Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

For nearly two years, Stephanie was sure she knew what was breaking her: the overnights. Any job in her field that required them would eventually wear her down. That was the story, until she saw what was actually true.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Yamout walks through the two years of quiet work almost nobody saw: sitting with a coach, reading everything she could find on leadership and her own values, sitting at the kitchen table with her husband and doing the math on what their family could afford to risk. 

None of it looked like restructuring a career from the outside. But it was the plan, not preparation for one, and it's what let her say yes without negotiating with her own fear when the opportunity to move finally opened.

She also names the instinct that kept her looking in the wrong place. 

As a recovering perfectionist, her first move was always to blame herself. Not enough discipline. Not enough resilience. But the problem was never her. It was the structure she kept trying to fit herself into.

Key takeaways:

— Why physicians reach for self-blame before they question the structure they're working inside

— What two years of unseen groundwork looked like, and why it mattered more than the "opportunity" that followed it

— The difference between the same task, overnight call, inside two different structures

— Two questions to ask before you reach for one more strategy to push through

If you're not sure where to start with the values piece, Stephanie's Values Journal has prompts to help you get clear on what actually matters to you. Find it at womenmdleaders.com/valuesguide. And if you're ready for the deeper work, apply to work with Stephanie at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

A year ago, Stephanie couldn't make herself walk into a flower shop. Not because of the flowers, but because of what she'd have to say once she got inside.

This episode marks one year of Women MD Leaders, and Stephanie marks it with the thing that keeps proving true: there's more to each of us than the MD on the wall. She traces one fear from a florist's counter, where she finally asked for a discount as a new business owner, to a hospital chiefs' meeting, where she sat as the leader of the smallest department in the room and decided whether to speak up. The fear showed up in both places. What changed was how fast she learned to recognize it and step over it.

She walks through the exact practice she built to start speaking up: notice the fear as its own thing, choose the smallest true thing to say, and commit to saying it before you're in the room, not once you're already sitting in it.

Key takeaways:

— Why the fear in a low-stakes ask and a high-stakes meeting is often the same fear

— A 3-step practice for noticing fear and moving through it in real time

— How committing to speak before the meeting removes the in-the-moment decision

— What changed for Stephanie's department once she made herself speak at every meeting

If you're sitting quiet in a room where you have something worth saying, and you want help finding the smallest true thing to say, that's a lot of what Stephanie does with clients one-on-one. Learn more at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

You were never taught to ask. Not really. Medicine trained you to be prepared, competent, and grateful for the opportunity. It didn't train you to walk into a room and say: I want more.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Yamout breaks down why women physicians struggle to negotiate — not just in formal settings, but in the small, unscheduled moments that reveal what you actually believe about whether your needs belong in the conversation. She shares two real stories from her coaching practice: one physician who asked for everything she wanted and got all three, and one who heard a string of no's and learned to read each one as data about her organization, not a verdict on her worth.

She also teaches the ASK Framework — a 3-part tool for building the ask muscle before the high-stakes meeting arrives:

A — Anchor in curiosity before making any request

S — State what you want clearly, without apologizing

K — Keep exploring until you find the overlap, or learn what the organization can't give

Your confidence comes after the ask. Not before.

To work with Stephanie on the conversations you've been avoiding, apply at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Yamout reflects on what happens to the adventurous, creative, whole version of yourself when you board the train to becoming a physician. The track is built to produce a competent doctor… and it does. But the traits it selects for (perfectionism, compliance, subordinating your needs to the system) slowly crowd out everything else. The dancing, the hiking, the parts of you that existed before the credentials.

Stephanie shares a moment that stopped her: a close friend called her the most adventurous woman she knew, and she found it shocking. Because somewhere in 25 years of training and practicing medicine, she had stopped seeing herself that way.

This episode is an invitation back. Not to nostalgia, but to reclamation. You'll hear Stephanie's own story of going home to herself, and walk away with one simple question to carry with you.

If you're a woman physician who feels a quiet distance from who you used to be, this one is for you.

Apply to work with Stephanie at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here. 

You have done the work. You have the track record. And you are still waiting for someone to tell you it's your turn.

That permission is not coming.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Yamout breaks down why so many high-achieving women physician leaders stay stuck at the threshold — and what it actually costs you to keep waiting. The gap between where you are and where you want to be isn't a qualification problem. It's a permission problem. And the only person who can close it is you.

Stephanie shares her own experience with that restless, untethered feeling in her early attending years — and the moment she stopped asking for permission and started moving. She also offers a simple 3-part framework — Notice, Align, and Move — for knowing when and how to take that step without being reckless or impulsive.

Key takeaways:

— Why women wait for a signal that never arrives — and what that waiting costs

— The difference between self-authorization and impulsivity

— How intentional, tethered movement rebuilds self-trust over time

— One concrete thing to do this week if you're sitting with that restless feeling

If you're ready to stop circling and start moving, apply to work with Stephanie at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

You made a plan. A good one. And then something shifted — a staffing issue, a budget cut, a mandate from above — and suddenly that plan doesn't fit the conditions anymore.

For most women physician leaders, that moment when your plan falls apart can feel like failure. 

We were trained in straight lines. The system rewarded the person who stayed on track. 

