REWIND - Dr. Candice Myhre - Kauai, HI - From Season 1, Ep 2

REWIND UPDATE: Just a short 32 months ago (!!!) I interviewed the spectacular ER Doctor, Candice Myhre, who saves surfers and regular humans from death and destruction on the regular.  In that episode, she mentioned a book she was planning to write, and now she’s done it! Well, ALMOST done it! Her manuscript for Sex, Surf, Sutures, Scars: A Surf Doctor’s Story of Love and Trauma in the Lineup is in the final editing stages, book proposal is finito, and she has been firing it off to literary agents.  She continues to create mermazing stories in her everyday life, and uplift women in life and play!

ORIGINAL NOTES: Today’s guest is Dr. Candice Myhre, @drcandysurfvival, surf doctor, ER doctor, mermazing surfer, and champion for equality for women in two male-dominated arenas - medicine and surfing. Coming from a surf city where women were not welcome in the lineup, it took a friend flaking on her to send her on the adventure that would change the trajectory of her life, help her through the rigors of medical residency, and learn that everything is timing. Trained as an ER doctor, Candice followed her passion to become a surf doctor on remote islands around the world, with mottos like “will work for surf” and “expert in the unexpected.” Her most harrowing rescue will have your heart pumping! When she accidentally landed on front pages for her posts about #medbikini, she found herself on the podium championing equality for women in medicine, which she handles with both directness and humor. This is just a peek into an extraordinary life! Her new book, Sex, Surf, Sutures, Scars: A Surf Doctor’s Story of Love and Trauma in the Lineup should be out next summer and will be an absolute page-turner!

👀Questions about hypnosis and hypnotherapy for surfing, or surfing for life? I'd love to know what's on your mind! Email me at sheilagallien@gmail.com or come by sheilagallien.com.

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Transcript

[00:00] Sheila: Aloha, and welcome back to the dropping into Power podcast. I know it has been a long hiatus. I am just six weeks away from hypnotherapy school graduation. Woohoo. I know I had talked about doing some self hypnosis recordings, but I tried three times to do recordings that I was going to launch on the podcast and each time I had some different technical difficulty which made me just feel, although sometimes there's a time to push through and paddle for that next wave, sometimes it's time to go in. So I decided, forget about the self hypnosis. I want to thank all the women who took me up on the offer to do free sessions for surf hypnosis. First of all, I have to tell you, it's the best job in the world because basically I take you through your dream surf sessions in some form or another and I get to surf with you. So it's incredible. And thank you so much to those who offered up during my learning stage. I really appreciate it. And I'll be talking more about hypnosis in sports and also riding the waves of life altogether, really phenomenal what I'm discovering as I'm working with people with hypnotherapy and it is just such a powerful tool. So that said, we're going to go back to talking about surf surfing. And I ran into the spectacular Candice Myrie, who was here on the big island. She had come here with her daughter who was doing a rodeo, her young daughter, her twelve year old daughter who is a spectacular horsewoman. They had actually sent their horse over in a barge, I guess, on a barge from Kauai and come over here to compete. And we had dinner and I learned that her book is, is done. Basically, it's the book that she talks about early in the podcast. So those of you who have been listening since the very beginning, or if you've never listened to Doctor Candice Meyer, this is the second episode in the series and Candace has stories that will blow your socks off, particularly as an ER doctor and an ER surf doctor. So I'm reposting this episode and I will be doing another live episode, probably by the end of July, with another amazing surfer who spent her whole life in the water and has another book coming out. I seem to this seems to be on trend. Amazing, brilliant surf writers and surf artistes of various kinds. So without further ado, I'm going to let the episode speak for itself and I look forward to live episodes in the future. And if anybody is interested in challenges that they're having in surf. I would love to know some of the things that you are struggling with that I might be able to put some recordings together or possibly do a group class on some of the more common things for sure. I hear people talking about fear of bigger waves and that's a really interesting one. But just even doing mental rehearsal is something that I could potentially do in a group. So anyways, feel free to email me@sheilagallionmail.com. you can also go to my website which is sheilagallion.com or dropping into power.com. i'm not as good as social media, but you can find dropping into power on instagram. Okay, thank you so much and I look forward to reconnecting soon and please enjoy Candace

Episode Begins:
 Aloha and welcome to the dropping into Power podcast. I am so excited to have Candice Myrie rhymes with Iree on with us today and you're going to learn. I can't wait to learn everything about Candice. I've known her, she is a bestie of my bestie and I've seen her on social media for a long time since she launched the Med Bikini Challenge. And I'm going to definitely ask her about all of that. She just has so many stories. She's an ER doctor, she's a surfer. She's combatted many, many obstacles throughout her career and her surfing career and her world. And she's just this incredible force of enthusiasm and just clear headedness. And I'm super excited to hear Candice, your story because I, I don't really know it, even though I've heard of you through our mutual ride or die for some years. And just before I actually started talking and did the intro, Candice was just saying she was happy to be a part of this platform because women surfers have really not had a voice. And this has been going back a long time. It's definitely changing now, but it has been difficult to really have a voice and clarify our voice in the water and out of the water. So I'll just go back to yeah, I would love for you to talk about what it was like for you growing up in Palos Verdes and whether or not you did surf them.

[06:03] Candice: Thank you so much. That was an amazing introduction. Sheila and I do love that we have the same bestie in common. She's definitely, really, literally the reason why I have my life today as it is, and I have so much to be thankful for, Carla being in my life. And my story does go back to Palos Verdes, which is so funny, because it's one of those epicenters of surfing. And Bluff Cove and Lunada Bay were big surfing spots growing up, and I actually lived above Bluff Cove, but it literally was not cool for girls to surf, and we were meant to stay on the beach and watch the boys surf and chat and look great in our bikinis and tan, and we weren't really accepted as part of the lineup there, so that was really interesting for me. And I never really thought much of surfing growing up until I was about maybe 14, and I had a knee surgery, and the only I could do was kayak. So I learned to kayak on Whitewater in rivers, and I thought, well, let me just go down to Bluff Cove and kayak, surf, and I literally was heckled out of the water. The local surfers called me a cooc, and they were like, get out of the way. We don't want you here. Luckily, paddling, as you know, with a kayak, is much faster than a surfboard. So I was able to catch waves they couldn't catch and surf out of their way. But really, I only surfed there once or twice with my kayak, and I wasn't welcome there, and I left, and I. I never tried surfing there again until I was in my thirties.

[07:25] Sheila: Wow.

[07:26] Candice: Yeah.

[07:27] Sheila: So when did you actually get onto. So did you surf in Palos Verdes when you were young, even in that environment, or was it tayak, your introduction to the ocean? In that way?

[07:37] Candice: It wasn't acceptable. So, basically, I'm 50, so it was 40 years ago, and I had sort of a dramatic realization when I was looking at runners. And 50 years ago, the first female in the Boston marathon was being. There's a picture of her today, actually, on social media, being pulled out of the race by two men. So women were not allowed to race in the marathon 50 years ago. So it makes sense to me now. Of course, I wasn't welcome in the surf. Women weren't, it wasn't acceptable for women to compete in sports at that time. So I didn't really find surfing again until I was in my twenties and my cousin started surfing, and I thought that was so cool. Both my three of my cousins lived in seaside, Oregon area. In Hawaii. They would travel back and forth. And so I bought my first surfboard from a garage sale when I was 21. And it had the leash attached, the fin, which I thought was.

[08:36] Sheila: That might have slowed you down a little, but.

