IAM528- Physician Inspires Those Aspiring to Enter Healthcare Field

Christel Wekon-Kemeni, also known as “Dr. Dub”, is currently a Pediatric Resident Physician at the University of North Carolina Children's Hospital who is also the creator of the Black Man, M.D. blog, a blog designed to not only inspire those who are thinking about entering the field of healthcare but also to crush the negative stereotypes that members of minority communities face on a regular basis. Christel was born in Boston, MA, raised in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Miami, and earned his medical degree from the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He started the Black Man, M.D. blog shortly before starting medical school and has since then not only continued to share his ongoing story with his readers on a consistent basis, but has also highlighted other minority students and professionals in the healthcare field, has shared useful and practical advice as well as positive energy with the readers, and has even used his platform to start a scholarship program for high school students!

• CEO Hack: (1) My phone (2) Documenting ideas
• CEO Nugget: Never limit yourself because of others' imagination and never limit others because of your imagination
• CEO Defined: Responsibility to ensure your vision is being executed

Website: http://www.blackmanmd.com/

Black Man, M.D. Blog – BlackManMD.com
Instagram – @therealdrdub
Twitter – @therealdrdub – https://twitter.com/therealdrdub

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:31

Hello, this is Gresh with the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Christel Wekon-Kemeni of the Black Man, M.D. blog. Christel, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 0:41

Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it, Gresh

Gresham Harkless 0:43

Yeah, no problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Christel so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Christel also known as “Dr. Dub”, is currently a Pediatric Resident Physician at the University of North Carolina Children's Hospital who is also the creator of the Black Man, M.D. blog, a blog designed to not only inspire those who are thinking about entering the field of healthcare but also to crush the negative stereotypes that members of minority communities face on a regular basis.

Christel was born in Boston, MA, raised in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Miami, and earned his medical degree from the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He started the Black Man, M.D. blog shortly before starting medical school and has since then not only continued to share his ongoing story with his readers on a consistent basis, but has also highlighted other minority students and professionals in the healthcare field, has shared useful and practical advice as well as positive energy with the readers, and has even used his platform to start a scholarship program for high school students! Christel, great to have you on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Christel Wekon-Kemeni 1:45

Sure, man, let's get it.

Gresham Harkless 1:46

Let's do it. I want to kick everything off with what I call your CEO story. hear a little bit more about what led you to start your blog and all the awesome things you're working on.

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 1:55

Yeah, man. First of all, I never really thought of myself as a blogger, I never thought I was going to be a blogger. I didn't go into this and started my blog thinking that I was going to do big things or anything. It really started when I graduated from college back in 2013. I had not gotten into medical school, even after graduation from college. It wasn't until two weeks after I graduated that I finally got my acceptance, my one and only acceptance into the workforce for medicine. I was still excited, as you can imagine. Then shortly after that, I realised that I spent so much time and energy trying to get into school that I didn't realise what I was really getting into, like, a day-to-day basis. So I was like, dang, like, I don't really know what they like, we've missed him in his life.

When a lion trying to kind of see if I can find anything that could help me out. I kind of have blogs, but not that I can really relate to as a young black male going into medical school. I have to just search for maybe a couple of weeks or so I just figured that I could why not start something that I'm looking for? Like, why not start at the very thing that I find missing online? I initially brushed up the idea first because I was like, well, it's like blogging, like, I'm not a blogger, people vlog in or anything. But then I thought about it someone and I was like, maybe that's the mentality that people like me, in the past had people that may have wanted to start something like this limit that like, Man, I mean, I'm not a blogger, so whatever, let me just kind of like, do it.

So that's the kind of moving back and forth about it, I decided to go ahead and just pull the trigger. Starting in July is now my first post, in late July, right before my first day of orientation. Then I made a website, got a domain name, made my post, and I didn't post again for about a month, I was about to just drop the idea. I was like, this is dumb, but I'm gonna do this. Then like, oh, no, I don't know what came over me. I just after about a month for my first post, I decided to post again, and then I told myself, that if I was going to do this, then it was going to be something that I had to stay consistent with. I didn't want to do it and just drop it.

