Connecting Cultures Through Care;
Healthcare is a Universal Language

Dr. Coronado
Trust in themselves. To believe in their knowledge they are capable and they can make their dream of becoming a healthcare worker come true. Trust in yourself.

Brooke Smith
Hi, everyone. Welcome to MDF Instruments, Crafting, Wellness Podcast.

Dr. Coronado
My name is Dr Daniela Coronado. My background is from South America, from Venezuela, currently doing my rotation on Internal Medicine.

Brooke Smith
Dr Coronado, can you tell us a little bit about, where are you in the world right now? Are you in South America? Are you in the States? Where are you?

Dr. Coronado
I'm in my country, in Venezuela, working. I also study here.

Brooke Smith
Can you tell us a little bit about why you wanted to become a doctor? Is it something you always knew you wanted to do? Can you talk a little bit about why you decided to become a doctor.

Dr. Coronado
I've always had this connection with healthcare and medicine, because when I was like six year old, I remember always watching on TV Grey's Anatomy and Dr house. I love both of the shows growing up. And you know, there are many seasons. Basically, I grew up with all the seasons when I have to choose what I wanted to study when I was all my last two years of high school. I've always had a bit a big interest on medicine. So I got in, I got into college, I started the experience, I realized I always like to understand how the human body works, and how everything is so complex, but works so perfectly. So I was always very interested understanding human physiology. When I was on my first year of medical medical school, because in here it takes six years you study three years that are pre pre clinical and then you take your last three years that are your clinical rotations when I was finishing my first year, finishing studying neuroanatomy, I discovered it was my passion. And then when I started my clinical pretensions in internal medicine, I understood why I love how the body can be so fascinating, complex, but with our knowledge, we can help others, not only to diagnose, but to help and transform their lives, their quality of life. That for me, was like my moment in you. It was my path for life when I was on third year of medical school.

Brooke Smith
Okay, so just if, and you're there in Venezuela, you have to, you go to medical school for six years, is that right? And then on to residency,

Dr. Coronado
yes, in here, you take six years of medical school, and then you you can start you have to work. And then you get to your specialization. You choose what you want to do. If you want to do internal medicine, genop surgery, orthopedics, you choose

Brooke Smith
I see, and what was it that drove you specifically to internal medicine? And can you also talk a little bit about the difference there might be people listening and watching who don't really know what internal medicine is. So can you kind of just walk us through that specialty and what it is, and what it is you do, and how you treat patients as an internal medicine doctor.

Dr. Coronado
that's right. Brooke, sometimes people don't know what what does Internal Medicine do? I believe that it is one of the most full medical fields, because you get to follow the patient you diagnose, and follow their medical evolution. And you you get to see how they can get there, how they can evolve. And you have that warmth and a medical relationship with your patient. You get to diagnose many, many, many diseases. It is very broad. It is wide in comparison to other fields where the pathologies you see in day by day are like more limited or more frequent. In here you can say. You can see cardiovascular, renal, endocrine neurology. You manage all of those, all of those sub specialties. And I love it. I love that you can manage many pathologies, because you can see that correlation with how one organ or one system can make the impact in the other system.

Brooke Smith
Amazing. So are you primarily caring for adults at this time, or do you also see pediatrics?

Dr. Coronado
One of the things that internal medicine takes care of adults, but also in here, in in teens, from 14 years old to to 80-90, years old. And that's what I say, that we have, like the bigger picture

Brooke Smith
I see. So it's, it's a vast age range that you're treating.

Dr. Coronado
You treat from a very young age to people in their elderly years.

Brooke Smith
What is something with what you do? Can you talk a little bit about your day to day life? Because here in the in the US, I don't want to misspeak, but I think a lot of doctors will, they'll if they're working in the hospital or something like that. It's a lot of like three three days on, three days off. Can you talk about your schedule there? Are you working five days a week? Are your hours? Night Shift, day shift? Are you kind of, I know you're in residency.

