Medicine is not one person's profession. When a transplant surgeon is in the operating room, his kids are on the other end of a FaceTime call he cannot answer. Alyssa Kressel, a strategic communications professional married to that surgeon, describes 15 years of training from the family's side: the support her husband's program never offered her, the community she found on her own, and what she would do differently.
⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:24 Married into 15 years of surgical training
2:22 The FaceTime call he cannot answer mid-operation
3:52 What her daughter says when she misses Daddy
4:44 Why work-life balance advice does not fit a surgeon
5:16 The three extra years that bought them family time
6:15 No one supported her while her husband trained
6:44 The group that offered solidarity when nothing else could
8:21 It does not get better, it gets different
9:47 One barbecue, then nothing until graduation
10:43 What programs and societies could do instead
13:05 The resentment she is still working through
14:23 Her advice to spouses who feel alone in it
15:29 The stuffed animal with a pocket for notes
17:05 Take home messages
About this episode:
Alyssa Kressel works in corporate communications and has spent 15 years alongside a transplant surgeon, first through training and now in practice. She describes what that career looks like from home. Two young children try to FaceTime their father from their iPads while he is in the operating room. She braids bracelets out of his old scrubs so they have something of his to hold. She explains why the usual work-life balance advice does not apply when the hours cannot move, and why adding three research years to residency turned out to be the decision that gave them a family. She is candid about what was missing for her. There was one barbecue at the start of residency, then nothing until graduation eight years later. She found her own support in physician spouse and surgery wives groups, which offered solidarity when solidarity was all anyone had. She talks about resentment, about the phrase those groups repeat, that it does not get better, it gets different, and about what she would do differently. She closes with advice for spouses who feel alone in it, and with the comfort object she made for her own daughter.
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