We sat down with Dianna Brozyna, M.D., MBA, pediatric hospitalist at Pediatrix affiliate Pediatric Hospitalist Service and Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, Fla. Dr. Brozyna joined the group following residency in 2004 and currently serves as Practice Medical Director, caring for inpatient pediatric patients as well as mildly ill newborns.
Watch the video for the full interview or check out the highlights below!
How did you get into the field of medicine?
Actually, it’s a really interesting story. I have an MBA. I was a business manager at the National Security Agency—in fact, that’s where I met my husband. I didn’t really feel like it was very important, to be honest. I felt like I had to leave my kids and go to work, and I didn’t really feel like it was very important. And so, I relied on what my grandmother had always taught me—you can do anything you want to do, and you can be anything you want to be; you just have to do it. She would have been 100 years old today, on the day of this interview. She has always been my shining star and has always told me that I’m the smartest one in the room, and I could do whatever I wanted to do.
What do you think it means to be a woman in health care today?
I think we have to do everything that the men have to do, but we also have to remain women, which means to me that you still trust your intuition. I have found that that has made me figure out things many, many times when I just had a gut feeling. You also still have to be kind and compassionate and not be afraid—even though you’re a scientist, not be afraid to be a female scientist.
What are some of the positives of being a woman in health care?
Pediatrics is fantastic—we get to make children better and send them home better, so that’s a lot different than a lot of other specialties. As women, we try to support each other. I think we do a really good job of supporting each other—we do a lot on social media, we have women groups that we were meeting with before COVID, we try to mentor each other and things like that. But I still feel like you can also be a woman and still be a smart person and a smart doctor. As a woman, you show your children, your nieces, your grandchildren and other young women that women can do both—they can have a family, and they can be a professional.
What advice do you have for women applying to medical school or entering the medical field for the first time?
I would say you only do it if you have a passion. It is not a job; it’s a passion, a lifelong passion. It costs a lot of money to go through medical school—it's years before you ever make a salary, so you need to love it, and you need to have a passion for it; it’s not just a job. The other thing I would say is to always try to support other women, try to mentor people—and that could mean anything from teaching someone something at work clinically or how to do things administratively. It could also mean how to balance your life, your family and work life. It’s difficult, and some of us have done it for a while so we can help the younger women learn how to do that. And since I am a business manager as well, to live beneath your means. I think that’s super important—a lot of young doctors will come out of medical school hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, so that needs to be taken care of before you buy the big, nice house and the big, nice car. So always just live beneath your means and then you’ll always be able to do whatever you want to. Oh, and have fun and exercise—it’s super important to take care of yourself, eat right, have fun and exercise—because it’s not just work and kids; you still have to take care of yourself as a person.
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