Dr. Coronado
Well, in here it's you work from Monday to Friday five days a week in usually in the morning. My day, it starts very early. I wake up, get ready, get my back, ready, my my white coat, drink of my coffee, get to the hospital. Do the the pre round with my co residents, the specialist comes and we do the round after that, we review lab results, imaging, MRIs, adjust treatments, and we we see the evolution of the patients during the week. We have on the on the floor with what we're working on and also I'm on call, it can be every five or every six days. It It depends. Currently I'm on call every five days is day and night Shift.

Brooke Smith
How long is residency there in Venezuela?

Dr. Coronado
Clinical takes three years. Takes three years,

Brooke Smith
and then what happens after that? After you complete your three years, what's next?

Dr. Coronado
You complete your residency, you become an specialist, then you are a specialist. And you can choose if you want to go for cardiology or endocrinology, nephrology. Can choose where you can go, or you can stay there as an internal medicine doctor.

Brooke Smith
And for you, do you anticipate staying with internal medicine? Or do you think in a couple years? Because I know you're in year one right now, do you think you might branch out?

Dr. Coronado
I started studying many years ago. I've always loved two systems are like my job in those systems. A cardiovascular system is related to cardiology, and nervous system is related to neurology. I love those two fields, and I can choose any of them.

Brooke Smith
Is anyone else in your family, in the in the medical field at all.

Dr. Coronado
I have cousins that are also doctors and are following similar paths. Have uncles that were so were surgeons, but my parents are a teacher and a lawyer.

Brooke Smith
I'm curious in Venezuela there, because your English is so spoken so well. Do you learn English there? Or is that something that that's normal over there in Venezuela, where you're taught English?

Dr. Coronado
I always studed it since I was in preschool in the school, I studied we took since we were five years old, six years so, until we graduated from high school. But I learned it because I was at an English school in another city where I started it since I was 11 years old, till I was 1516, and then I also took French. And also it is very helpful, because, you know, as doctors, all the articles and actualizations that come the guidelines always are in English. I always love languages. It's, it's a passion. Vis. Like medicine too.

Brooke Smith
We have a lot of telemedicine. So a lot of times, you know older people, or maybe people who are, you know, having a chronic illness, or are kind of far from a clinic, or maybe don't have a car, they use telemedicine, over the Internet to talk to doctors to figure out what's going on with them for care. Is that something you also do there in Venezuela.

Dr. Coronado
At the moment, I'm not doing it, but I can consider it making it in the future.

Brooke Smith
I think especially since you speak three languages, if you include French, I think that is also a major asset for telemedicine to help more people. And so I'm curious a little bit with social media platform, you definitely love to know the journey of where you have gone, how far you've pond, a little bit about your day to day life. Do you find that to be inspiring others? Are you mentoring other people?

Dr. Coronado
Yes, well it was very surprising for me when I graduated, I always live in the same town. Since I was little, I started my high school here and also college here. And many people when they were going to congratulate me and say, Okay, I'm so happy that you became a doctor, many people said to me that they were inspired, that they wanted to study, they wanted to become a doctor like me. And I believe that is very fulfilling as as a doctor, and not as a doctor, but also as as a human, to know that you are inspiring others. And yes, I like to be very active on social media. I'm always posting stories on Instagram. And also I try to post little videos on Tiktok on my day to day, what I do, what I'm working on. And also it's a great way to stay in contact, stay in touch with some people that have started with me, but are now in other cities and also in other countries. Some of my classmates are living in other countries, in South America, in Europe. Others live here, but in other cities. So it's a way to stay in touch with people you know, and also people that don't know you, but can be inspired by what you do day by day.

Brooke Smith
Yes, I love that. I do have a question, because, you know, here in in the United States, I've, I've spoken with several you know anyone, from doctors med students to people in residency to very established in the career, and also physicians associates, nurse practitioners that have a really good, you know, scope on autonomy as far as treating treatment of a patient. And I'm just curious if you've ever had any kind of negativity pursuing a career in medicine and becoming a doctor, if you've ever had any pushback of people telling you, like you couldn't do it for doctors, I had someone on the podcast, I think she was 25 and became a doctor here in the US, and she had a, you know, a really wick, paced way of going through it. And she was very smart, obviously, and she had a lot of kind of naysayers and pushback, because she looks so young, she is so young, and sometimes it can be challenging. And something she was really talking about was kind of breaking through that box of, you know, you can still be feminine, because she likes our pink glitter stethoscope, and she likes pink a lot. So she was saying, you know, I can still write with a pink pen and have my pink stethoscope. These are stethoscope, yeah. And so I was just curious there in your country in Venezuela, and just your experience, can you kind of speak on to what that's been like, or if there has been any kind of, you know, things, obstacles you've had to ever overcome for any reasons like that?

