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Welcome to the Fire Inside Her podcast, a safe space for leadership, self care, and community. I'm your host, Diane Schroeder, and it is my privilege to be your guide on the journey to authenticity. I have always respected the profession of being a doctor. From a young age, I have always looked up to doctors as being true helpers in society and really smart people that can solve problems. I didn't know any doctors personally except for my childhood pediatrician that my mom actually taught in high school, and he was always very kind to me. One of my favorite stories was when he taught me all about football. I, for a brief time, wanted to be a trainer, and I would stand on the sidelines with doctor Archer, and he explained to me the game of football when I was in high school. Other than that, my experience and interaction with physicians was primarily at work when I was a paramedic and I would drop a patient off at the ER.

Or before that, I worked for 19 cardiologists who were very busy, and it was a pretty intense work environment. When I met doctor Colleen Foster, it was very casual, and the first time we met was actually at a coffee shop. When I met her, I was surprised that she was an emergency room physician, mostly because she was so normal and easy to talk to. When I made the list of guests that I wanted to interview for my podcast, she was in the top list because I have gained so much from working with her. She is so brilliant and so full of wisdom and insight and hilarious. Not only is she an emergency room physician, she is also the medical director for the fire organization that I work for. We have, over the last few years, worked very closely together to create a really incredible emergency services program with our organization for our community. Colleen is a very busy woman.

Not only is she an emergency room physician and a medical director, she also helps her husband run a small business and is the mother to two young boys. Colleen grew up in Northern Indiana and attended college at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in biomedical science. She then attended med school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, graduating AOA with an emphasis in medical care for the underserved. She completed residency training at Denver Health in Emergency Medicine. And since completing her training, she has worked in emergency departments in the Denver Metro and Boulder area. She's held several roles in operations and hospital administration and then started her work in EMS and prehospital medicine. She currently serves as the medical director for Lewisville Fire, an associate medical director for North Metro Fire, and a physician advisor for the Lewisville Police Department and West Metro SWAT team.

In addition to her professional activities, she is a mom to two small boys, the wife to an entrepreneur, and an aspiring regenerative farmer. We go all over the place in this conversation. The highlights for me was talking about self care and how industrious humans and women like ourselves really have to schedule in time for self care. Another highlight was talking about her residency experience and how the invisible work, when we as women think of invisible work mostly around the house, how she really noticed it in her experience going to med school and her residency program. So without further ado, I introduce you to doctor Colleen Foster. Hello, Colleen. How are you?

Hello. I'm good. Good. Coming back from a long trip, but getting settled.

Well, I am so grateful that you are here. And I think the icebreaker question that I wanna ask you is, how do you define and how do you practice self care?

You know, it's a good question because I think most of us really, really suck at it. Right? So I think, especially when you come into a group of really industrious people and really challenging environments, that's actually part of the curriculum that's kind of most ignored through all of our schooling and all of our training and all of those sorts of things. And, I don't think you realize you need self care until you really need self care has been my personal experience. So I think it kinda took me being a rock bottom between, two kids under two and some crises at work and several, you know, construction projects before I was like, oh, wow. You know, I'm sorta not okay, and it takes a long time to kinda get to the bottom of the bottle if you're a fairly resilient person. So I think I kinda crashed and burned into self care after kind of relying on my own resilience for a long time. But I do think that it's, it's hard to define. Right? It's it's sort of like getting back to the point where I think your bucket isn't empty, whatever that is for for people, whether it's journaling and finding the words or meditating and finding the present or physical activity and finding personal health.

I think that's different for different people, but I think you know when you found it because you have more in your bucket left.

Well, and I thank you. In the intro, I mentioned that you're kind of a badass and a big deal and an ER doctor, doctor in general, and also a medical director. So in your spare time, when you're not raising two young boys and helping out, you know, your husband, you guys also run a small business, although I'm not quite sure how small it is anymore, and managing your crazy schedule, like, what does that look like for you specifically? You know you need it. You know you don't want your bucket to run out. So how do you stay ahead of crashing and burning?

Yeah. You know, I think some of it is just realistic expectations. Right? And I think most of us super industrious people start out with a list at the beginning of the day that I mean, you know, you're never gonna touch any of that stuff. Right? And then all of a sudden, you're just disappointed when you haven't checked it off at the end. So I think part of it is setting some realistic expectations and then being diligent about routine. Right? You know, there is some freedom and discipline to rip off phrases from some other, some other leadership speakers. But, you know, I think get up every morning, and I exercise, and I shower before the rest of my family is awake. And, you know, that's something that's good for me.