[08:39] Candice: You know, yeah, I I thought that was completely normal. And we got out there surfing, and I actually was trading off with someone who was in my kayak, and I was in my kayak, and they didn't know how to surf, and I actually hit them with the front of my kayak. They flew off my surfboard, and the leash ripped the fin out of the board. So that was the end. Not bored.

[09:00] Sheila: When I was in high school, that.

[09:01] Candice: Was, I had a dramatic, dramatic entrance into surfing with garage sales and no lessons. There was no teaching for girls. It was kind of just a tribe. You know, the boys taught other boys to surf, and that's how you got into that tribe. And there was no introduction for women, really, and they didn't really want us in the lineup. The sheila's.

[09:19] Sheila: Yeah, right. Well, and I'm a little, I'm 56, so I'm a little older than you, and I definitely remember that growing up in, and, um, I grew up inland of Malibu, and there actually was this one girl who surfed. But, you know, I just didn't like the attitude of the surfers, even though I liked some of them as people. I, so I would body surf, you know, and that was, to me, I'm like, I'm a purist. I don't want to touch the board, but, but, but it was that kind of attitude that it didn't look at that time like, like a crowd I wanted, even wanted to be in. You know, it just was weird. You know, I just didn't, I didn't like the energy of it. But probably if I had known how much fun it was, you know, I was definitely into the ocean, and I was definitely pretty comfortable in the ocean.

[10:04] Candice: For a lot of men. And I'm generalizing. It's, they have fun, but it's a serious sport for them, and they take their wave count and their waves very seriously, and. Oh, yeah, it doesn't, that's not, I think, how a lot of women picture it, and I, that we didn't really fit into that paradigm of making it an enjoyable sport to be involved with so that we didn't fit in in that respect either.

[10:27] Sheila: That's a really interesting perspective because that's a big part of what's happening. Now with the huge upsurge of women surfing and you, I know that you were a part of one of those early surf schools, so where Carla worked. Right. That's. And I think, I'm not sure it was them or if it was another one, the one that's in LA, that their whole motto was, you know, the best surfer is the one having the most fun in the water. Yeah. And that is definitely something that came out of the women surfing. You know, that was not. Definitely not a motto. And it's not always an easy one to live up to in a lot of ways, because, of course, women do get competitive. You know, we have our own frustrations with our own surfing, mostly, but it is a really different, just overall perspective and something I wonder if it's going to change as more women get into the lineup. When did you get. When did you start to get committed to surfing? Like, when, when did it really take shape and transform your world?

[11:30] Candice: I really didn't dive in until I was a third year resident and emergency medicine training at La county. And it's a really intense program. It's one of the busiest trauma centers in the country, and I was literally burnt out and just drowning and work and my emotional, physical, spiritual well being, which is suffocating. So my friend, whose name is happy, suggested we go on a surf diva trip, and I'll be forever grateful for her. And it's ironic that she actually didn't show up and canceled for the trip. And I thought, okay, I don't know how to surf. I'm going to go to Mexico by myself with this group. But the wonderful part about it was it was an all women's group from all over the country. They were coming to surf diva camp in Mexico to learn how to surf. And so it was actually fortuitous that she didn't go because I was able to connect with so many different women and then also with Carla, who is my yoga surf instructor. And it literally changed the course of my life going to this camp, I. It brought so much joy back into my personal life, and that became fuel for the fire of my professional life, which was lacking. So we had surf lessons. We wake up and have yoga really early in the morning, like six, which was not my jam since I got up all the time at six, but we did that. So with Carla, and then I had two lessons a day with her in the morning, in the afternoon. And we were kind of a hot mess, actually, out in Sayulita, Mexico, in the lineup. I mean, we were, we would draw funny pictures of us just wiping out everywhere. And I spent more time underwater than above water, for sure. It was really challenging, but I took my kind of, like, white, doughy, donut eating body into, like, a tanned, more sleek machine. And then, of course, more than physical change was just the emotional and mental change of taking on a new sport and participating in basically a man's sport and starting to feel confident about it. And that's sort of where Carla and my friendship blossomed. And I actually chucked to sicky and went with her to next spa for a week and surfed kind of a heavy left hand break for a week. And that really is where I found that I was so passionate about surfing, and it became such an integral part of my life and my career. Actually becoming a surf doctor, that's amazing.

[13:43] Sheila: I mean, that's amazing that that kind of turn and the way that you speak about it, inspiring a professional career. So I'm really curious if there was a core, kind of a core. I don't know if it's a core message or a core value or a core or thing, you know, that you were able to translate, um, from the water to your profession.

[14:06] Candice: Oh, definitely. I think being a physician, especially a female physician, is very challenging, and you literally spend a lot of time underwater, drowning, knocked off your board. I mean, it's. It's like, metaphorically, the two paths are very similar. When you started as a beginning surfer and a beginning resident in a big trauma center, you're basically having to learn everything and just repeat it over and over again. And surfing is such a long learning curve. I mean, it just. It took me ten years before I felt comfortable and just a mediocre surfer and, you know, 20 years till I feel very comfortable and, you know, an intermediate, advanced surfer. So I think that made me feel more comfortable in my lack of knowledge and skills as an emergency medicine resident, just to build my confidence that you just had to do this over and over again. And. And I was very unhappy as a resident because I spent so much time in the hospital and not, you know, having time to eat, eat healthy, not time for myself. That that one little piece that I could have for myself in the water just rejuvenated me spiritually, um, emotionally and physically. And that was so important to me. And I really. I think the pearl I take away from it is whenever you have to go into some type of intense work is that you find your passion and hold onto it and make sure you don't stop doing it the whole time that you're trying to achieve whatever it is in your professional life. And I think that's where I failed initially, but I didn't actually even know my passion, so that was difficult, of course. But I think once you find it, you just can't let go of it when you have other challenges going on in your life because you'll just lose your soul.

[15:36] Sheila: Wow, that's amazing. That's, that's just such. I just gotta capsulate that. I mean, that was just such great advice about everything. And I even see the metaphor of, you know, you go out, you're in your life, you're doing this incredibly difficult thing, and then your commitment, that's kind of the passion you're talking about, your commitment to. To going out and catching that wave. And that moment of catching the wave is like catching that one wave in a session, you know, that moment of taking your session is like catching that one wave, and that one wave is all you need. And then no doubt, there's times you have your session, and it's frustrating, but it's still better than the moment you just had, you know, in your residency. But, yeah, what I really, really hear from it is just the tenacity, you know, and to, and to hold on. I'm curious if you've ever had, you know, slack moments. You're talking about it being your passion in helping you find your passion, and I have a question for you about that, too. But have you dealt with moments where that passion has slacked? You know, have you had moments where you've doubted, where you've lost your connection with surfing?

[16:43] Candice: Oh, definitely. I think a lot of that comes from not doing it out there to do it, and it's not enjoyable anymore because you've stopped taking the time to paddle out and try to get into waves, and then you fall off a wave and you, or you, you know, you hurt yourself and you're just not interested in going out there and doing it again. So I think there's been times when I've really felt, but it's usually from not doing it. So when I'm not out there exercising and trying to catch waves, then I don't want to go out there because I'm scared, because I'm out of, you know, I'm out of practice, really. Um, but I I think I realized that when I do go out and go over and over again, that then it just brings my joy back. So, really, I mean, if I could go surfing every day, I would. But you do get to that point if you haven't gone surfing for a week, you're like, oh, do I really want to go surfing today? Do I feel like going surfing? But once you go out there, of course you're excited to be there and you're enjoying it, but you definitely have bad sessions. Just like you have bad days at work, you have bad days surfing where somebody's board might hit you or you're, you know, you fall off at a critical point and get injured and curse that you went out there that day. So I think, you know, but really, it's just, it's all right. Life's all about timing. It's just the timing of dropping into the wave, the timing of your work life balance. I think all of that is just so important because I think, too, if we were just surfing every day, I wouldn't appreciate being out there as much as the fact that I have two parts to my life. They both feed each other.

