We recently connected with Karen Abdool and have shared our conversation below.

Karen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. 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.

I have had several defining moments in my career.

Perhaps the most significant came at one of the lowest times in my life.

The covid epidemic had just begun, when my husband of 14 years filed for divorce in June 2020. I was already incredibly burnt out in my career and was carrying an unbearable patient load. I felt that i could not properly care for any of my patients. In addition, I was a supervising physician which added extra duties. I remember almost throwing up at the thought of going to work one morning. In that moment, ai decided I had to make a change. I began to envision how I wanted to care for my patients and what I needed to do to make that happen. I relized that, in order to care for my patients fully, I had to develop my own private practice.

I had never done a business course, and beyond a tiny priactice for about 4 hrs per week, I had no experience with private practice.

So I found myself a great Business coach and jumped in the deep end. On November 6th 2020, Beryllium Psychiatric services was born.

I have built my business to spend the time my patients need, and to really tailor a holistic health experience that has had remarkable results. I go to work feeling happy every single day. I can safely say that I really love what I do.

The practice has thrived for the past 3 years and is looking to expand in 2024.

My learning point – Sometimes the worst situation can instill the most courage, drive and imagination. We dont want tought situations, but we can use them as a catapult to something we never dreamed of. .

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My Name is Dr. Karen Abdool and I am the Founder and Director of Beryllium Psychiatric Services. Over the last 20 years, I have united my training as a Physician, and my immunology expertise with my passion for refugee mental health, to create a unique philosophy of healthcare that focuses on individual, family, and community healing. Beryllium Psychiatric Services provides personalized medical care to people suffering from depression, emotional stress, complex trauma, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety. We do this through a combination of specialized methods and techniques which include trauma narrative therapy, medical care, nutrition counseling, exercise planning, and other supportive strategies. We want to empower everyone we serve to engage mind, body, and spirit in mental healing.

Beryllium Psychiatric Services was birthed through living stories, many enacted before I, and this idea ever existed. These stories have instilled in me the values that form the foundation of this company. While there are many, I will share with you the one that inspired the company name.

My Grandmother, Beryl Bell Murrell, was one of the most resilient women I have ever known. After the passing of her mother when she was three years old, she lived with her stepmother, who unfortunately, was an incredibly cruel person who was physically and emotionally abusive to her and her two sisters. She and her sisters ran from home choosing to live instead with her uncle. In the process, she had to leave school after the third grade, working instead, tending to his home.

After her marriage to my grandfather, Allan Peter Murrell, my grandmother used her strengths to build and run a tailoring business from her home. She became known as a master seamstress in the community and her skill proved invaluable to her family. She tailored all the clothes for her children and eventually her grandchildren, including me. My grandmother was not perfect. Because of her own harsh experience as a child, she was quite a force of nature in our lives. But, as is often the case with traumatic life stories, her vision of a loving, happy, and nurtured family was realized through the terrible and imperfect as much as it was the wonderful and uplifting.

Thus the girl with the traumatic beginning wrote a healing trauma narrative. Her third-grade education gave her such a desire for knowledge that she married an intellect and birthed a family that included teachers, mathematicians, accountants, nurses, artists, musicians, ministers, and of course physicians. The abused child was able to grow a family filled with love, strength, and joy. And her name, Beryl, represents for me everything that she was, and the amazing legacy she left.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My business is my pivot story.

In June of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic no less, I was thrown into a long, and highly contentious divorce process. I had symptoms of physician burnout, currently labelled an epidemic by the CDC, I was struggling with the demands of corporate and insurance controlled medicine. I felt that I never had enough time to really care for my patients, and I was constantly worried that they were not improving the way they should. Furthermore, we as doctors are trained to care fro others before caring for our own physical and mental health. For many years I had placed the well being of my family, and my patients before myself. I often forgot to eat until very late at night, and spent hours not going to the bathroom just to see the next, in a crowded line of patients or to do something for my family. I survived on 4-5 hours of sleep at night as i tried to finish paperwork and make sure things were ready for the next day. I literally did everything I asked my patients not to do. Now, my family was being destroyed, and my patients were not receiving the care they needed. This took a heavy toll on me. I gained about 90 lbs, and became deeply depressed. I also began to to suffer from dehydration, worsening migraines, problems with my concentration, and arthritis.

I risked becoming disabled and disfunctional if I did not make so drastic changes. I started by taking time off to rest and see my doctor for professional help. During this time, I reconnected Spiritually with God, and socially with my family and friends. I moved away from the toxic space that was my marriage even though it meant giving up the home we had literally had built for my family. I started to work through these losses with family support and eventually a therapist.

It was during this crazy time that I took the risk and started my business. I knew nothing about business, I literally had never done a business course. I started with a great, trustworthy business coach. I worked part time to care for my children, and slowly began to build my private practice. It was quite difficult, because I was determined not to allow my time with my patients to be controlled by insurance company reimbursements. That means that I had to develop an understanding of business in a way that allowed me to be independent. I learned about. The strength of relationships and referrals, as I was learning about the technical issues of business. As business grew I joined a business accelerator – EforAll- to strengthen my understanding of the technical aspects of business building.

Even as I was learning to create a strategic payer mix, to include my low income patients, I learned to forgive myself. As I practiced my elevator pitch, I learned how destructive, self-blame can be, and the power of self-affirmation. As I learned the ups and downs of navigating state regulations, I learned that my faults are opportunities for growth and change, not the essence of failure.

I have now built my business to the point where I am about to hire a child psychiatrist. I have learned to value my unique approach to Psychiatry and I have been privileged to see the transformation in my patients when they get the right care. I lost 90 lb with support from my doctor. I have time to care for myself, and for my family. I am happy and healthy and ready to take on the next adventure that comes my way.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

“You can be or do ANYTHING!”

I cannot tell you how many times this phrase is repeated to me. Of course, it was repeated to me during childhood, in an effort to encourage me to be, and do my best but despite the best efforts of those who love me, I began to take it to mean that I should be and do everything. This led me into a frustrating world of constant comparison with others. Like every little girl, I knew, I loved gymnastics. I would watch the Olympics and imagine myself floating through the air as I did backflips and twists. When my actual body, turned out to be less coordinated than even cartwheel ability, I started to ask myself, “How come I am not an olympic gymnast?”. When a teacher said that boys are better at science than girls, I set out to prove that I could do science. While I love to research and medicine, my gift was really psychiatry and therapy and yet I asked myself, “How come I didn’t win the nobel prize for Science”

It took a long time, and a great deal of self acceptance for me to realize that It is not a failure to admit limits. Rather, It is important to deeply understand that My strengths and weaknesses and to see the strengths in others. Knowing my limits help me to see clearly who I need around me for my team. As my understanding of my limits has grown, so has my ability to create efficiency and productivity by surrounding myself with the right people for my team. So it is with great joy that I can say today that I cannot, and will not be or do anything. I will be and do the things for which I am uniquely designed. I am happy to leave the rest, to someone else.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.berylliumpsych.com
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/karenabdool

Image Credits
Flavio Debario