Do we want to make this into post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic GROWTH? // Dana Phang

Welcome to November everyone, I honestly can’t believe we’re here. Very quick hello from me today as we’ve got a yayborhood guest interview for this week’s #yaysofourlives, so I’ll save the banter for next week’s regular scheduling with Ang (who I’m so glad everyone is enjoying so much).

Our guest for today is someone you’ve heard of many times now because she’s not only been in the yayborhood since the very beginning, but been such an active and thoughtful contributor. Dana Phang is the woman who started the yayborhood gift exchange during lockdown for members to get to know each other better and bring each other a little joy which then sparked our healthcare and frontline worker care package send out. She’s also a doctor herself and her own podcast, Junior Doctor’s Corner, shines such a great light on the lesser-known side of the early days in a medical career to help others feel less alone if it’s not quite the dream they expected. I thought that in itself was a great yayborhood watch item to share with you all but also just wanted to get to know Dana a bit better and what a lovely chat it was.

Ang wasn’t originally able to join the call but I peer pressured her into it a few minutes in because I knew they’d get along like a house on fire, so she joins part way through. I saw so many other lovely good news items in the media this week – it was such a nicer week to be online with international reunions finally happening, everyone enjoying freedom and sunshine, some amazing Halloween costumes etc – but I’ll save my yayborhood watch picks for next week, so for now enjoy getting to know your yayborhood mascot, Dana!

Dana's #quoteoftheyay was, "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become" from Carl Jung.

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