[18:08] Sheila: Right. And how do you deal? So you. Well, I want to ask you one other question first, which is you said you talked about you didn't know what your passion was. So are you talking about your passion in medicine, um, that surfing guided you to. Are you talking about surfing being your passion?

[18:22] Candice: You know, I really first fell in love with marine mammal biology, and I wanted to be a dolphin trainer, which is so not PC now. So I love marine mammal biology. I wanted to be on the ocean, and surfing kind of brought me back out there, and I'm around dolphins and turtles and even sometimes whales all the time now. And so, I mean, I have to say, yes, that was my first love, my first passion. Medicine was really my second choice. But I felt like that was, as a, as a woman growing up in a household where my dad was a surgeon, I felt like I, I have to be able to provide for myself, and I didn't know that I would be able to provide for myself being a marine mammal biologist. And so I chose something that I thought was much more of a sure thing. And I do really enjoy my practice, and I love, you know, putting shoulders back in and suturing people and, and being there, people's worst moment to try to make it a little bit better. So I do get a lot out of that. But in terms of, like, my intense joy of being in the moment and being surrounded by beauty, my passion is definitely surfing and being out in the ocean and pretending I'm a mermaid. That's where that lies. And now I'm able to do that because becoming a surf doctor brought me to Kauai, and now I'm able to balance my life much better in terms of how much time I spend in the hospital and how much time I'm in the water. And that has brought my passion and my career together. And then traveling to all these islands, I've traveled to so many different islands in the South Pacific and in the Indian Ocean as well, to the mentalis, to Kandui surf camp. I've gone to gland as a surf doctor. And so it's brought me able to bring my medical skills to places that actually need it as well in the surf doctor world. So that's been really valuable to mix the passions together.

[19:59] Sheila: Well, tell us about the surf doctor world. How did you get introduced to that? And, yeah, tell us about that journey.

[20:06] Candice: Well, actually, I was in your hometown in Malibu. So I was working as an emergency medicine resident in my third and fourth year, and I took a job at Malibu urgent care as a third year resident. And I wanted to just dabble in urgent care medicine and see what that was like and sort of get my feet wet with a different population of people. And I was taking care of a woman who goes to Tavarua every year. And she invited me, actually had gone to, I had found out through someone, another residence, about going to G land. So I'd actually already been to gland once as a surf doctor. But it was extremely remote and frightening, because if someone breaks a limb or a pelvis out there, you're in the middle of nowhere, and they had no equipment there. So you're really responsible for this person to get them somewhere safe. So that was pretty intense. I did have an experience out there of suturing people. Unfortunately, not anything too technical. So I'd had those two experiences just through word of mouth, really, that they wanted doctors on certain islands. But then to go to Tavarua, this woman in Malibu invited me to be their doctor for a week. And I thought, this is amazing. I'm this group's doctor. I think it was Becker surfboards week. And I went there and absolutely loved it because really, I was there as a guest and I was surfing as much as I could. And if they needed me to take care of someone's illness, they would just find wherever I was, whether I was on the island or not, and bring me back to help them. And I just thought, this is literally my perfect job. If I could be a surf doctor every day, it would feed both my passions and I would be completely content. So as much as I could, starting in around 2004 and five, I would travel to surf. And my motto was, will work for surf expert in the unexpected, that was. So that's how that gets started, really. Just being in the, honestly, being in the right place at the right time and just listening to the chatter of, of what was going on in the surf world.

[21:50] Sheila: Well, and following that passion because that all dovetailed together. Right. If you were a third year resident when you discovered surfing, is that what you said? So it all, yeah, that's just one of those stories of, you know, not so much if you build it, you will come, but just if you follow it, you know, it arrives because you literally put your, opened your whole heart to surfing and were transformed from the inside out. It was clearly meant to be, and then poof, you know, you're off on this other journey getting to blend those pieces. I also want to hear stories about, you know, your, some dramatic savings that you've done, because I know you've had some dramatic rescues. So maybe we'll start with the dramatic, your most dramatic rescues.

[22:38] Candice: Being an emergency medicine physician and then learning to surf just really brought me to this moment in my life where I was absolutely, again, in the right place at the right time for this person. And just really the pinnacle of my career was I went out with a, you know, group of women, and we were surfing at a break, and unbeknownst to us, one of the women had gone snorkeling, and we didn't really know her whereabouts. I didn't even know she was in the water snorkeling. And I took a wave and was going down the line and just turned around to people just absolutely going bananas and flagging me and waving me and screaming and boats spinning, and it was just complete chaos. So I thought there was a shark in the water. So I just paddled my heart out to the boat to get there. And when I get there, I noticed that there's blood in the water and there's a woman screaming, and there's a man trying to pull her up in the boat, and I'm like, where's the shark? Am I next? What is going, you know, just trying to get variants straight. And I look down the water, and I see this hole in this woman's leg. And just immediately going to my training, you know, working at a level one trauma center, you're taught to be the leader immediately, so you're just organizing everyone. So I immediately had them bring over a padded longboard, you know, one of the soft tops. Um, we were able to slide around the soft top. I organized people in the boat to bleed, lifting the soft top out of the boat and then her up into the boat. I jumped in the boat and stabilized her neck and started checking out, you know, airway, breathing, circulation, just a once over. And the crazy part, which still gives me chicken skin, is that she, this woman who got hit by the boat and not hit by. Not attacked by a shark, had let me borrow her rash guard. So I pulled my rash guard off, and she had a hole the size of, like, a shark bite in her leg, probably, you know, a half a foot by a half a foot, and I took off the rash guard. She let me borrow it and tied off her leg with it, which is so nuts, because I never in a million years, of course, thought I would be borrowing her rash card to save her own life.

[24:38] Sheila: Wow.

[24:38] Candice: And so what had turned out was that the boat had left the surfing area to go back to the island and didn't know that there was a snorkel in the water, and they were going directly into the sun, and they couldn't see the surface of the water with her dark hair and dark rash guard, and just literally hit her. And she had been hit her entire left side. So the. The front of the boat hit her head. She had a huge gash on her head, and then it broke her clavicle, her scapula, her shoulder, and then as she went under the boat, the propeller got her eye and took out a huge chunk of her thigh, broke her femur into 100 pieces, and then just ravaged the bottom of her leg. Chunks of lead, chunks of flesh out of the back of her calf.

[25:19] Sheila: Oh, my God.