Right? I'm a morning person, and that's where that fits into my routine, and that works well. I have tried taking up some of more of my own hobbies, I think, in the last several years, adjusting my work schedule so that it really isn't kinda burning the candle to both ends to where there's nothing left and there's no flex left in the day, and there's no time for things that come up that do bring you kinda spontaneous joy. I think I've definitely been guilty of that in, in my life in the past, you know, just just really shaving it down to the muscle of the bone until there's really nothing left or things that may come up or things that may may bring you happiness kind of throughout the day. But I dedicate time to it too. You know, I put my climbing days on my calendar. I really don't change that unless the sky is really falling or something's happening with my family. All of us have those priorities that obviously are kinda unshakable. And if something happens, you gotta drop everything and go.

But my schedule around some of those things are kind of instrumental in keeping me happy and keeping me connected too. I think it's very easy to lose touch of adult friendships after you have children. And I think that that is super, super important both on a professional level and on a personal level to maintain your mental health and sense of connection with people.

I agree with that. I know that as I've been interviewing more people, I've realized that for, like, fifteen years, I didn't make any new friendships. I didn't make adult relationships like friendships because I was in the thick of life. And I realized looking back that was very detrimental to my self care and my mental health because I just didn't have that. And then when I got to a space like, oh, I need more connection and adult relationships, it's this awkward, like, I don't know how to make friends. I'm almost 40 years old. How do you get back in that world and have those conversations to connect with people?

Yeah. And a lot of things are, like, virtual too. Right? You know? So there's less kinda spontaneous gathering around the waterhole and, you know, there's more just sort of efficiency to the way that we do business, and it gets less and less personal. And you're right. I mean, it gets hard to it gets hard to make friends and even just kind of in spontaneous social situations, I'll find myself at activities with my kids. I'll find that, you know, the group of parents is just not somebody that I have a lot in common with or that I have a lot to say to, and and that's not my village. Right? And so I think it gets harder and harder to find your village outside of your workspace as you get older.

Mhmm. I agree with that. Now I don't know the statistics on physicians, ER physicians specifically. I'm assuming it's a male dominated profession currently, although I understand that more and more women are going to med school and the numbers are trending to where there's, you know, maybe a more balanced, if not more women going into med school than males. How has that influenced how you connect and how you lead? And I say that to preface this with, when I first became a firefighter, very male dominated, I was very focused on trying to fit in and not necessarily kinda being who I was because I just didn't, you know, it was just another thing I didn't want to have to deal with and I wanted them to like me. And it wasn't till later on in my career where I'm like, oh, I might as well just be myself because whether or not they like me really has nothing to do with me specifically. So just trying to be that authentic self, What has your experience been with that?

Yeah. You know, medicine is an interesting place because you're right. When I started my education and training, more of medicine was dominated by men, particularly emergency medicine, more that was male dominated. And now it is pretty equal, maybe even a little bit more female heavy. Don't quote me on that. But I know that it has become a fairly even break. But it's interesting when you look a little deeper at that. I had more women than men in my residency class, which I am supremely grateful for because those fellow badasses are still my village.

But all three of the men in my class had children in residency. And one of my female colleagues had, a child in residency. And I look back and think to myself, there is I have no idea how she managed that because it is a extremely mentally and physically challenging time. People have a perception about residency training and medical school and all the things that educational steps you go into becoming a doctor as this, like, kind of self sacrificing time. And I actually think of it as quite the opposite, and I think it's a really selfish time. And it's a time when I eat when I can and I sleep when I can, and I have to do these things in this time period, and there's not a lot of flexibility or give or, you know, not a lot of capacity to deal with need from the rest of my environment. Right? You know? Like, if my car would break down, my capacity to deal with that would be essentially nothing. Right.

So I think when you when you look at the division of people who are going into medicine, yeah, it is more equally split. But if you look at the the burden that we have the privilege, the honor to carry and part of a family as being a mother, right, being pregnant, giving birth, those kinds of things, I think that there's actually still quite a bit of disparity and discrepancy if you were to look deeper into that. And, certainly, you know, when you think about the division of tasks in a household and what's, you know, more typical or expected sort of roles within a family. I certainly bet you would find that female physicians, unlike the other female professionals, are still doing a lot of that sort of unpaid household burden or those sorts of things. And they're my male colleagues and are more expected to be a sort of a more active role in raising children than their male colleagues. It is becoming a little bit more equally divided, but I'm not sure it's more equitable, if that makes sense.

