 In July of 2023 I made the transition of going from a full-time internal medicine attending all the way back to fellowship to training to be a cardiologist. At the same time, my wife crossed a nine-month mark of being pregnant with her first child and just two weeks into fellowship, my beautiful daughter came into this world. But that put a pause on my training as I transitioned from fellowship into paternity leave. Here's what that means, what my day-to-day looks like, and what that means for my future training. Let's get into it. Hey friends, welcome back to channel. In case you're new here, my name is Laksh. I used to be a full-time licensed internal medicine physician and now I'm going back to training to be a cardiology fellow. Here we make content to help people like you succeed on your medical journey but doing it with less stress. Today I wanted to talk about what my paternity leave while in fellowship looks like and basically what my day-to-day looks like to make sure that I can be a new dad, be there for my wife, but also still learn cardiology that I need to be a good fellow. So for these past two weeks my life has been split into basically three modes. Number one, dad mode, number two, cardiology fellow mode, and then finally number three is content creator mode. I'm still creating content for you guys. Talk about basically how I fit all those into my schedule and what these past two weeks have looked like. So most importantly, number one is dad mode. Now obviously majority of the 24 hours that I spend now in the past two weeks has been all around my daughter's schedule. As this is our first kid, we're all learning. My daughter's learning. My wife is learning. I'm learning basically trying to mend a schedule and a routine where she's still happy and we still get to function like true adults. And as a newborn, she does one or a combination of four things. Number one looks cute, two eats, three poops, and four sleeps. And my job is to get as much done when she's not doing the first three and primarily sleeping. But part of my role in this dad mode for these two weeks is to be able to be as present as possible for her to make sure I have as much bonding time. Also alleviate as much stress and burden off my wife as I know when I'm being a busy cardiology fellow, she's going to have to do the current work of raising her for the next few years. And so in dad mode, that includes all the dad responsibilities of changing diapers, waking her up, feeding her, which I really actually do enjoy, but also the things that you may not think of, such as taking her to appointments, doing those basic house chores to minimize how much my wife is having to do, as well as spending time with my dog Kobe to make sure that he doesn't feel left out. And number two is cardiology fellow mode. Now, despite being two weeks away from actually doing clinical responsibilities, I need to make sure that I'm still developing that knowledge base, especially this early into my fellowship to make sure that I'm going to be a great physician, future cardiologist, and that can actually function as a basic cardiology fellow. So to make sure that I can still balance dad mode while balancing all the knowledge that I need to learn for cardiology, my wife and I basically taking shifts, primarily during night times. Newborns are very notorious for making sure their parents don't sleep. My wife and I kind of already knew that. So we made sure we created a strategy now that would look very similar to what it would look like when I'm going to my day to day shifts anyways, where my wife usually takes the first few shifts overnight if there's any reasons that she wakes up, needs a diaper change or needs a feed, and then I usually take anything from four o'clock onwards, usually the time I wake up anyways. And this will just be a great opportunity for me to wake up, take care and bond with my daughter before I then go to work. But in the meantime, since I'm not directly having to go to work, using that time for self learning and learning cardiology. So if I was normally supposed to show a first shift at eight, I would use that time from eight to 10 to go through the next PDF or next document or review paper or video that I added in my list of things that, hey, you need to watch this to become a little bit more familiar with these cardiology topics. That's what I'm going to be doing. Now I've broken down my simple yet full approach on how I'm planning on learning cardiology as a fellow, both for now as well as the next three years. If you're interested, you can check out that episode down below or right here. So usually during the hours between seven to 10, my daughter ideally fingers crossed is taking her nap. It's a great time for me to learn all my cardiology topics during that time period. And then after this period, I'm usually tired. I don't want to watch any more videos happens to also be the time that she happens to wake up from her nap. I use that as a great opportunity to again be able to bond with her, enjoy time with my wife. Before we have a new lecture of usually around 12 or I'll go ahead and log in into our video call, listen into the lecture for that day to again feel like I'm getting some cardiology. Now this entire purpose of this lever working from home is basically to be able to bond and spend time with my daughter. So usually after that new lecture, I then focus away from cardiology fellow mode and go back into dad mode. But I also use this time to spend into phase number three, which is my content creator and adult mode, whatever remaining bits of time that I can find during my daughter's nap is where I basically will work on content like this for you guys where she's basically sleeping in the corner as we speak right now. And I'm making a video based off something that I've had in my queue for a while, but this also includes the time that I'm doing adult responsibilities. For example, my wife and I just bought a home. So lots of things come with that, including unpacking, decorating, putting things out that you've been wanting to do for a while, having to mow the lawn, putting the trash can out, paying the bills. Those are all great opportunities and those are the time slots that I do that in. Now the biggest takeaway from these two weeks as it comes towards its end that it's one that's been absolutely amazing being a dad, definitely a new perspective on how I look at things as I look at her through all these interactions. I already know that during fellowship, the biggest things I'm going to want to do besides just becoming a great doctor is going to go home and spending more time with my daughter. And so having these two weeks to be able to do that has just been awesome. But the second lesson that my wife and I have been able to take away is that, yes, we've had a daughter, but she actually came into our lives and not the other way around. We still had a life before this where we did small things or big things that were important to us. We want to make sure that while within her routine and respecting and make sure we're taking care of her, that we're learning how to also balance those things. And so I'm still trying to find time to be a cardiology fellow, learn medicine, create content for you guys, make sure that my fitness is still on point and then still find the balance of being a great dad. That includes trying to get rid of all the extra time-wasting activities that we did before that really don't give us any value, such as social media or Netflix, and directing those more to either family time or those priorities that we used to have before. Now I know I'm only two weeks into being a dad, so by no means do I have any foundation to provide any advice, but hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode of just understanding what my life is going to now transition to. I still try to prioritize medicine, but I know the biggest priority is laying there in the corner, sleeping peacefully, hopefully for a little bit longer, is to make sure that I give the best life for her that includes being, studying to begin with the best physician possible so then I can provide the life that I really want for her. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this behind the scenes of my life as a cardiology fellow while I'm leaving. If you wanna follow me further on my journey as I go through the next years to become a cardiologist while being a dad and all the other responsibilities that come with it, make sure you hit that follow and subscribe and like on whatever platform you're listening to. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you drop your comments down below, say hi, say hello, whatever you may have taken away from this episode or if you have any questions, drop them down below as well. Try to interact with you guys as much as possible and really thankful for all the support that we've gotten as we're crossing over that 51,000 subscriber count as I'm making of this episode. Really wanna get to that next goal of 75 to 100,000 if you guys are willing to help me. If this content has been helpful, hit that subscribe or share this with somebody you think this would also be helpful to you. If you enjoyed this episode, check down below all the free content that we have for you. My favorite includes the Med School Success Handbook which is a document that I'm updating on a weekly basis of just tips and strategies. I wish somebody gave me on my first day of medical school. Hopefully it helps you out. As well as you can see the exact step-by-step strategy I used in medical school to get a 3.9 GPA. Again, absolutely free. If you're interested in working with us and making sure that you get the grades that you want, you can also learn more about our coaching programs down below and just kind of see the results past students have gotten. Again, no pressure by any means. Go ahead and drop your comments, hit that like button and hopefully I'll see you guys in the next video. If you enjoyed this episode, check out this episode right here on that study strategy that got me that 3.9 GPA as well as this right here on how I'm studying to become a cardiologist. As always, my friends, thank you for being a part of my journey. Hopefully as a little help to you guys on yours, I'll catch you guys in the next one. She's still sleeping. Peace.