[25:20] Candice: So it was around 430 in the afternoon, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is the golden hour. I have an hour to stabilize this lady. That's a term in emergency medicine that you have an hour to recess, resuscitate, and stabilize someone with their wounds, or they could bleed out and die. So we got her to shore again. I organized everyone to make sure they lifted her out carefully, and it was high tide, so we're, you know, in this kind of precarious, deep, deep water situation where we're lifting her off the boat and then we're walking her past into this little tiny facility we had there, which just had everything you had in urgent care, plus a few other things you would have in an emergency department, but not much. It was a tiny island we were staying on, and I knew it was going to be dark in an hour, and the helicopter cannot fly after dark. So as fast as I could, I put iv lines in, I stabilized her fractures, I stapled her big wounds. I stuffed gauze in her thigh. Actually, we put a Foley catheter in her bladder because she wasn't going to be able to get up, go to the bathroom. I gave her lots of morphine and started on oxygen because as I was in the room, the clinic, we call it, I realized that she had air under her skin, which meant her lung was leaking. And I could hear crackles in her lung. So I figured there was broken ribs and blood inside. So that made me even really more nervous. But I didn't share that with her because obviously she was already so traumatized by being hit by a boat in the propeller and all. So we got everything under control with the oxygen, the wounds, and we got her in a helicopter. And this was a hard moment for me because my three year old, I think she was three year old daughter was on the island. My husband and my stepson was there, and I literally had to fly back. You know, we. The helicopter landed on the sand, and then we backed up off the sand, and I'm looking at my three year old, who now I'm leaving on an island by herself with my husband. So there's no medical now on the island because I'm leaving. So we flew to the closest landmass, which was the bigger, a bigger country, and this was just an island off the country. And we landed in this backyard of the hospital, and there was lines of clothes being hung out, and these two guys come in this rickety old stretcher, and I'm like, this is it. Like, this is the hospital. It's just not. This is so under such an underdeveloped country. We get her in, we've got, you know, the iv bags. I'm still wearing my bikini. I've got an EMT with me who was amazing. And we get there in this hospital, and I'm like, okay, here she is. And I was like, we've got a, you know, 50 year old woman, and these are her injuries. And here you go, you know, order the labs, order the CAT scans or the x rays. And they just looked at me, and she looked at me, and they were like, we want you to run this code. And I was like, what? This is not my hospital. I don't have my medical license at this facility. Like, what do you mean? You want me to run this? And I. And she was just begging me. She's like, no, you have to run this. And so I just took over, and I ordered all the labs, I ordered all the CAT scans, I ordered all the x rays. I read all the films myself. The radiologist wasn't available. I realized I had to put a chest tube in her after we had to pay for the x rays and the CAT scans before I was allowed to read them. So we had to have the taxi driver go get money to pay the radiology department to read them. So I was able to see all of her injuries and knew what I needed to do, and we scanned her from head to toe. Fortunately, she didn't have any brain injuries, just the scalp wound, but she had blood in her lung. And I knew in order to transfer off the island to a, a more developed country that I had to put a chest tube in. And I'm just like, does this place even have a chest tube? So I asked, and they had one, and then I knew I had to sedate her to stick the chest tube in, but the anesthesiologist wasn't around to watch her air, well, airway, while I put the chest tube in. And I didn't realize how green the nurses were. So the nurses put in a couple milligrams of rased to put her to sleep so I can put the chest tube in, and nothing. She's completely wide awake, and I wait a few minutes, and I'm like, well, maybe she just is not really reacting to it because just her physiology. So then they put another two milligrams of her set in, and she literally, and then I see them flush it, and I was like, wait, they didn't flush it the first time. So now they flush four milligrams of her set in her, and they completely knock her out unconscious, and she stops breathing. So now I'm bagging this lady still in my wet bathing suit, and I'm giving her oxygen and keeping her airway going and yelling for them to go get the anesthesiologist who's not on the hospital campus. And we just. I just know, though, the medicine's going to wear off. I just got to hold on. And eventually this medicine's going to wear off enough so that she's breathing on her own. So we get to that point. I put the chest tube in, and literally, after everything's all wrapped up and she's got the chest tube in, it's draining the blood and the air out of her lung. The anesthesiologist shows up, the orthopedist shows up. Everyone shows up. It was the strangest reality that I was in this hospital, you know, taking care of this person with no medical identification and doing everything, and there was just no backup. It was so bizarre.

[30:24] Sheila: It's this. I wish people could see the video because my mouth has been hanging open this whole time, but. Yeah, but go on.

[30:31] Candice: That was the most bizarre experience. So I finally wrangled the orthopedic surgeon into helping me, splinting a lot of the wounds and the leg. And, you know, just. It was. They were just so under equipped to handle this kind of trauma. And I had actually heard that a woman earlier that day, or a man, I'm not sure, witch had their arm cut off by a boat and died. And I completely understood why because they just don't have that type of training at that hospital to take care of a life threatening injury. So we stayed up. You know, we were up from six to the morning before 04:00. The accident happened. It was now coming around to four in the morning. And I, after we had stabilized all our injuries and splinted everything and stapled everything, and a jet arrived to take her to a more developed country to do surgery on her various fractures and wounds. So that was a real sense of relief that we had a. I believe it was a french doctor arrived with an assistant and I gave report to him and all the paperwork that I had and as many of the studies I could get my hands on. But that wasn't easy either. And I actually was going to transfuse her as well. But the blood that showed up was just in this styrofoam ice box with writing all over the outside of it. And I opened the box and I felt it. It was kind of warm. And I just thought, I'm not going to give her this blood. So, fortunately, she did. Okay. Her hemoglobin, which is how much red blood cells you have in your body, did drop in trans transit. But she went from a twelve to an eight, which is totally acceptable. We start transfusing people under seven.

[32:01] Sheila: Yeah.

[32:02] Candice: Uh, so it was a. It was a mass trauma. So generally, in a normal trauma center, she would have gotten transfused right away. But I just was risk versus benefit. I didn't know how well the blood was screened.

[32:11] Sheila: I think it's hard to count how many times you saved their life in that day. I mean, I think it was repeated. It was repeated.

[32:20] Candice: It was like being. Surfing a wave and wiping out over and over again and getting back up on the surfboard. It was metaphorically what I'd been doing.

[32:29] Sheila: For years while being dragged over the reef and. And locked inside on a reef where you can't get back out and having to surf your way out. Yeah, that's so. Wow. So how, um. And she obviously survived. Um, she did.

[32:45] Candice: She survived. She had a very tough recovery. She had probably a half dozen surgeries to fix her femur. Um, they did some surgery. I'd never seen anyone who broke all the important structures in your shoulder, the scapula, your, you know, your humerus bone, and your clavicle. That was pretty intense. And then. So she had some surgery there. There was a lot of physical therapy. There was a lot of psychological therapy. She had a lot of chronic pain. She walked with a cane probably for over a year, and this was a very fit 50 year old woman.

[33:20] Sheila: Did you stay in touch with her? It sounds like you did. Yeah.

[33:23] Candice: Yeah, we stayed in touch for a long time.

[33:26] Sheila: So here's a question I have for you, based on your experience. And things have changed again. They keep changing over time. You know, what do you recommend for women who want to go on these adventurous surf trips and who. Well, sort of at all levels. But it's true that the medical care is limited in a lot of places. I had my own experience in Costa Rica, which was a little bit. This was back in 2001, but I was injured out on a boat by witch's rock, and I slashed my head open, and I needed stitches. And when I went first to, um, you know, there was sort of a neighborhood doctor. It was before witches rock surf camp was where it is now. It was, like, right in the very beginning, and it was in this little town, and they took me to this local doctor, and they wouldn't even see me because it was a head injury. And so they sent me into the hospital, which was, you know, not a, you know, it was not a country hospital, but walking in there with a head injury, I had a concussion. I did know a little Spanish, but I couldn't remember anything. And luckily, I had this taxi driver who actually completely took pity on me and went in and talked to the doctors. They had people lining the aisles, you know, were lying groaning on the ground in this hospital and, you know, not being treated. This taxi driver went up and talked to. There were armed guards, and this taxi driver talked to the guards and got me prioritized into this. Next thing I know, I was in this little room, and then the doctors were talking, and I just saw them doing this, like, zigzag thing, you know, over there that they were going to, like, shave my head and do a zigzag. And I'm trying to understand what's going on, and I just hear them say, like, ah, la table des cerf. And then finally I was sort of able to get clear headed enough, and they did a good job with the stitches, but they left me. So my head was caked with blood. Just, you know, completely had been running down my hair and I had tried. I'd taken too long, actually, the boat. I didn't want the other people to lose their session, so I just bled out while I was.