But leadership doesn't work that way, and if you've been holding fast to your original plan while conditions shift around you, you are exhausting yourself for nothing.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Yamout shares what sailing taught her about leading through uncertainty, and translates it into a 3-part decision framework you can use the next time you're stuck between a comfortable bad option and an uncomfortable good one.

What you'll take away:

• Why the straight-line path that worked in training will fail you in leadership
• The 3 questions to run any hard decision through (name both paths, check what you're ignoring, run it through your values)
• A real client example of what happens when a physician leader finally makes the call she's been avoiding

If you're sitting with a decision that keeps getting deferred, this episode is for you. Apply to work with Stephanie at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie, or start with the free Values Journal at womenmdleaders.com/valuesguide.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

You've crossed every finish line medicine put in front of you. You have the degree, the title, the income. And still, something feels off. 

Not wrong, exactly. Just… constrained. Like you're moving through your days without quite being in them.

This episode is about the difference between independence and freedom — and why women physician leaders so often have one without the other.

Dr. Stephanie Yamout shares the moment that first made her see the difference: watching a senior colleague who had to put his phone in his car to stop checking it at his kid's baseball game. She also tells the story from her own burnout — when she resigned rather than ask for accomodations, because she could not see past the two options in front of her.

What the episode covers:

• Why independence (the structural kind) and freedom (the inner kind) are not the same thing
• The black-or-white thinking that keeps high-achieving physicians stuck
• 3 things real freedom actually requires: boundaries you keep, the ability to name resentment, and creativity in the face of constraint
• Why burnout collapses your field of vision — and how inner freedom opens it back up

If this resonates, Stephanie's Values Journal is a practical place to start: womenmdleaders.com/valuesguide. 

And if you're ready to do this work directly, apply to work with her at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

The weight isn't in the doing of tasks. The weight is in being the person who notices all the tasks that need doing.

If you're the competent one — the primary parent, the leader of the pack, the reliable endpoint everyone routes through — you pay a tax for it. 

More questions. More decisions. More of the ambiguous, in-between work that doesn't sit cleanly on anyone's job description. 

In this week's episode of Women MD Leaders, Dr. Stephanie Yamout names the competence tax, the unpaid COO role most women physicians are running at home, and why telling us to "just delegate more" has never worked.

In this episode:

• Why the most competent person in any system becomes the default for ambiguous work
• The CPE framework (Conception, Planning, Execution) — and why we're delegating the wrong part
• How to hand off the whole file, not just the task — with a specific script you can use this week
• Why being the front desk for your family and your department is costing more than you think
• The perfectionism trap that quietly keeps the whole load on your plate

If you're holding a thousand SOPs no one else can see — this one is for you.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

There is a friction that happens when you’re a doctor and a mom. Not the kind you can solve with a better schedule. The kind that lives inside you, quietly, every time you transition from one role to the other.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Yamout names something most women physicians carry but rarely say out loud: the guilt that shows up at the threshold between work and home, the relief you feel when you step into one role fully, and why that relief doesn’t mean anything is broken about you.

Stephanie shares what she learned from years of working nights and weekends as a hospitalist — including a parenting choice she made deliberately to protect herself, and why she’s only now beginning to build back what she engineered out. She reflects on what the carpool line gave her that the bus never could, and what locums weeks give her that being working or being home full-time never will. 

You’ll hear:

• Why the friction between your doctor identity and your mom identity doesn’t stay in one place
• What it cost her to armor up during the hard seasons — and what rebuilding looks like now
• Why you are allowed to feel relief when you step into either role
• Permission to stop apologizing for the choices you made when the season was impossible

You are two things. You have always been two things. That’s not a problem to fix.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

Find the full transcript for this episode and more resources for Women Physician Leaders here.

Summer break is about to torch my perfectly calendared life — and if you're a high-achieving woman in medicine, you already know that feeling. The grip on the calendar. The way it slips the moment life does what life does.

In this episode, I get honest about something I've been wrestling with: the difference between control and agency, and why high performers will protect tasks before they protect identity. 

Control is fragile — it depends on the world turning the way we expect it to. Agency is internal. It's your capacity to choose how you respond and where you direct your energy, on purpose.

I share four practical moves you can use the next time the structure that keeps you afloat falls away:

• Ask the better question
• Protect your identity-based non-negotiables
• Use boundaries as agency statements
• Build a transition ritual so your body and your nervous system arrive at the same time

If you're gripping the calendar with both hands and it is still slipping, you are not failing. You are over-functioning in a system that asks too much of you. 

There is another way to lead — through your own life and your own work — that doesn't require you to white-knuckle every hour.

If you're ready to stop spinning and start leading with clarity, apply to work with me one-on-one at womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie.

About the Host

Dr. Stephanie Yamout, MD, MBA, CPCC, ACC, is a pediatric hospitalist and internationally certified coach for women physician leaders. She helps women physicians get their time back, own their value, and command the room as they were born to do.

Work with Stephanie 

🩺 Book a free 1:1 Discovery Call → womenmdleaders.com/work-with-stephanie 

🌿 Reserve a 90-min Better Boundaries Session → womenmdleaders.com/boundaries

Connect 

🌐 womenmdleaders.com 

💼 linkedin.com/in/stephanieyamout 

📧 [email protected]

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.