We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carmen Pizarro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Carmen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back on your career, have you ever worked with a great leader or boss? We’d love to hear about the experience and what you think made them such a great leader.

I have been working at Mount Sinai for the past 9 years now and I’ve had many supervisors throughout this time. However, when I transitioned into my current role (OBGYN) i had met Laudy Burgos. In the beginning it was not easy for me as the cases in OBGYN would push me into a place where I would shut down, or times when listening to criticism I would also turn inward and self-isolate. This being due to my own upbringing and trauma and being in the foster care system I was never taught to self-reflect, it was always a fight or flight experience for me. for example, there was a case when I initially started working OBGYN where a mother had a history of ACS and prior removal of her child which led to ACS needing to be notified once the delivery of this mother’s new baby. The time had come where the call to ACS was made, and ACS completed the assessment and had taken the baby from the mother here at the hospital. I remember that day to be a Solem day and hearing the gut-wrenching screams of the mother in the room as stayed with her to provide support. I later left the mother and called my supervisor where i later sobbed myself as this was a huge trigger for me due to me being taken away from my own mother. Laudy helped me to self-reflect and break apart what i had to work on personally but also clinically doing what is right in the best interest of the child and the patient. Laudy also helped to realize apart from my trauma that I am human, and it is a human response to feel empathy for this mother whom her baby was taken from her.

Laudy has helped me to be confident in myself an In-patient social worker and provide psychoeducation to the interdisciplinary team. Laudy has taught me to have a voice and have difficult conversations when it can be uncomfortable with people in the room. For example, I had a patient who was 27 years old first baby and it was noted in the patient’s history that she was incarcerated during her teens, and father of the baby was as well. This family was seen during their pregnancy and was doing well with no social concerns noted. The resident wanted social work to see the family as the resident didn’t feel this mother or father were capable of caring for her baby due to her past history. I spoke with the resident at the time and provided education around this possibly being discriminatory/oppressive/biased towards the patient and her family as this incident happened in their teens. I happened to check on the family and they were doing well, and they identified as people of color, and they were mortified that their incarceration would be brought up in a time where they are welcoming their first born. The parents also stated this happened in their teens and they are adults now, and they realized they made a “stupid decision then”. i later spoke with the resident about the encounter I had, and the resident cried and apologized. I sat with the resident and processed this with her. I later spoke with Laudy about this incident and telling her I also felt badly for the resident as she cried, but Laudy mentioned sometimes it’s not only the education piece that had this resident feeling this way it is also something called white frugality. Laudy during this encounter noted that this is part of teaching and sometimes pointing this out can be uncomfortable, as sometimes these cases are not done to be malicious but it’s the unconscious bias people hold. And me being able to provide education to my fellow colleague can help with the next patient can help deconstruct institutionalized racism and create a more equitable environment.

without Laudy having mentored me and helping me to be the clinical social worker I am today I would never be able to provide education I did to the resident nor be able to keep moving on and building the resilience I have today as a person of color.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I wanted to know from the age of 6 years old I wanted to be a helping person due to my own personal experience. At the age of 6 years old I was placed with my first foster family whom now turned out to be my godparents but back then I would have never known they would still be in my life today and make such a difference. I remember that day as if it was yesterday when the ACS worker at the time told me “don’t be nervous you are going to be ok”. At such a young age I remember having to visit my mom at a center along with my younger brothers for a short period of time before I returned to my foster home.

During my childhood I was able to return to live with my biological father although that didn’t last very long and at the age of 12 years old I was back in the foster care system until the age of 17. I remember going from home to home and running away as the homes I would be placed in would be mentally exhausting and abusive towards me.

Living through these times I always told myself to go to school and learn and be someone, someone that can make a difference and help those people that are just like me and cut the stigma of people believing that people like me wouldn’t amount to anything and would just be another statistic “like my father told me as he signed away his parental rights to me as a teenager”.

In my current role I see families/patients that often resembled what my life path was/ the trauma they experienced and I am able to understand and be empathetic and normalize feelings that are seen as taboo or feelings that make them feel ashamed or situations that people feel they can not get out of.

For example, I met a young women who was 17 years old first time mother and living in a mommy and me shelter. I remember talking with her as she had limited prenatal care and was very guarded with the medical staff and wanted to leave before being medically cleared to go with the father of the child’s mother who me lived in an apartment which was not deemed safe. I remember talking with her and just listening to her say “ she just wanted to be with the father and she didn’t have no one because her own mother didn’t want her”. This young lady also had no provisions for her baby at the father’s home, which also can be a safety concern for the child. I listening and then I normalized her feelings but also putting into perspective the reality of the situation as she was only thinking of what she wanted in the moment. I remember her telling me you don’t know what it’s like to be not wanted. My response to her was “
I unfortunately do know the pain to the extend you are feeling of not being wanted, but I used that to prove them wrong”. Without giving her too much I showed her that I was human and that I understand that this is not how you would want to bring in a child into the world where you are in a shelter and not with the people you want to be with or being thrown out as she told me by her own mother who didn’t want her. I remember talking with her and reinforcing for her to do things the “right way so that she can have a safe place to be with her baby girl”. I commended the progress she’s made so far something she said no one has ever told her.

My role lets me be human it lets me show people I am human and I can sit with the discomfort and come up
With the solution they see fit as I tell all my patients they are the authors of their lives and they control what or who gets to go along in that journey.

In my role I am also exceptionally proud of being the first BIPOC person to receive the Dr. Alma T Young award. Dr. Young was a pioneering social worker who paved away for women of color in roles that are traditionally held by men. Dr. Young also helped and worked with children/young adults such as my self. I am honored to have been the first ever recipient to receive this award during social work in march as during my career envision to uphold Dr. Young’s legacy.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I remember when I was a child my father would always tell me “move Carmen you’re good for nothing”. I remember when I would be grounded I would be grounded in the most extreme ways where I would have to kneel on rice for hours.

I remember I would go to school and just put my time in my studies even when I graduated high school and my father and mother at this point signed their parental rights away said to me “I would never amount to anything or even finish high school”. I remember him saying that and I once again when I had my son in college and remember going back 3 weeks right after having a newborn.

I used all the negative things my father said to me even my mother as fuel to finish college and even go further because I always told myself I can have nothing (and at times I really had nothing) that there is one thing no one can take from me and that is my education. This proved to be true as I am here at the place I am now in the career I am in now trying to plant a seed of hope in each family I see.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson i had to unlearn is that being vulnerable and asking for help
Is not a sign of a weakness.

I learned this when I was hospitalized during my second pregnancy because I was involved in a car accident. I needed help with my then son who was 10 years old as he was starting school. I couldn’t go anywhere i had to rely on the support I had although for me asking for help in the past from my experience was interpreted as I couldn’t handle the situation. I had to rely on people and that was hard because I was used to doing everything on my own even taking my son with me when I was in undergrad with my to school while I learned. Being in this situation helped me to realize I am not in the place I was before but that there are people who care about me and I can rely on them without being seen as weak and not worthy.

• Linkedin: Carmen Pizarro LCSW

Image Credits

Mount Sinai hospital (instagram photo).