[35:32] Candice: Oh, you're such a typical female. That's exactly right.

[35:36] Sheila: I mean, how stupid. It's just like, oh, and it was like a foot. It was 1ft and it was a terrible day. But I was kind of new at surfing, only been surfing six months, and, oh, I know what, it would wreck everybody's session. That's a really good point that you're making. So we'll come back to that.

[35:51] Candice: Oh, my God, a guy would be out of there so fast. I mean, not to be sexist, but I did the same thing. One of my first surf trips to big sur, I twisted my ankles so badly, but I said to the guy that I was surfing with, you know, just go out there and have your surf session. And by the time he got back, I was in so much pain. I was literally seeing stars. And I'm like, why did I just let him go surf?

[36:10] Sheila: Yeah.

[36:10] Candice: And not have him, like, carry it, carry me out, which is what he did when he came back.

[36:14] Sheila: Right, right. What is.

[36:17] Candice: We're not willing to just say, like, you know what? I'm really hurt. Let's just get out of here. I'm sorry you're missing your surf session, but it's time to go. Yeah.

[36:24] Sheila: When it was an hour boat ride back from, you know. So I had an hour boat ride and another 45 minutes taxi ride and then another 45 to hour minute hour hour ride to the hospital. And then they got me into the hospital and, yeah, they ended up. They sewed me up. But it's not like an american hospital, right? Like, then they're like, oh, I mean, I was just covered in blood and it was all caked and they didn't end up shaving my head. And they're like, oh, there's a sink over there. Go ahead. And so there was like a sink. It was cold water. I'm like, dick being my head and then the blood just pouring down the front of me, like, is it doing it? But it really scared me because I had friends and at the time, you know, Nicaragua now is much more developed in the surf world. But back then it was still. I mean, I grew up in the Sandinista time. Right. So going to Nicaragua sounded a little scary to me. And my friends were going across the border, and that was 2001. And I was like, I. I don't think I can take any more remote injury situations than this. Like, this was actually scary enough for me. And back then, it really wasn't well set up. So, uh, yeah, as a surf doctor, I would ask, you know, what do you recommend? You know, are there places that are a little better staffed now? Um, or are there places that you wouldn't recommend people go on surf trips? Well, I shouldn't put it that way.

[37:42] Candice: Let's.

[37:43] Sheila: Let's put it more to, like, what, you know, where could there be positive experiences? Because these things do happen. You're an emergency doctor, right? So you see this stuff.

[37:58] Candice: This is such an important question, and I. It's so valuable to have, and it's actually, I had an inspiration to actually work on this problem about ten years, but just was overwhelmed with my job in the ER. But I had a very similar experience from the. The minute I learned to surf at the surf diva camp in Mexico was same thing. A woman was hit in the head, needed stitches, went to the local hospital. They were coding a guy who was dying in the next room. She. The guy came in to look at her head but wasn't going to put gloves on because they didn't have any gloves. And she flipped out and she knew I was at surf diva camp somehow through the, you know, coconut mexican wireless and came back to me and said, will you staple my head? And I go, well, I brought a staple gun, but I didn't bring lidocaine because I just kind of hazardly packed. So we gave her like, a shot at Tequila, and she ended up letting me staple her head with no lidocaine because she felt more comfortable having me do it than the local guy at the clinic or hospital she had driven an hour to. So I totally understand your story. And the reality is, previously, and even now in a lot of countries, and I've been in Nicaragua, surfing. So I know what you mean. They're not set up for this type of surf injuries and acute care that tourists need. And I think one of the things you can do is really, if you're going to go surfing, is find out where am I going to go if I do get injured and look into it. And what's the clinic with the best reputation or the hospital with the best reputation and how am I going to get there? And that's actually one of the reasons I stopped being a surf doctor in gland and can do a resort, because technically, to get somebody to a hospital or facility from those places is so challenging. And I knew that I would be responsible for that person for such a long period of time that it was just overwhelming. And I feel like more often than not, and I could go on with many surf stories that have happened to me. I've just been in places where I've had to spend long hours taking care of people. I once had driving out of Mexico and had a van flip over in front of me and had to take care of 14 people. So I just thought going to someplace like Tavarua, where there's a doctor on the island is genius. So if you can go somewhere as a new surf surfer, or even as a more experienced surfer, and have someone available to fix your surf injury, I think that's the best solution to that. And then as a backup, if you're going somewhere like Nicaragua or Costa Rica or somewhere where there's not, is to just do a little bit of research and find out who's available and who would you, who you would call. And one of the things I would like to make available in the future is to make a surf doctor app where you could go on the app and check in and maybe find out those things. And I could do a little research about these different places and figure out where you could go and then actually even offer my services. So, oh, you need to contact me regarding an injury or where you should go or what I. Or if I think you need stitches or not, and I could help you out. I just haven't gotten to that point in my career where I have that luxury of being available. Twenty four seven.

[40:53] Sheila: Oh, that would be genius. And I also know that you talked Carla through. I'm going to say to listeners that my very first recording was Carla, and the recording didn't work, but we keep referencing her and we have to get her story back on. But you're talking about sort of telemedicine for surfing. And so I'll let you tell the story of Carla's ankle. Literally. She helped our friend set her ankle with a sarong on the beach, um, from island to island, um, from Kauai to Hawaii. So, uh, yeah, how would that work? So you can maybe walk us through what you did and what it would look like if you're doing Doctor Candy's telemedicine. Um, right.

[41:41] Candice: Oh, my gosh. So Carla calls me. I can't even remember. I think I might have been on the way to the work or something. But she sent me a picture of her ankle, and I was just shocked. I mean, it. It looked deformed, but I couldn't quite see exactly. And I had her send me a couple of different angles, and she had broken and dislocated her ankle. And she was sitting in the back of her truck, and I was like, how can I explain to her to relocate her ankle and get it stable enough to get to the hospital because she's going to be so uncomfortable for ankles, just her foot just dangling off of her leg. So I basically told her how to position the sarong underneath her foot and pull upwards to relocate it, and then how to tie it off to keep her ankle stable to make it to the ER. And she is just, you know, one of those amazing people who can. Is so tough and can follow instruction really well. So she basically relocated her own ankle before she got. She did, solved half the problem before she got back to the or to the hospital, and then sent me pictures of the fracture. And unfortunately, she ended up having to have some hardware placed in there. Um, but definitely, yeah, in the surfing world, you got to learn how to save yourself. And I think having a little bit guidance is someone to help walk you through it is super helpful. It's there. Those type of injuries aren't that common, but it would be good to have someone, you know, tell a telemedicine available to help you through it.

[42:56] Sheila: Well, your app is super genius. When you have time, you know, when. Whenever this occurs in your life, it would be amazing. Um, I mean, I like both those ideas so much. Just being able to locate and pinpoint, you know, what would be available to me. How far is it? I know I took out the travel insurance so I could have been medevac and whatever. That's another thing I would mention, and I'm sure you would, too, is to take out travel insurance.

