Meet Dr. Lis Shlansky, an OBGYN with Maternal Fetal Medicine Associates in New York City. In this episode, Dr. Shlansky and host Dr. Fox discuss her path to becoming an obstetrician, their shared experience of pursuing medicine after being raised in families with doctors, and why Dr. Shlansky believes that wealth can be defined by choice.
Dr. Lis Shlansky is an OB/GYN who holds over 20 years of clinical experience. She attended medical school at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York and completed her residency at Danbury Hospital in Danbury Connecticut. Dr. Shlansky notes that she was pregnant with triplets during her senior year of residency, and graduated the day before she delivered.
Dr. Shlansky grew up in Philadelphia and worked as an actuary in New York after finishing her undergraduate education at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, but decided to move on to medical school instead and says she “fell in love” with obstetrics during her rotation in the field during medical school. She also explains that her decision to attend medical school was partially influenced by her experience helping in her father’s gastroenterology office while she was growing up. Dr. Fox also grew up with physician relatives, and he and Dr. Shlansky discuss the similarities between working in obstetrics and other medical fields. For example, they note the similarity in some cases between obstetrics and psychiatry, because patients often open up to them about their emotions and face the most difficult and the happiest times of their lives while in their obstetricians’ care.
Dr. Fox and Dr. Shlansky also discuss what makes their patients in New York unique. Dr. Shlansky moved to Connecticut after 9/11, and notes that her New York patients tend to have lower BMIs and are generally older than patients in Connecticut or in other parts of the United States.
Dr. Shlansky has also completed several mission trips in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and throughout South America. She says this experience has taught her to define wealth as having choices. She explains that unlike the patients she sees while on mission trips, her patients in New York have many options available to them when it comes to their medical care. She and Dr. Fox also discuss that while some patients prefer to work together with their physicians and feel empowered by the options available to them, others favor a more “paternalistic” approach. He also notes that Dr. Shlansky is a “good communicator” and “calm listener,” which helps her guide patients to the best decision for their care.
Finally, Dr. Shlansky and Dr. Fox, discuss her personal interests outside of work, which include traveling with her husband, which she says “usually revolves around food and wine,” as well as running.
