We were lucky to catch up with Christian Franz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Christian, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

During the fourth month of being a newly minted working registered nurse in the hospital, the news was plagued with stories of a “respiratory disease” causing “a fever of unknown origin” wreaking havoc in different countries. This health menace became the pandemic-causing virus that has left our globe in shambles over the past few years. With my hospital unit initially being a cardiac surgery recovery room before becoming a COVID-19 ICU unit, I was this innocent nurse who merely wanted to help people in their lowest times after such a major operation and hopefully save their lives during critical moments. These endeavors were proven difficult to accomplish during this transition because no one knew how to tackle this novel virus! I remember those dark nights of witnessing up to ten patients passing away per shift and using my phone to video call their family members for a last goodbye. As bleak and dim as all of this may sound, those months within the trenches of the frontlines truly defined my career as a nurse because they showed me how fragile human life is and how important educating the public is to hopefully preserve it. Amid these horrors, the internet and media were flooded with so much narrative and misinformation that did not reflect the realities of what healthcare professionals were battling inside the four walls of our hospitals. This encouraged me to begin the “Friends of Franz Podcast” to gather different health and scientific experts who can talk about their journeys, tear down misinformation, and relay the realities of their lives both inside and outside their specialties.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Christian Franz Bulacan from New York City. I was born in the Philippines, grew up on a small farm on the island of Luzon, moved to Brooklyn when I was six years old, and have lived in the Concrete Jungle since then. Loving to discover the world around me and the creative arts since childhood, I studied both nursing and theatrical arts during college.

Having been a registered nurse for almost five years, I have worked in the clinical areas of cardiac surgery recovery, interventional cardiology, post-anesthesia care, and COVID-19 critical care. But what holds a huge piece in my heart is public health and preventative care. Since starting my career, I have worked with the New York State Department of Health to provide immunization and vaccine education across New York City. During the height of the pandemic, I teamed up with Sorin Medical and the United Nations to provide viral load testing for diplomats to ensure their international travel clearances. I have also co-authored two medical publications on early interventional procedures for peripheral arterial disease. My goal is to disseminate sound information to people’s loved ones. I firmly believe that evidence-based medical information is life-saving!

This belief ultimately led me to my project, the “Friends of Franz Podcast.” It started as an Instagram livestream series three years ago, where I featured expert clinicians and scientists to present common field-specific myths they could tackle. As the interview episodes went on, I found another common misinformation that transcended the sciences: that the identity of workers in healthcare and science only revolved around their professions. Within my Asian community, doctors in white coats were usually revered and labeled wholly as “prim and proper.”

Through the series, we meet dentists who love raves and music festivals, physicians who are dancers, nurses who are actors and singers, et cetera. I wanted to introduce health professionals who defy the societal view of being strait-laced. This is an endeavor to humanize medicine and its workers and to remind the public how having an identity outside of work and practicing self-care are integral to safeguarding mental health and avoiding burnout.

In the United States, only 36% of physicians are women (AAMC, 2019); medicine remains male-dominated. Also, in the United States, 17.1% of physicians are Asian, 5.8% are Hispanic, and 5% are Black (AAMC, 2018); medicine remains white-dominated at 56.2%. I wanted the podcast, throughout its seasons, to overturn these majority statistics. It became my tangible mission to invite expert guests from the unrepresented groups within medicine to contribute to the much-needed representation the public and patients need to see. Over the past two podcast seasons, with the third season yet to be released, my podcast guests have been over 70% female, and over 70% are of Asian heritage, as an ode to my Asian identity.

The third season of my podcast will be released this upcoming December 1, 2023 on all podcast platforms and I seek to continue fulfilling all of these goals!

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Empathy and understanding. As a healthcare worker in New York City, I meet many people every day from different backgrounds, demographics, journeys, stories, and schools of thought. This is why there is no successful one-size-fits-all in healthcare and medicine. When patients present themselves in front of us to receive care and treatment, it is our professional responsibility to let go of any existing biases and preconceived notions and just listen to their concerns. Because medical care can be so textbook-based and traditional training-centered, we can lose track of the realities of life that can influence the situations of the person in front of us. Things that come to mind include socioeconomic status, cultural implications, minority struggles, language barriers, and so much more! Even simply how someone’s day is going prior to their visit. It makes a huge difference to take just a little bit of time to ask someone how their day is going, what additional questions they have, or if there is anything to help me understand their concerns better.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Humanity. In this day and age of curated social media profiles that place the limelight on endeavors toward perfection and aesthetics, we tend to crave hearing raw and genuine stories and journeys. Especially when it comes to healthcare professionals, there is an existing power imbalance between the provider and the patient. I believe that by sharing my podcast guests’ unfiltered and daily stories, we can help perpetuate the reality that our clinicians truly care for their patients and understand their human struggles. One of my mentors and dear friend, renowned allergist and immunologist Dr. Purvi Parikh, once said during an episode, “You get to be with people in their most vulnerable time, but also in your most vulnerable time. I think people have a misconception about doctors because of television, but they are just as vulnerable as our patients.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://friendsoffranzpod.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/friendsoffranzpod/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/friendsoffranzpod
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/chrsfranz/

Image Credits
Jeong Park Photography