[43:21] Candice: Always 100%. The woman who got hit by the boat actually had two travel insurance companies, um, which is over the top, but, I mean, it was a million dollar cost when it's all said and done, so that that $100 policy for two weeks is wallet saving. And a lot of times, places don't want to just take your credit card and fly you out of there. They want to know you have travel insurance, and it's so much easier to get a ride in a helicopter if you have travel insurance, especially when it's a tourist helicopter, that you're not their priority. Making money is their priority, especially in underdeveloped countries. So, yeah, there's I've used travel guard and AIG. I think you have to look at their policies pretty carefully because sometimes they don't cover surfing and other dangerous sports. But I always travel with travel insurance 100% every time. And do it a couple days even before you get on your flight because we'll cover your flight too.

[44:10] Sheila: Right? Yeah. That's great. That's great suggestion. And it's true. I know there are things they exclude. I think there may be surfing in certain places. Yeah, we'd have to do read the fine print and all of that. But just being able to be medevaced can be completely critical. And I don't know, with so much tourism and ecotourism and surf tourism in Costa Rica and even in Nicaragua, they may have really made a lot of strides since I was last there. I'm sure the people that have gone to the surf camps could speak to that.

[44:46] Candice: And there's so many surf divas goes to. No, Sara, Costa Rica now. And there is a little urgent care clinic where the guy, I actually went and visited him when I was there as a surf doctor for them a couple of years ago. And he's. He's got quite a good clinic in that town. So I think there's definitely been some upgrades in terms of surf doctoring type experiences and also english speaking doctors that are available to you quite often in the, in the heavy, heavily surfed areas or. But he, I don't think he has an x ray machine yet, so, you know.

[45:17] Sheila: Yeah. Like I said though, I went to the one with the x ray, but they wouldn't x ray me because it was a head injury. So they had. Yeah, and it was a different, in fact, I never did get an x ray, so they just, they just sewed it up. And I didn't realize I had a concussion until later when it was just really obvious. I was cranky. I was, you know, sleepy. I couldn't remember any Spanish. I mean, I was hardly a fluid speaker, but, you know. Yeah. So I want to ask you also about. There's a couple key things, because you talked about being in a male dominated world in medicine, and then what has been a male dominated sport in surfing. I'm curious how those have both changed over time or if they have, and what your life has been like pioneering, really, in both of those environments.

[46:07] Candice: Yes, definitely both. World surfing and medicine are very male dominated. I really struggled in the beginning. Medical school was tough, definitely treated differently. I was actually sexually harassed by my instructor in medical school, which unfortunately was a volunteer. And I was able to have him fired. But then when you went to residency, it wasn't as easy. I was one of two female residents in my class of 18 men in emergency medicine at La county hospital. And there was some bad behavior that went on. And I actually had went to a woman's college. And so right when I hit med school, I was. I was ready. I wasn't going to put up with this instructor who was harassing me. But then as you get beaten down in residency, you're working, you know, 100 hours a week and people are making comments to you. Inappropriate, you know, slightly inappropriate.

[46:59] Sheila: What are they?

[46:59] Candice: There's some word that I love. Um. Oh, gosh, I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, it's a way. It's like a backhanded. There's like backhanded sexist comments. There's subtle sexism. There's a lot of subtle sexism that goes on in medicine. Or. And there's also subtle racism as well, obviously. And so you really are like, wait, did that. Did that person just totally insult me because I'm a woman? You just kind of. You did I hear that right? Or I would be on. I remember there was this. I would fly to the hyperbaric chamber in Catalina and do cases with Benz, and we would. I would go down to depth in the chambers with patients. And the guy on the other line was a complete pervert, but he was so subtle, the way he said things to me that I couldn't really pin him on anything. And I just. There's a lot of experiences like that, I have to say, through residency. And then even as an attending, just the fight was so hard to even combat that I would just sort of pretend like I didn't hear and just move on and take care of patients and really not. Really not pay much attention to it and not take it personally. And it wasn't really until, honestly, the last year when this whole hashtag medbekini equity and medicine opportunity came out that I was like, you know what? I am over this. Like, I'm done with all this subtle sexism, overt sexism, and just really spoke out against it. And really.

[48:20] Sheila: Oh, yeah, talk about that campaign. That was going to be my next question. So. Yeah, talk about that. Because it kind of morphs over to surfing as well, too.

[48:28] Candice: Yeah, I think just, you know, years of sexism in medicine just beat all women down in medicine. And we kind of just do our best with what we have available to us. But I was sent basically a social media post and it was talking about an article that was written and published in a reputable journal, the vascular Surgery journal, and it described women versus men's social media accounts. And female vascular surgeons who wore bikinis, Halloween costumes, and drank beer were deemed unprofessional, where the men who were doing the same activity were not. And this was like, a statistically proven study. So as you can imagine, every female vascular surgeon just lost it. And then on top of that, any female in healthcare lost it because they thought, how dare this journal article make a statistically significant finding that women can't share their lives in social media and that this is going to reflect upon their profession. They basically concluded the article saying that they wouldn't have patients come to their office as a vascular surgeon because they were unprofessional. So literally everyone jumped on this. And I had a social media account for my daughter, which I kept as a photo album, and I didn't have one for myself. And I actually just started one in April of 2020 and thought, maybe people will be interested in hearing about what a surf doctor does and the type of injuries I take care of and what my life is like here on Kauai. And I had 300 friends, basically followers. And I one day I just hit the public button and around. It was basically around that time I posted myself reenacting the scene of me saving that person's life that I did on untold stories. It's called doctor bikini. And they'd photograph me in a bikini saving a man's life, because when you duplicate an actual injury, you don't want to duplicate any likeness to the person, obviously, to hide their. To keep them anonymous. And so I posted this picture and basically said, I'm here in a bikini in the middle of the ocean. I can save your life. And this is exactly how I'm going to save your life. And I basically walk through every step, as I told you the story of how I saved her life. And it basically synergized the two worlds of the social media. I'm in my bikini, and the professional doctor I can save and brought together, like, I can save your life regardless of what I'm wearing. It doesn't matter. This is absolutely ridiculous. And because I synergize those two diverse professional versus unprofessional into a photo, I think that's why my photo went viral and it went from 300 likes of my friends to 260,000 likes and spread literally across the globe and was translated into multiple different languages. And on the front page, I think I was under the president and above Kanye west, you know, real ridiculous moment of looking at myself in a bikini next to Kim Kardashian. So I was really scared, though, honestly, because I am a fairly private person and I just wasn't really ready for fame. And I'm not the founder of the hash medbekini movement. I literally was just posting the person, and I'm sorry, I can't remember her name right now. Who started it was a medical student who basically got ahold of this and was like, this is ridiculous. Hash medbekini. We can wear whatever the heck we want. And everyone just did the same thing. They put a photo up of them in a bikini, not necessarily saving anyone's life, but every doctor, every healthcare worker posted hash medbekini. It doesn't matter what are what I wear in my personal life. I can save your life. I can take care of you. This is just crap. So, yeah, it was just hashtag cancelsexism 2020, and it just carried on, and it just really snowballed into a worldwide campaign of standing up for our rights and finding equity and medicine for women. So I'm proud to be part of it. And I became basically the voice and doing podcasts and articles, and it's been exciting for me because I eventually embraced it. And I went to a women's college, and I was happy. If I'm going to be stuck on a podium, to be on the podium of equity and women's rights and medicine, that's a fair place for me to stand.

