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Dr. Hina Cheema is a gynecologist with a large social media following on Instagram. She talks about many topics including mental health and relationships.

Transcript

Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: So hi, guys, welcome to another episode of the Body Clock podcast by Owaves. We’re very fortunate to be joined by a big social media influencer today, Dr. Hina Cheema, who is an obs and gynae physician. She’s also got a very large following on social media. She’s a very creative person, and it seems like a lot of people can connect with her. And her posts resonate with a very wide audience. She posts about many different topics, ranging from social issues to interior design to women’s health. So I’m sure this will be a very good podcast for the listeners. So, nice to meet you, Hina.

Dr. Hina Cheema: Hi there, Sohaib. How are you?

Dr. Sohaib Imtiaz: I’m well, I’m thinking, should I be calling you “storyofstyle,” as your Instagram name suggests? So I’d like to ask you, how did your journey start into medicine? So quick version of that, but how did the name storyofstyle come about? And how did you start your social media journey?

Dr. Hina Cheema: Sure. Yeah. So the thing is, I graduated from med school in Pakistan back in 2005 and got married to my husband, and came to the US. It was a little bit of a struggle trying to get into a residency because you need US clinical experience and you have to complete a set of exams at USMLE. So I got done with those and did a little bit of research and got into OB-GYN. It’s like four years of residency. So I finished the residency in 2010 and it was quite an experience. I was burnt out by the end of my residency and I took a six-month break after that, and I was just staying home with my newborn baby. And it was a wonderful experience. I just never regret taking that break. So after that, I joined a part-time OB-GYN practice and practised for four and a half years. I quit last year and I decided to become a medical humanitarian because it was something that I had been working on for quite some time. So, yeah, it’s just a little back story on storyofstyle. So I started storyofstyle back in 2017, about almost three years ago. And even though it was part-time, you know that in OB-GYN even part-time is like full time.

And I was pretty burned out. I had two children. I have a daughter who is now 12 and a son who is now five. While I had two kids, my husband had accepted a job in Dallas, and he was flying back and forth from Michigan to Texas. It was quite an experience being a single mom, having to work and shuttle the kids to the school, taking them, bringing them back, and doing all of my mommy duties as well. And I was so burned out that I actually started my blog, The Story of Style. I started it on Instagram. And I don’t know what I was looking for. I think I was just looking for a creative outlet, just something that would take my mind off and I would just have something to look forward to when the kids went to sleep and I had nothing else to do. So I did that, and interestingly, after a month on Instagram,