Dr. Coronado
Well, here in South America and also in my country, you are allowed where colorful stuff, pink, purple, but what you prefer, sparkles, glitter, and also the very prepared and smart doctor. Here we we, as women have a big field in medicine. Also you can see in a group of 10 doctors, eight or seven are women.

Brooke Smith
That's a great yeah.

Dr. Coronado
Girl Power in here. Everyone loved my glitter status. So everyone was like, Oh, my God, it's so beautiful. It shines.

Brooke Smith
Yeah, you are really good at showing off how glittery it is, because you know that everyone was still low. Oh, good. I'm so glad. So if you could go back and give your younger self a piece of advice, or tell yourself something, something you've learned through your life experiences. It doesn't necessarily have to be medical related, but any kind of like piece of advice that you would want to kind of put out into the world,

Dr. Coronado
looking back in the day and talking to a younger version of me, maybe a six year old me, or a teenage version of me. I, I will say not only to me, but to anyone who is listening right now, believe in your dreams, because when a dream is planted on your heart, it means you can what you can dream you can become if you have the discipline, the determination, you study and make efforts, day by day, it will become true. If you work for it. You work for it, even when you're tired, you work for it and study prepare to get better. That dream will inevitably become true.

Brooke Smith
If you have something in your heart that tells you

Dr. Coronado
that you can follow the path, yes,

Brooke Smith
then you just have to make sure you put the effort in to when the opportunity presents itself, that you're ready and work hard and keep that dream in sight. And I, I believe, with some determination and some perseverance, you can, you can do anything you want to do drive impact, that's it. Do you have any tips or tricks or anything that you really relied on when you were going through medical school.

Dr. Coronado
Well at first when you start, maybe you don't know where to start or how to study. What is the right method for you. But in my case, I always prepared. The day before I took the class, I tried to do a brief review of of of the subject we were going to study to have notions. You don't have to know the the subject 100% but if you have some notion when the teacher is talking, you will understand more. I started not with having the pressure of, oh, I'm going to take a quiz, or I have a lecture, but starting contact constantly, not letting a pile of things to study accumulate.

Brooke Smith
I think you're, you're speaking on consistency, which is a really big thing for me, because, you know, sometimes in car, yeah, sometimes you don't have, you don't have, I like, sometimes you don't have hours upon hours on end, but you have, you know, a certain amount of time every day you can dedicate, like, for example, exercising. You might not have two hours every day to go to the gym, but you have, would you

Dr. Coronado
have 20 minutes? It's 20

Brooke Smith
Exactly. And if you do 20 minutes every single day, then you are consistently staying healthier than you would if you did nothing. And so I think consistency is the key. It's not about being perfect. It's not about having all the answers.

Dr. Coronado
about doing a small progress every day is better than not than doing nothing, and you'll get waiting for it to be perfect.

Brooke Smith
Yes,

Dr. Coronado
I read last year. You know, the book atomic habits. Yes, yes, it it changed my mindset last year. That's a great book, recommended to the people who are listening and haven't read it. It's a good book that can help you manage your organization better.

Brooke Smith
You talked a little bit about putting on your white coat, and for us to a big symbol of medicine has always been a stethoscope, because it's one of the first pieces of medical equipment that you receive that will help you on your journey of helping patients understand their blood pressure, understand their heart understand their health. The very first time you got a stethoscope and you put it around your neck.