[52:37] Sheila: I think that's awesome. And there really is a parallel equity in women's rights and medicine, equity and women's rights in professional sports, and particularly in the surfing world and the WSL last year, I think it was actually happened in 2019, but because 2020 didn't happen, made female surfers paid the same as men. One of the few sports to do that. I recently saw a post for a WNBA player versus a NBA player, where the WNBA player, after 18 years in the WNBA, made 230,000. And then there was the one for 40 million. I mean, I don't even know. It's such a crazy number. And we were saying, like, when we grew up, women played sports, but so much has changed. I mean, it was not, you couldn't be pretty and play sports. You couldn't. But then if you were pretty, you know, then that became something else. And then there's lots of. Lots of evidence in the surfing world of women who do not get sponsored because they don't look like bikini models in the same way or have the features that are going to translate to Billabong, which never worked, which is never the same for men. So, you know, all of these things are related. But the thought that I was having was about the, you know, you were saying, posing in your bikini next to Kim Kardashian, where do you think body image comes in? You know, have you dealt with body shame and surfing? Do you deal with your, you know, how do you handle body image? Because I feel like it's part of that in the professional world, too. It's like, are they saying, oh, you're not hot enough to. You're too hot to be showing your body and be a surgeon? There's some sort of weird mindset there.

[54:31] Candice: Like, I think it's both. I think we were on that tightrope of, yeah, you're too hot to be on social media. How can you be a successful surgeon? And then also on the other end of it, you're not hot enough to be posting pictures of you in a bikini. You shouldn't be doing that because you're not pretty enough. So we live in this dichotomous world of too hot, not hot enough, and there's no middle ground. And I think body shaming for us as girls starts at a very young age. In fact, sadly, I've seen it with my daughter. Started in first grade. She had one of her friends picked her up and said, you're heavy, and then picked up the girl next to her who just has a different body type. Neither of them are too skinny or too heavy and said, you're. You're too light, you're too skinny. So, I mean, there's just, these kids are both perfectly fine in their weight size, but, yeah, I think from the very such an early age, we self internalize body dysmorphia and, and not liking our body. I look back at pictures of myself when I was 20, when I thought I was fat and I was a twig, and then even, like, going on to surf divas. I guess learning to surf at 32, I didn't feel like I had the right body type to be surfing. And it took me a long time to realize there's no right body type for surfing. Your body is really just a machine, a muscular machine that needs to be taught how to surf. And it 100% doesn't matter what you look like from the outside when you're doing it. It just matters what you feel like when you're doing it. But that takes every day to feel like that, and it's a fight that I constantly have with myself. I can't say that there's ever a day that goes by where I don't have to fight off some negative thought in my head of, you know, I'm not. My muscles aren't quite where I want them to be, or my figure's not quite where I want it to be. So I think body shaming starts really early, unfortunately, and it's something that we need to start with, you know, meditation and yoga and positive self talk in our heads. And that's one of the beautiful things about this generation, is that there's books like strong is the new pretty and talks to girls about body image that we didn't have when we were kids. And just going back to that one other point that you were saying about women, I think it was Kiana Kennely. Am I saying her name right?

[56:52] Sheila: Yeah.

[56:52] Candice: Yeah.

[56:52] Sheila: Kiana. Yeah.

[56:54] Candice: Still after living in Hawaii for three years.

[56:56] Sheila: I know, I know. Yeah.

[56:57] Candice: She and a lot of the big boy of surfers got together, and I follow her and just am so impressed with her speaking out and also not following the stereotype of wearing bikini surfing. She wears board shorts and just came out with their own line of board shorts that are comfortable for women to surf in, because oftentimes male board shorts are the design for women's board shorts, and those are not comfortable to surf in. So I think there's a lot more options of what to wear. And I feel very much that when I first started surfing, I was supposed to be surfing in a bikini, and if I wasn't surfing a bikini with the bikini bottoms falling off, then, you know, that wasn't what a surfer looked like. So I think we've come a long way in terms of what a surfer looks like and accepting all body types and. And, of course, paying people equal amounts for equal performances in surfing has been huge. And not letting them run contests on the north Shore, which went on for nine years, there was no female contests on the north Shore, and now they have to, if they're going to have a male contest on the north Shore, they have to have a female contest. And I think that's revolutionary that they were able to make that comeback for women in surfing, and incredible that the money has come back as well, or not come back. But is there?

[58:03] Sheila: Yeah, it's coming. I mean, it is really exciting, and it funny. I had to overcome. It's embarrassing to admit, but I had to overcome my own stereotypes about male versus female athlete. I'm not an athlete. I mean, I love to surf. I'm a soul surfer, but I've never been as good at anything as I wish I was. So, you know, I knew people who were very high level athletes, but I really have had my own prejudice in my own head about, well, you know, men can blast those errors and look how high they go and how fast they go. Like, I didn't even realize it was in there until, you know, the same with, you know, women's basketball versus men's basketball or whatever. Like, there's that always that comparison. Well, they can jump higher. They can do this, they can do that. But what I've discovered is, is women's bodies are completely different than men's. And so, you know, I just relate and understand women's bodies. Like, what a men can do, that's great, but I actually am really losing interest in what men can do because I just, it's not my body. So. So I've been watching, I've gotten really into the women's pro surfing world, and I watched the challenger series. The US Open at Huntington beach was so exciting. And I'm just funny. I'm like the opposite. Like, I fast forward to the man. I'm like, beep, beep, beep, you know, and then get to the women because I can watch where they look. I mean, I'll never surf like any of these women, but I can watch how their hips work. I can watch how their, their, their shoulders work, and everything moves just a little slower so I can see it, too. You know, to me, it's, and they're, so they have this grace and power, and they're just rad. I mean, I wrote a whole series trying to get non surfers to watch the Olympics because just understanding the level of athleticism that these women have, it's, it's unbelievable, the conditioning that you have to have to perform at these levels.

[59:57] Candice: So, um, men don't have the one most powerful organ in the human body, and that's the uterus. Absolutely amazing. Muscle wall can grow. You know, I think it's something like 1520 times the size that any other, you know, any other muscle in your body and make a human. So, I mean, for that alone, fine, maybe they can do a little bit of a bigger air than me, but I can make a baby. So I think it all comes back to that. Like, great, you can go a foot higher than me. But, no, I think, and I think women's surfing has changed. I think they are doing, starting to do more airs and more powerful, definitely. And I, you know, surfing in Tavarua when I see, you know, these amazing surfers, I can't tell if a woman or a man's coming down the line half the time because they're so powerful. I remember I was out there. Oh, my gosh. And now I'm forgetting her name. I can remember her mom's name, Stephanie. But, um, shoot, that's going to make me so upset that I can't remember her name. But she was so powerful, and the way her legs moved, I was like, oh, that so and so this surf pro coming down, but it was a woman coming down the line. Just going back a little bit of what you said about watching female surfing, I think it is so much more graceful and beautiful to watch in their form. It's just a different style. And also, even going back to body image, if you read about Chris Amore and her struggle with surfing and how she felt about herself and her body and her struggle with weight, I mean, this is the number one surfer in the world struggled with body image like that. There was an article I read that was just so beautifully written by herself and what she had to put herself through in her mindset. And, you know, it just, it hits everyone. It doesn't matter if you're an Olympic champion. You have body dysmorphia, and you have to. She had to overcome it to become the best surfer in the world. And I think that really humanizes her and makes her relatable to all women. That right, like you said, we're never going to be an Olympic surfer. But, you know, there, there's not much that separates us from them in terms of mindset, except, you know, maybe 20 and the opportunities that they have now. So, I mean, Sheila, I think you could have been an Olympic surfer. I think we just, we weren't in.

[01:02:05] Sheila: The right, no, the right place at.

[01:02:08] Candice: The right time, at the right age.

