Company The company allows Dr. Sharma to express joy outside of ICU medicine, giving people what they can’t otherwise have.

49:14 – Women Hesitant to Spend on Themselves Women may feel guilty spending time or money on themselves, even for cleaning, feeling they “should” be doing it themselves.

49:46 – Angel Stories A client who joined for her family’s haircuts gradually added services for herself, calling Vivia one of the best blessings in her life.

51:51 – The Smallest Things Matter Most Real-time client feedback shows the smallest things—like detailed cars or a manicure—make the biggest difference in people’s lives.

52:53 – Lessons Learned The biggest lesson: your customer base provides real-time feedback that can shape your business if you’re open to hearing it.

54:47 – Two Days for a Callback Dr. Sharma shares frustration with AI-run customer service where it takes 2-3 days to reach a real person, contrasting with Vivia’s personal approach.

55:33 – Maintaining Culture as You Grow They maintain culture through extremely careful vetting of anyone they hire, with both founders actively involved in recruitment and interviews.

56:33 – Honesty Is Lost Honesty is lost in modern business, with people getting defensive about mistakes rather than owning them and offering solutions.

57:30 – Fear of Failure As physicians taught never to fail, they had to overcome that fear, realizing failure isn’t bad if you learn from it.

58:55 – Failure Is Not a Bad Thing If you take failure negatively instead of as a learning opportunity, growth becomes difficult; they failed, adjusted, and continued growing.

59:36 – Dysfunction Is My Function Dr. Sharma jokes that dysfunction is her function, describing how she and Katie manage their chaotic lives balancing medicine, business, and family.

01:00:11 – Day to Day with Kids With young children, it’s day-to-day, sometimes hour-by-hour, making sure everyone’s alive and roughly where they should be.

01:01:02 – What Drives You? Dr. Sharma and Katie never compared themselves to others, simply doing things that make them happy rather than chasing external validation.

01:01:40 – My Story’s Still Being Written She believes there’s more to come in her story, which is still being written.

01:02:21 – Hitting Your Stride in Your 40s and 50s Many successful people don’t hit their stride until their 40s or 50s when they truly understand themselves and what brings joy.

01:03:06 – The Only Person Limiting You Is You The only person limiting you is yourself; there should be no limit to anyone’s success if you push out of your comfort zone.

01:03:09 – Choices Are in Your Control The choice to stay in an unsatisfying job or make a change is yours; stop complaining and follow through on your choice.

01:04:07 – Mentoring a Young Woman Cynthia shares mentoring a young woman who realized that if a new job doesn’t work, she can always pivot again, especially early in her career.

01:04:32 – Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet There will be jobs and careers in 3-5 years that aren’t even imaginable now, so taking risks and moving around is essential.

01:05:19 – Just Do It If you think about something too long, you just keep thinking—instead, act on it and see what happens.

01:05:29 – Action Begets Action Taking action doesn’t have to be grandiose; just take a step, because action begets action.

01:06:04 – Holding On Limits What Could Come Holding on to rigid plans for 3-5 years out limits what could come to you that might be even better.

01:06:16 – What’s Next? The company will continue growing, but Dr. Sharma will keep practicing ICU medicine because it fundamentally makes her who she is.

01:07:12 – ICU Makes Me Who I Am She can’t foresee ever stopping medicine because taking care of super sick patients and getting them to recovery is fulfilling and defines her identity.

01:08:19 – Final Advice Her hope is that people understand the littlest things in life make the biggest difference, and you don’t know what tomorrow holds.

01:08:45 – The Littlest Things Make the Biggest Difference Life isn’t complicated; everyone has some aspect that brings gratitude—cherish it and be happy, and it’ll all work out.

01:09:35 – Chase Happiness We complicate our lives chasing the next milestone; instead, we should all just chase happiness, whatever that means for each person.

01:10:39 – Looking at Life Differently Happiness is often already there; you don’t even have to find it, just look at it differently.

01:11:08 – Where to Find Vivia Concierge Website: www.viviaconcierge.com – Currently on a waitlist with new slots opening in November for Lux Family and Premier memberships.

01:12:04 – Thank You for Coming Cynthia thanks Dr. Sharma for sharing her incredible story, heart, and spirit across such a significant time period and so many accomplishments.

Total Runtime: 1:12:30