“I’m sorry but I can’t. I’ll be at work.” How many times was that her response? How many times was she not able to chaperone a school field trip, or watch her son’s baseball practice, or do other things that parents with more flexibility could do? “Too many,” said Dr. Carla Gunn-Samson, reflecting on her 16 years working in private practice as a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist. She’s now her own boss, having last year opened Hibiscus and Honey, a medical and aesthetic spa that provides a range of services and therapies for women. With the career change have come tradeoffs, the most obvious being sacrificing security and routines for risks and fresh challenges, but for Dr. Carla the shift has been transformative. “I see the world differently now,” she said.

Carla was just 5 when she declared she wanted to be a doctor, which surely brought smiles to her father (who worked in a steel factory) and mother (a teacher’s aid). Of course, kids are always professing what they want to be when they grow up – but Carla’s vision never wavered. From her home in Indiana she went to college at Hampton University in Virginia (majoring in molecular biology) and was always a focused and high-achieving student. Next stop was med school at UConn – which in its effort to attract top black students worked to build connections with Hampton and other HBCUs to ensure diversity and equity in its candidate pool. She learned pretty quickly what she didn’t want to do (pediatrics) and next crossed out internal medicine and eventually settled on OB/GYN – graduating in 2006 and then getting to work.

Doctors are compensated fairly and have a deserved level of stature but the work can be incredibly stressful – and for OB/GYNs the schedule can be especially draining, as pregnancies are inherently unpredictable and women going through labor bring a team of professionals with them. And while Dr. Carla loved so much of what she did, as a mom she didn’t love the lifestyle sacrifices. But what could someone with her skillset do? Her search for options began where every search does these days. On Google. Laser therapy made sense, but required training, so she got going on that. She created an LLC. She contacted SCORE, which is a network of free business mentors. Dr. Carla’s husband is a dentist with his own office, and she said he’s been super-supportive. Hibiscus and Honey opened last April in a sort of soft launch and in June she left her practice to run her company full time.
Hormone and testosterone replacement therapy. Medical weight loss. Laser hair removal. Those are some of the services offered, and while each patient has a specific profile with different needs they all have the same fundamental desire for health and happiness. As Dr. Carla writes on her website,  “I have developed a deeper understanding of how we sometimes love ourselves from the outside in. I have learned how our differences actually make us more alike.” And, yes, doctors are people, too, and her pursuit of the sort of well-being that she wants for her patients meant getting a new job herself. “It’s definitely been a ride,” she said, reflecting on the past year or so.  “I see things now that I just couldn't see before.” That literally includes more time with her son, who is 15 years old now and will be off to college before you know it. Until then and beyond, Dr. Carla can now move more often and easily into mom mode. And when opportunities and invitations arise, she said, ”It feels so good to be able to say yes.”