Absolutely. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and they described it as invisible work, which is even more profound, I think, a lot of times than even the unpaid work because I struggle with the same thing of, you know, I take it upon myself to do all these extra things because of the conditioning or the who knows what's put into us at a young age watching my mom or whatever that I can just take care of all that. I can take care of all that. I don't need to ask for help. I got this. And it's the time that it takes to do it. It's when I heard that invisible work, like, even filling out parent forms or registering for sports or you know? And that's not even to take away from having a great partner. And for a long time, I didn't.

I was a single mom. But just, you know, it's still a lot of work. And so I agree with you that disparity is still there. And I don't know if we're becoming more aware of it now or if COVID kind of changed that outlook. What do you think about did COVID change kind of the way you guys divide labor up in your household?

You know, I I guess I have the pretty significant privilege of having a partner that's just very equally invested in our family. I think that when I compare my situation to a lot of people's situations, I I feel really, really lucky. We do very much equal parenting. I think the interesting thing is the more sort of traditional working dad role takes a very much less than 50% of the act of parenting. There's no blame or nor this is better or this is worse. I very much grew up in a traditional household where my mom did the parenting and my dad did the working, and that was just the division of labor. And I don't think that that's the reality of a lot of families. I do feel really privileged to be married to my husband, and he's awesome.

He's a great dad and very, very involved, with the kids and more, in charge of keeping our family online with a normal schedule than I am because my work schedule is is a little bit more random. As far as COVID in general, you know, I think, well, again, I had the, the extreme pleasure of going through COVID as both a small business owner and a frontline health care worker. So I think I spent most of the time being concerned that I was gonna die and, that we were gonna lose our business.

That's fair.

So, you know, there were all of the stages of grief there. And at the end of the day, I'm not sure it really changed our family kind of predefined gender roles. Although I did find myself being a kindergarten teacher, which was entertaining. But it was, I mean, certainly impactful evolutionary for our family. I think at the end of the day, it all kinda shook out pretty similar to where we were on the, on the other side of it.

Well, that's probably because you guys are solid to start with. You know, that it was equal invest or equitable investment, and both of you were on the same page, and that helped navigate a pretty bumpy time. I do know one of the things that you did during COVID that kept your sanity was your incredible garden. How did that help? How did going out and getting in the dirt help you with your mental health during COVID?

Yeah. I think that we all sought out grounding in some way. And, you know, especially at the start, there was a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty and a lot of mixed messages. And I think at that point, anything that was solid and tangible and manual work and, you know, connecting with the the outside was was really, really healthy for me because it was just anything about not thinking about where we were not getting PPE from or, you know, what am I gonna do if I get sick, if my kids get sick? I can't get my kids into an educational pod. All of these things. You know? And so it was just very grounding, I mean, to be totally literal. Right? Literally. Moving dirt.

But, yeah, it was, it was definitely a a grounding presence filled activity where I got to create something that was beautiful and spend a lot of time on it, that I wouldn't have otherwise had had I not, you know, been missing all of the other sort of social things that usually fill your day. So that was definitely a big part of how I spent my time and my energy during that time.

Thank you for sharing that. And just as a side note, I get to reap some of the benefits of that delicious garden. Either it's salsa or fresh strawberries or, you know, when you come into work and they're always delicious. The other thing aside from the garden were your animals. So you guys, on top of everything else, have a hobby farm or, you know, farm to table. And when COVID hit, it shut down a lot of the manufacturing or processing facilities for your animals so that I don't know what the right word is. So they could become dinner. And that was another experience for you and your husband on top of everything else.

You also got to slaughter pigs or sheep. Your goats. No. Your goats. Right?

Yeah. Sheep and pigs. And that was a that was an adventure. So, yes, we do have a hobby farm. We raise sheep and chickens and pigs and turkeys. And during COVID, amongst the many things that sort of fell apart was the meat processing ability because the large meat processing plants were kind of an early victim of some of the initial waves, and a lot got shut down and backed up. And local butcheries ended up taking a lot more business than they previously had. And so these butcher spots that were traditionally available for small hobby farms like ours where we produce meat for our family, and maybe a couple of close friends will buy a lamb or something like that.

But that didn't exist anymore. And so we got to build out a home butchery and learn a new set of skills. So you can learn anything on YouTube. Right? I wouldn't necessarily recommend cutting up animals as a stress reliever with COVID times, but it did end up being an interesting experience here. Definitely learned a lot And, a lot of respect for people who do butchery on a regular day to day basis because, wow, that is some hard physical work. But, yeah, reaped the benefit of some pretty awesome homemade bacon.