[01:02:11] Sheila: I don't think I could have been an Olympic surfer, but maybe if I'd started at five. Um, I was really, really fearless as a kid, so that might have helped. But I watch how these people do things, and that's okay. Like, I'm okay. I would like to be. I still have huge goals. You know, I just figured out, this is so crazy, and then we'll wrap up in a minute. I just discovered surf teaching videos, and, you know, I've always just thought I had to figure this stuff out, and it's not been going well. You know, I've been doing it for 21 years, and I make the same mistakes. And so I just figured out the most basic thing. I cannot believe it. Or I was taught this, and then my daughter pointed out to me that I do this wrong. And she's one of these kinesthetic learners, that she just sees it. So, which is when you're paddling for a wave, okay, and you're going, you're supposed to look up the wave. What I realized I did is I don't look down, but I don't look at the trough of the wave or I look at the shore. So I even made my own memes of you focus where you know you are, where you're focused. But I still was not looking down the wave, right up the wave. And so I've been doing that. This is. I mean, this is last week, I had this surf epiphany, and all of a sudden I'm like, not stalling backside. And I'm like, oh, my. This on a short board, so they're different. I'm more comfortable on eight foot board, but I'm still learning. Those Olympics are coming.

[01:03:41] Candice: No, I agree. I was three years into surfing, same thing, and I didn't realize that if I was about to Pearl, if I just did a little bit of a chest press and lifted my shoulders off the board, I wouldn't purl.

[01:03:54] Sheila: Right.

[01:03:54] Candice: Or if I wanted to catch the wave, if I tucked my chin in, I could catch the wave. Like such basic things.

[01:03:59] Sheila: Let me see. I don't know about that. I think I do that, but, yeah.

[01:04:03] Candice: So I basically, one of the waves I learned to surf out was cloud break on a nine foot board. None of the boys told me that. When I. Well, after I graduated from the nine foot board. None of them told me that when you duck dive in a reef, you don't grip the board with your fingers underneath that. You put your hands on top so you don't scrape your fingers on the reef. So I went three years of scraping my fingers on the reef until someone said, why are you curling your fingers into the board?

[01:04:30] Sheila: Nobody ever told me that. But I think. I think I do it kind of instinctively, in a way, because I surf in the reef, but not as conscientiously as now that you've mentioned it. So, okay, we'll end with this. What is one? Maybe something you've picked up because you're always learning, too. Just something, maybe, since learning to Kauai. But is one progression that you've made after surfing all this time? And I think learning as an adult, it really makes us constantly adapt. So have you had a surf epiphany or any kind of adjustment that you might offer. Gosh.

[01:05:07] Candice: Well, I mean, being as a physician and a surf doctor on islands, I'm really careful about when I choose to surf. And I think that has become more and more important as I age as well, is, I mean, if you have the opportunity to surf low tide or high tide surf high tide, there's no reason to surf low tide if there's a high tide session during the day. And also, um, you know, basically, sun protections, huge. There's companies now which make full body proof you don't have to subject yourself to skin cancer. Why not just wear a full suit? That's like a swimsuit. There's a great company called Tutu Blue that makes them. I think, um, is what I've been using lately, that, and then I would just say, yeah, just conditions that you go out and surfing in and really, when you do take the wave, committing to it 100%, and really watching which waves you take, like, you don't have to just take a wave because it's coming to you. Is there a shoulder on it and, you know, look down the line, is it going to close out? Would I want to get on this wave? I think wave selection has become really important to me, what I'm willing to go on and how, you know, because I don't want to get hurt at this point in my career as a doctor or a surfer.

[01:06:15] Sheila: And how do you battle that in your head when you've got competition all around? Like, you know, if a peak is crowded, does that wave eventually come to you, the one that you want, if you're patient?

[01:06:26] Candice: I think so. I usually, I usually try to not surf near anyone if it's possible. And quiet is a little bit more possible than other places. I actually choose to go out sometimes at noon because there's less surfers, and I wear my full, full piece with the zipper up and back swimsuit. Um, so I try to stay away from the crowds, first of all. But if there are crowds, I just let them catch their waves, because, like, honestly, and I don't know if it's a female thing, I just need one really good wave for my session. I don't need the wave count, I don't need 20 waves. So I kind of, like, let them go and then hope that a set is going to keep coming and I can line myself up to get a perfect ride, because I'd much rather have, like, a couple great rides than take as many as possible and wipe out on a few and not have the sharing and social graces with other surfers here, and I think being on Hawaii, there's a lot more aloha than other surf breaks. And people are kind of more careful about letting each other get ways, but not always. I mean, like you said, there's places where it's very competitive and people will racetrack you and just. I mean, I can't even imagine growing up in Malibu, and I worked in Malibu for ten years at the urgent care, and I finally stopped surfing there because I got racetracked all the time, and I'm.

[01:07:32] Sheila: Oh, that would have been tough. Yeah. I didn't really surf there as an adult. I went and I surfed county line, and I surfed zeros, which is a break I really liked. But it's gotten. It's just gnarly. It's just gnarly.

[01:07:44] Candice: End up having to drop in on people.

[01:07:46] Sheila: Yeah, I just can't. I just can't. Yeah, I don't have it. I surface far away, like I say. Anyway, that's my wave is a good wave. Like, especially if it's, you know, far, far away from someone. But I really. I really love how you put that together. Just wave selection, putting your. Giving yourself all those opportunities. Surfing. If you have the opportunity to surf when it's left crowded surfer, there's less injury, you know, possible. Go ahead and be patient, you know, or if you. And also, you know, fatigue adds to injury. I know that's when I've gotten hurt the most, is when I get really tired. And so if I'm. Sometimes I think I would just want to surf the inside and get more waves, but then I get myself really fatigued, and, you know, can. Then I. And then I get myself frustrated, and, you know, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. But all of those are huge tidbits now. Okay, last I looked today, and you have 30,000 Instagram followers now, so more than 300. That's grown a bit. So it's Doctor Candy surf vival, drcandysurfbival. And I will tell you, she's just so much fun to follow. Anyways, she may be talking with her bunny and giving you some medical information. She's so upbeat and, like, you just come off, Candace. Like, you are so positive but so incredibly grounded. And, you know, it's amazing, amazing mixture that you've got going on there and so educated, and so you're just awesome.

[01:09:24] Candice: So I really appreciate it. That's so kind of you. And I. I'm actually working on a book called Sex Surf Suture Scars, and it's about a surf doctor traveling and also talks about other important issues. I struggled with endometriosis and infertility, and it does talk about the surf accident I took care of and what it's like to be a female physician and. But I also wanted just to make a fun surf travel book. So when you go on vacation, it's a 300 page book. You can read and kind of dive into someone else's life and see what it's like to be a surf doctor. And all the tales and fun tales, too. Not all serious.

[01:10:00] Sheila: So what was the title again?

[01:10:02] Candice: I think I talked about sex surf sutures scars.

[01:10:07] Sheila: Okay, one more time. I'm going to be quiet.

[01:10:09] Candice: Sex surf sutures scars. A surf doctor's story of love and trauma in the lineup.

[01:10:16] Sheila: Oh, my gosh, I'm excited. I can't wait to read it. So everybody follow her so you know when it's coming out. Thank you so much for spending all this time and talking with me. It was really. And for being a part of this very beginning, you know, startup adventure of hearing women's voices about our lives in the water.

[01:10:36] Candice: Yeah, I love this. I love this podcast title. It's incredible. And I can't wait to hear all the other people you interview and also to share waves with you and surf with you.

[01:10:46] Sheila: Yeah, me too.