On having empathy, understanding you belong in the room as a woman physician

Payel Gupta, MD, FACAAI, says the busier she is, the more efficient she is, which may explain how she is able to balance caring for patients, running a company, hosting a podcast and teaching.

“I thrive on having diversity in my day and my week,” she told Healio. “I’m a night owl and an early riser at times in order to make all this happen, but it keeps me happy and keeps me going.”

Gupta currently serves as the medical director of allergy, asthma, immunology and ENT at the telemedicine company LifeMD.com, and as a clinical instructor at Mount Sinai Health System. She also owns her own practice, Ease Allergy, and co-hosts The Itch Podcast, an educational podcast about allergies, asthma and immunology, in addition to serving on the Healio Women in Allergy Peer Perspective Board.

‘Not a typical physician’

Allergies and asthma run in Gupta’s family, and it was this familial link that inspired her interest in the allergy field — especially because her mother died of severe asthma when Gupta was young.

“As an allergist you have to have empathy for the way that allergies affect someone’s quality of life,” she said. “I think if you don’t suffer from allergies, you don’t always appreciate that.”

After receiving her medical degree from Michigan State University, Gupta completed her residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at Rush University. She then moved to New York City to complete her fellowship in allergy, asthma and immunology.

“Something in my heart said I needed to be in New York City,” she said.

Following her training, Gupta spent some time working abroad in Africa, Nepal and India, which she said was rewarding, but also provided confirmation that allergy was the correct field for her.

“The challenging part is that I realized I’m very much an empath, which means when other people are suffering, I really take on that suffering,” she said. “Part of why I think I chose allergy as a field is because we don’t have that much death and dying as an allergist. ... But when I was working abroad, I did see a lot of death and dying. I was sometimes the only provider for that patient, so at times I felt very responsible for those deaths.”

Gupta also says that she is “not a typical physician,” because whereas most physicians may be risk averse, she describes herself as “risk tolerant.”

This became evident when she left a private ear, nose and throat (ENT) and allergy practice to become a cofounder of Cleared, an allergy-centered telemedicine start-up.

“I was in a comfortable position, on my way to be a partner in this large ENT and allergy practice, and then I took the leap of faith to start this business,” she said. “It could have gone either way.”

The good news is Gupta’s leap of faith paid off. The company she and her colleagues founded in 2020 sold to LifeMD.com in 2022, where she now serves as medical director.

Co-hosting The Itch Podcast with Kortney Kwong Hing, MA, BA, patient blogger and allergy advocate, is another responsibility added to the mix of Gupta’s nontraditional-looking career. They started the podcast in 2019 to provide accurate information about allergies, asthma and immunologic conditions in a way that the general public can understand.

“Now that podcast has gotten much bigger, and we’re producing a lot more episodes and working with the Allergy & Asthma Network to produce a lot of their educational podcasts,” she said.

How does she do it all? Having staff and colleagues who can keep her on task and step in when necessary, as well as having support at home to help with childcare, are key, Gupta said, to handling her packed schedule.

“Working with the right people and having the right support system in place is super important, especially as a woman trying to do multiple things,” she said.

‘They need us in that room’

In her 20-year career as a physician, Gupta’s path has changed significantly from when she started. When she began looking for jobs after her fellowship, she felt pressure to make the “perfect” decision.

Now she knows it’s possible to pivot.

“You can change what you’re doing,” she said. “You can start somewhere and then end up in a totally different direction. And that can happen after 2 years, or 6 months, or in 10 years.

“It does not need to feel like it’s this decision that is going to navigate your entire career,” she added.

And she’s learned some incredible life lessons along the way.

In 2010, she traveled to Haiti to help in a hospital after a catastrophic earthquake hit. The patient she remembers most was not injured in the earthquake. Rather, he was electrocuted while attempting to get the power up and running afterward.

“He was very young and otherwise healthy,” Gupta said. “It seemed like if we were able to save anyone, it should be this individual.”

The night before he was set to be transported to a hospital in south Florida, the hospital in Haiti lost power, cutting off electricity to the ventilator that had been keeping him alive.

“I felt so upset and hopeless,” Gupta said. “You think you are going to get somebody out and save their life, and then this happens.”

The death affected her, but what one of his family members said to her after affected her even more.

“They pulled me aside and said, ‘We just want you to know that you being there and your caring made us feel like we were able to do something for our relative,’” Gupta said.

“I took that lesson with me when I worked abroad, and I take that lesson with me even now. Sometimes you’re not able to do what you ultimately wanted to do, whether it be save a life or help somebody but, at the end of the day, being there, witnessing, being a part of their suffering and caring can mean more than the ultimate end goal.”

Another lesson Gupta has learned over the years is to believe in herself and her value. At many points in her career, Gupta was one of very few, if any, women in the room. She noticed the disparity the most in the business field while she was building Cleared.

“As a woman entrepreneur, I would say 90% of the meetings I was in were all otherwise men,” she said.

Her cofounders knew how valuable her knowledge and experience was, so they built her up and helped her when she needed it.

“[My advice] is to not have imposter syndrome,” she said. “You are there for a reason, they picked you for a reason. You’re in that room because you belong there.

“They need us in that room,” she added. “They need to understand our perspective because it is different from theirs.”

For more information:

Payel Gupta, MD, FACAAI, can be reached at drgupta@easeallergy.com.