From prosciutto. Right?

Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

And so switching gears a little bit more now to community. And this first season, I'm interviewing all of the women in my life who are part of my community and that I just respect and have helped me grow along my leadership journey and appreciate that community is so important. And one of the lessons I learned from you shortly after we met was women are village. We like our village. Where the good women are, the good women will go. That's definitely been true.

And now that you've pointed that out, I see it. I see it just from looking in on other groups of women that are successful. And, you know, the our team, what we do at work, I think, is really successful. So can you talk a little bit more about how you see that manifested, why it's important to you know, it's that collaboration over competition.

Yeah. I think the exact quote is badass women go where badass women are. And, if you wanna have badass women, hire some badass women because we'll find each other and definitely create a village. And I do think that that's true for men as well, but, can't really speak to that from personal experience. I do think that women are villagers, and we are people who are meant to form these circles of trust. And I think when you have a circle of trust and you're not looking over your shoulder to make sure someone's not gonna stab you in the back, then you can collectively look outward and solve the problems in front of you. And I think that's true of any organization, really, but women in particular. And I think that the healthiest of relationships are the ones where, you know, someone has the power or the ability to hurt you if they want to, but they choose not to because they they perpetuate your best interest.

Right? And that's that level of trust, I think, that you need to have, a a really high functioning group of women and making sure that people have what they need to do their job and that you're concerned with their their well-being is the most important part of kind of successful women teams. And I think that they're few and far between. You know? Unfortunately, I think we do a lot of really bad things to each other in social dynamic situations where there's arrogance. Right? And I think that arrogance is just the lack of self confidence. And you can see it, you can smell it, and you don't trust it, you don't wanna be a part of it. So I think when you find teams that have this, level of trust in each other and have this level of just being genuine and and vulnerable and true in your intentions to move the group forward, I mean, that's a force to be reckoned with. Right? And everybody loves that, and everybody will you know, the rising tide floats the boat.

Yes. That is very well said. I I think the other important piece of that, because I agree with everything, in addition, it doesn't mean that it's all rainbows and unicorns all the time with high performing teams. That there are gonna be difficult conversations and, you know, not everyone's gonna, you know, get along a % of the time. That's where the rubber meets the road of having that trust, of having those difficult conversations or courageous conversations and, you know, keeping the overreaching goals of the team front of mind, but not shying away from or looking the other way when bumps happen.

Absolutely. I mean, that's just a part of being genuine. Right? Like, nothing is always sunshine and rainbows. And if you were to say it was, that would be disingenuous. Right? But the part where the genuine concern and the and the team building comes in is it's like, yeah. This wasn't sunshine and rainbows, but I've always got your back. Let's figure out what happened. Let's figure out what you needed in that circumstance that you didn't have or what I could help you find that you didn't even know that you needed.

But, you know, the person is rarely ever the problem. And Mhmm. I think that when you have people that are a problem or that are actively trying to sabotage you, it's probably because they don't understand that they don't trust you. Right? So this is a lack of trust. If someone's, say, trying to be a terrorist for your goals for your organization, it's probably because they don't trust you. Right? And that's a problem in and of itself because people who do trust you and that you trust really shouldn't be trying to undermine what you're doing, but that doesn't mean you don't ask questions or have, you know, honest conversations. It just means at the end of the day, like, you're still my girl. Right? Like, I just took off your back.

I got you, boo.

Yeah. Totally. Right.

In your profession, in our profession, but I think more so in your profession, you have had to learn the art of delivering bad news to families, to people when things don't go well. And how have you learned to deliver that news, that information, and how has that impacted, you know, all your conversations or how you approach conversations in general?

You know, I think the art and or science of doing hard things or delivering bad news is something that, gosh, I mean, I can't even claim to be an expert in. Right? I've done it a lot of times. I don't know that I've ever done it perfectly. I don't know that anyone's ever done it perfectly, and I don't know that there's a rule book for that. All I know is that, generally, people wanna know what happened, and that that is really important to give people the space that they need to fill and then wait for that to recede before you can deliver any more information. And I think that is, probably the one thing that I've learned almost universally happens. And outside of that, I think that it's, yeah, it's a moment by moment sort of thing. And I think a lot of us get through these things by detaching from where we are at the moment and being able to kind of stand back.