Dr. Coronado
I have a very funny story time about that, because when I was around seven years old, I told my mom, Mom, I want a toy stethoscope. You know, those toys that come with with many other things? Because I had one, but I lost it, and I wanted another that is plastic to play, because I was a seven year old, so my mom told me, I'm not buying you a toy. I'm going to buy you. We're going to the store and we're going. To buy a real one, a real it was a very, a very basic one, but she bought me one gray. It was great. I still have it in my room, a gray telescope to me a little girl, a little seven year old, and I remember playing with my family listening to their hearts, listening to my grandma heart. And that was my very first stereoscope, and also I used it on my very first clinical practices.

Brooke Smith
That is really special. I am. You light up when you talk about it, and what a smart, wonderful mother you have to

Dr. Coronado
She's a smart woman, yeah, I got it from her, yes,

Brooke Smith
you she was manifesting this for you. You know, she could see, you see, even then

Dr. Coronado
in advance, in advance, yes, yeah, that's she knew.

Brooke Smith
She knew she knew, yeah. And Moms always do. They always know? Moms always know best. Love to hear a little bit outside of medicine, kind of, what do you like to do for fun? Are you into cooking, exploring, hiking? Like, what is your day to day life when you're not working and obviously not being in medical, medical school anymore? Can you talk about, like, what you just like to do for fun, and maybe some hobbies or interests you have?

Dr. Coronado
Well, you know that sometimes when when you're a student, you have less time, but after some years, I found how to manage my time better and have time for the things I like to do in my home. Is I always like reading a big reader. Also I like cooking dessert for my family. I'm very talented, by the way, making dessert.

Brooke Smith
Yes, what do you like to make?

Dr. Coronado
I like to make lemon pie, a strawberry shortcake. And all my family and people who know me say they are very tasty. I bet I like. I enjoy. I enjoy making them in my in my free time. Also, as you were talking about exercise, I do Pilates at least twice a week, because I believe that we as doctors, and not only doctors, but also people in healthcare, if we're going to tell our patients to move to make exercise, we should we should also take care of ourselves and make exercise on our own. I like exercising, spending some time with friends, watching movies, spending time with my family on on the weekends where I'm not on call. It's about trying to balance.

Brooke Smith
It sounds like you know, I think time management is one of skills, especially if you're in healthcare. Do you have any thing that you know you said it took you a little bit to learn better time management? Can you talk a little bit about how what you found that worked well for you to have the best time management possible?

Dr. Coronado
I started implementing it very early, because since last year, in 2024 after I read atomic habits, I tried having my calendar, not Google Calendar, also physical calendar, on my wall, and putting all the tasks I have to make day by Day I have to go to the hospital. This day I'm going to buy stuff. This day I will go to exercise. This day I will prepare for next week when you do a schedule and a schedule and put all the tasks you have to make and make a list, a to do list, and you go and put a mark every time you complete one of those stars, I believe you become more organized because, you know, and have a clear idea of what you have to do on the week and during the month.

Brooke Smith
I think, you know, I struggle with that a little bit. Because my problem is, when I get down and I'm writing everything down, I get a little overzealous, and I think, like, I have more time than I do. So I'm like, Oh, I'm going to run at 7am for five miles, and I'm going to do this and this and this and this, and, you know, I set myself up kind of for failure. So I think it's really important to have a realistic idea of what you can actually call

Dr. Coronado
what of what you are actually going to do,

Brooke Smith
not what you wish you could do. Can you drop your social media handle for everybody who's listening and watching, who might want to come over? Give you a follow? Yes, you can follow me on Instagram.

Dr. Coronado
It's D R, A Daniella Coronado @dradanielacoronado on Instagram, and also you can follow me on tick tock. I'm as Daniella Coronado C

Brooke Smith
we'll link it down below in the description

Dr. Coronado
to anyone who's listening and are now pet students, or maybe nursing students, to trust in themselves, to believe in their knowledge, they are capable and they can make their dream of becoming a healthcare worker come true. Trust in yourself. I'm very grateful to having the opportunity to be talking today with you, Brooke, here on the podcast, thanks. Thanks for listening to me and getting to share it also with others.

Brooke Smith
Thank you so much for joining our crafting wellness podcast. You.