I wanted to be able to really just post on a consistent basis and really just have content to share with whoever wanted to read it. I just made that promise to myself and I went about posting some more on a weekly basis. Ashley going to share it with the public until maybe a month after I decided to be consistent with it because I was nervous about it. I mean, I was sharing a lot of like, I was like it was almost like it was really personal. Like I shared some stuff, my thoughts, or whatnot about med school. I didn't have people to make it. In late September of 2018 just went ahead and made it public and I figured it would also make me accountable to post a more important system means that I did that and had overwhelmingly positive responses about it.

So it was reassuring to see that people liked it as I was doing. Since then, I mean, I've just been able to, I posted on a weekly basis throughout med school in the past four years. I wanted to be able to put a positive spin on my medical school journey because there are a lot of things, there's a lot of talk about Miskell, how hard it is, and how you don't have a life or anything, and went to counter that show that you can have a life and do all these great things while you're a medical student and beyond. And so that's one of the things that I wanted to focus on.

Ever since I started my blog, I've also expanded it to various sections, such as my Mr. One-on-one section where I share resources for students to want to go into the medical field. I also had the healthcare spotlight session that I had mentioned earlier, where I spotlighted or highlighted minority medical professionals, or how professionals or students in the field of healthcare, and even started the scholarship as well. So it's been a really cool day to be able to do alongside medical school and residency journey.

Gresham Harkless 6:15

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate you for doing that. I mean, I know there are a lot of people that probably listen to this, they're kind of having that, which he spoke to was imposter syndrome, where a lot of times, we want to create something, we want to scratch our own itch and do something we're like who am I to do that, I'm not really an expert at this. I'm not great at doing this. But it's so funny, because a lot of the bloggers, people who blog all the time started by not knowing how to vlog they just kept on with it.

A lot of times just having that consistent mindset and doing it day, after day after day. That's how you reach success and start to get things going. It's just great to kind of hear that you doing that and of course, reminding us of that, because I think there are a lot of people that probably listen to this, that might be thinking, I want to do XY and Z, but I'm probably not good enough to do that. Or I'm not an expert. But a lot of times you have to continue to do that to make that happen.

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 6:59

Yeah, I totally agree. You hit the nail on the head man. Definitely had an impostor syndrome and came to the blog and well, I was just like, I don't remember this before.

Gresham Harkless 7:07

Yeah, and you're absolutely right. As you said, there are probably so many people who were thinking the exact same thing but didn't actually create it. So you decided to do something different. I truly appreciate that. I know you touched on it is there, I guess is there anything additional as far as what we can find on the blog, or some of the things that you're going to, that you're writing about now, but also things that you're thinking about writing on in the future?

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 7:27

Yeah, man, for sure. So with that said, if you go on a blog and find my story, as a medical student, like, I have the archives of my students, med student, and I still post on a regular basis other than that week, because residency is no joke as much as I did in high school. But that being said, if I'm a story there, but you also have various sections, one of them is called good vibes and that's where I have a long laundry list of posts that I've used in my blog over the past few years, it's just like a lot of positive vibes. Positive isn't one place to refer to if you haven't ever needed some uplifting you in your day. Also have a sad medical one-on-one section where I share resources with students who are thinking about going into the medical field.

I had this session called lifesavers and that's a question I share the resources that I used in medical school. This is for people in medical school, who struggling to figure out what kind of resources to use in their studies or whatnot. By all means, that's not an all-inclusive list I have in that section, but it's some stuff that could provide it's a good start for the students. Then I have to help them with a spotlight section that talked about earlier where I highlight minority healthcare professionals and students just give them an inspiration and perspective and the desire to inspire scholarship. It provides a scholarship for high school students and minority high school students who are interested in the field of health care and who also do something to inspire those around them.

That's something that started this year. I want to continue moving forward because it was just such an overwhelmingly positive response to that. Then have a session called black men and white coats and this session was not my that was my idea. It's just something that I'm sharing from the organization, black and white coats and they just had this video series where they interview various black men who are doctors so I just decided to get permission to share the content on my blog as well because I thought it was really uplifting, inspiring. In regards to the future, I think that I want to go about writing separate posts just about patient encounters that I had in the past and how that made you feel. I'm just gonna do that separately.