And then I think the disservice is that I think we oftentimes don't go back and then deconstruct what that did to you in the moment. Because I think we are all quite accustomed to we're in a hard situation, and we put one foot in front of the other, and we get through to the other side. And then when we're at the other side, like, the job is still there. You know? I hope to walk out of a room telling a family that their family member died and then go back to the 20 other patients I was taking care of before, and they don't know or care. That just happened. So you kinda have to figure out how to pick it up and not skip a beat. But then at some point, you have to get yourself back to that. I'm back to all clear is the phrase I've heard that sort of resonated with me.

And if anybody's ever found themselves in a really stressful or really traumatic situation, you know that after you've done that, you're not at your best. Right? And I think we do a little bit of disservice to not allow ourself that same space that we allow the people who have just received the traumatic news after we've had to deliver it before we have kinda hop right back into the fray. And I can't say that I have perfected that because, you know, the busy ER never stops nor does the fire service. I think that that's something that, we could probably still I could probably still work on and do better going forward. But I think the the big things when you're delivering traumatic news is to deliver the traumatic news and then space and not try to fill it and do your best not to be distracted because people can feel when you're distracted even when they're traumatized. And I think that that adds to their trauma when they feel that they weren't they weren't heard.

That's really powerful, and I've noticed that in my career as well. I think younger Diane would deliver the information and then, you know, that painful, awkward silence. Instead of giving space, I wanted to fill it with anything to make me feel better, not necessarily the person who just received the terrible news and, you know, age and wisdom experience. I think you learn that, and I agree with that. Just it's okay to just sit with someone who's just heard some really hard news. And in some ways, I find that to be healing to me as well, to sit in that space with them and just let them absorb it and, you know, give them time, focus on them, and then, yes, transition back to the next call. I think that finding the time to process it is hard, but it's become more of a priority as I've gotten older in my career too. Because, man, if it's just driving home, listening to the radio after shift to just kinda get my head straight so that I'm not also taking away from the family or my son or everything else because, you you know, it does impact you when you see all of that.

And I do think, I agree with everything that you said that giving the space is really profound.

And I know that there's not I'm not much of a journaler or, you know, those sorts of things, but there is pretty profound power in finding the words for things because there's a point in that trauma processing where you don't have them. And then to find them and identify them and be able to use them is actually part of the getting back to that all clear where you're ready to then go on to the next verbally or mentally complex task. And so for me, it's not so much journaling as it is I call my village. You know, just being able to talk it out is more than just getting it off of your chest. It's getting in that part of your brain where you have the words to describe it, which gets it into the part of your brain that is the more rational part that can then get back to that all clear. But if you just shove it down and keep going without that, I think you run the risk of that kind of sequential trauma that that gets to people.

Right. Because it's still in your body. The body doesn't let it go. And until you can complete the cycle and finish it, whether it's writing or talking or, you know, some people exercise or whatever to get it out, I agree. Then it builds up and someone asks you to pass the salt and, you know, you explode and lose your mind because it's not about passing the salt at that point. It's because you haven't processed everything.

You just don't know what salt is anymore. Right? You're like, oh, salt, Salt. Salt. Oh, the salt. Right?

Right. Or I can't just pass you the salt anymore. Yeah. It can go either way. Well, thank you. I know we've been chatting for a while. I have so many other questions that I wanna talk to you about. We could talk for hours and hours. If you could go back and give your young Colleen self, 15 year old Colleen, like, what advice would you give to your younger self that you didn't know then that you wish you had?

You know, I think, the younger version of myself is still pretty darn similar to the old version of myself, so I'm not sure I'd tell my I shouldn't be telling my current adult self the same stuff. But I think it's that you'll never regret being a better listener. You would never regret being more patient than you had to be. Right? I think that both of those things are things that I can tend to brush aside or be too busy or too distracted or too preoccupied to do. And I think, you know, I would tell same things today and also would tell myself that it really does it does take a village. And I think a lot of really industrious self sufficient people lean too much inward and not enough outward. And I think, you know, building that village earlier, would be something that, again, you would never look back and regret.

Those are great words of advice for everyone listening too. Well, thank you so much for, again, taking the time, and I can't wait for to hear what everyone else thinks. And if anyone has questions, you can check the show notes on more information on Colleen and all of her great story and her badassness, if that's even a word. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to listen to this episode. I know how valuable time is, and I'm so grateful you have given me part of your time. Curious on what to do next? Go ahead and follow wherever you're listening to this podcast so you can get updates each week when new episodes are released. And head on over to thefireinsideher.com/audio for a free audio to help you get started on your self care journey. Until next time, be brave, be kind, and be authentic.