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was Chicago. “The couples match can be hard,” she recalled. “With
certain fields, you’re limited to a big city. And, ophthalmology
matches early, so that department then called around to the med-
icine residency programs and asked what the chances were that I
would make it in. Basically, my husband had to commit and then
we waited to find out if I was going to be in the same city. But it all
worked out for us, and Chicago was amazing.”
They took to Chicago instantly, living there for six years. As she
completed residency, Dr. Sohi took steps to expand the capabilities of
her mind and body. For example, in honor of her father-in-law who
passed away while she and her husband were in medical school, she
committed to completing a marathon. What better place to realize
that goal than Chicago?
“My father-in-law’s goal was to run 60 marathons between the
ages of 50 and 60. I think he did 58, so he didn’t quite make it. But
before he died I told him I’d complete one,” she said. “If you can
run a mile or two, you can run a marathon. And, Chicago is a great
place to do it. We were in residency and didn’t have kids yet. So,
we’d go for dates on the lake front where we’d run 18, 20 miles. We’d
take M&Ms and whenever I got tired, my husband would feed me
M&Ms for a burst of sugar.”
Dr. Sohi completed a few half-marathons during her residency,
but her crowning achievement was the Chicago Marathon. “It was
so great to do. It’s mostly flat and there’s tons of crowd support. I
wrote ‘Sunny’ across my chest and everyone was yelling ‘Go Sunny!’
It was really fun and something I’m really glad that I did.”
Although she had practiced yoga and meditation since her time at
Harvard, Dr. Sohi and her husband took mindfulness a step further
during residency by visiting a 10-day Vipassana Meditation retreat.
“It’s a silent meditation experience,” Dr. Sohi explained. “You go
in and kiss your husband goodbye. Men and women are separate.
Then you meditate each day from 4:30 in the morning until 9:30
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
at night. You don’t talk. You maintain what they call noble silence:
silence of mind, body and mouth. You don’t even look at people.
You just get very quiet.”
While in the experience, Dr. Sohi learned that it was much easier
to simply stop talking than it was to quiet the mind. “Practitioners
call it the 'monkey mind.' Your mind is always moving and it’s hard
to train out of. It takes a lot of practice. If you can quiet your mind,
I think it helps in all aspects of your life. I try to impart that to my
patients, to be present and nonreactive is helpful in dealing with
stress every day.”
It’s vital for patients and physicians alike to have ways of dealing
with stress, as we are all often faced with the unexpected. “My first
day in the endoscopy lab during my fellowship, I got “sprayed in
the face with stool,” Dr. Sohi admitted, laughing. “I was standing
where I thought I should be standing, and one of the technicians
pulled the biopsy forceps out of the scope. When you pull it out,
you’re supposed to keep a piece of gauze on it, but they did not.
So, it flung out. I felt my face get splattered with something, so I
gasped. I was a fellow and under everyone, so I wasn’t supposed to
say anything. I just made a little noise.”
While most professions would see the incident as a seriously
troubling incident, Dr. Sohi took it in stride. “I got it out of the way
early. It’s like when you get a new car. You want to get that first dent
in it, so that way it isn’t as delicate anymore and you can use it.”
Dr. Sohi was completing her fellowship when she became pregnant
with her first child, a daughter named Elina. “That was a busy time
and they say it takes a village to raise a child. Luckily, we were close
with our families and had a village to call upon,” she said.
“My husband had just finished up his last year of residency, and I
had a year to go in my fellowship. We knew we were coming back to
Louisville, so he took a position part time and was a stay-at-home
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