I'm thinking about doing some merchandise or whatnot. Just know brainstorming and figuring out how to use my logo, how to use the model the name of the blog to, just put it on merchandise, a clothing, bag, stuff like that. Just play around with that. One of the things I do have on my blog is I have a post called Why I decided to become a pediatrician because I was into ophthalmology for a long time. Then I just went ahead and switched to pediatrics in my third year of med school. So when people asked me, Why is that to do that? So I made a pretty detailed post about why I did that. So you might as well if you wouldn't like it.

Gresham Harkless 10:33

Exactly, yeah, that's the ultimate kind of cheat code. You might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and it can be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart?

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 10:43

Well, to start off, I'm a black male blogger in the field of medicine. That's, as far as I know, I think is unique in itself. I still to this day, don't know many of the black male bloggers, period. I mean, it's a rarity, like, as you may already know. Cody's been able to see you do your thing, it's inspiring man. Other things that I feel set me apart, are that I've managed to stay consistent over the past few years. That's something that I've seen a lot about come and go. Just during my time as a blogger and just people have really good ideas, they start off, they go for a little while, and then they fizzle out for whatever reason something happens, and then come back to it. But I think I've been consistent is a lot easier said than done. It's definitely tough to be consistent.

I think that if you are then it allows you to become a very successful brother over time. So I've been able to collect a lot of various resources over the internet and compile them into one place, I think that makes me unique as well. In regards to resources, I've also brought together a lot of the various blogs that touch on life in health care. I put them all in one place on another page on my blog called useful blogs. So I've currently got 30 plus blogs that I've found over time, that could help my readers. Also, I have a strong desire to focus on the positive aspect of life as a healthcare, student and professional. That means that I still share my absolute vulnerability, I still am pretty, and realistically keep it real.

But at the same time, instead of focusing on the negative aspects of things, I've also focused on the positive aspects. I'm just like catalyzing positive thinking in the minds of my readers and stuff. I'm giving out scholarships and I also just don't plan on stopping my work with the blog anytime soon. I mean, I'm having a blast, just do what I'm doing. I know people out there some people out there are thinking to themselves, how's he doing this? Like, how's he gonna do this whole separate platform while the resume? I mean, I don't know, if you do something that you truly like you're passionate about you love it, it doesn't feel like work? You just do it, and it brings you joy and brings you life. It feels right.

Gresham Harkless 13:11

Definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 13:22

I definitely feel like my phone is my most important resource. I have it all the time. If I have it with me, why not use it to expose or use it to my advantage? I actually have a really simple app that I use, it's a Notes app that everybody has. If used effectively, it can do wonders man. I use that app, like every day, multiple times a day. I just use it to document my ideas and my thoughts so that I don't ever forget what I'm thinking because I always have these things that go through my mind multiple times a day, all the time, honestly. So like just having that to document myself real quick. Just keeping it to the side and coming back to it at some point in the future, kind of sparked my imagination again.

Gresham Harkless 14:07

Absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 14:16

There's a quote that Mae Jemison said a while back that has always stuck with me. The quote was, never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination. Never limit others because of your own limited imagination. That quote remains true to me each and every day man. I'm a true believer in the only limits that you have once you set yourself.

Gresham Harkless 14:42

I appreciate that CEO nugget. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favourite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Christel what does being a CEO mean to you?

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 14:53

One thing that it means to me is just being able to take on the responsibility of ensuring that your vision is being effectively executed. This means being able to really just take on ownership of your vision and just make sure that what you're doing with your organization is what you feel passionate about and what you really want to provide to your audience.

Gresham Harkless 15:17

Love that definition appreciate it and appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do is pass on the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course how best people can find out about the blog and all the awesome things we're working on.

Christel Wekon-Kemeni 15:29

Yeah, man so if you want to find a blog, you can find a blackmanmd.com b l a c k m a n m d .com. You can find me on social media as well. My Instagram and Twitter handles are all @therealdrdub t h e r e a l d r d u b. Just find me on Facebook, my name is Christel Wekon-Kemeni c h r i s t e l w e k o n – k e m e n i and my email, you can reach me at inspire@blackmanmd.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:05

Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Christel. We will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you but appreciate you again for being inspirational for pushing through and doing what others may not have wanted to do. I appreciate you for doing that and reminding us that we need to do the same. I hope you have a phenomenal day.

Outro 16:21

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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