We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rupa Wong. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rupa below.

Rupa, 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.

I was a third year medical student at Cornell Medical School in New York. I had decided I was interested in pursuing surgery and was paired with a female general surgeon mentor. She met with me and discussed goals, the type of residency program I wanted to match into and how best to get there. But what she never discussed was her family life – how she balanced it all. I knew she was married, but she never shared any personal stories or explained how she could make her 7 am operating room start time with kids. It almost seemed as if women surgeons were not supposed to discuss that aspect of our lives. Fast forward 20 years – I became an ophthalmologist (eye surgeon), and started a practice with my husband in Honolulu, HI. I started sharing bits of my life as a working mom of 3, practice owner and eye health pearls on social media. And I started receiving so many messages from young women – girls interested in pre-med for college, women told that they couldn’t be surgeons and good mothers, and still others, just so unsure of how to be their own boss. This is where the idea for Pinnacle Conference came from. I wanted to pull back the curtain for how women in medicine make it all work – share the journey so that the women that come after us don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can stand on the shoulders of those of us who came before. To demystify how we made it work, and perhaps they can find an even better way. To create a community of like minded women who wanted to pave their own path in medicine.

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.

I’m a pediatric ophthalmologist and adult strabismus specialists in Honolulu HI. I own my own 4 doctor clinic with my husband and we provide for the eye care needs of our community. I started Pinnacle Conference with 2 of my friends – Dr. Natalie Crawford, a reproductive endocrinologist from Austin, and Dr. Pamela Mehta, an orthopedic surgeon from the Bay Area, to support women in medicine. In a world where many women are leaving medicine due to burnout and discrimination, Pinnacle strives to provide a forum that helps women develop strategies they need to stay in medicine and excel. As an elite professional development community, we empower women in medicine to reach their professional Pinnacle through education to master leadership, business, and communication skills. Our first conference in 2019 was life-changing for everyone who participated. Over the years, the founders have held fast to their belief that each woman can pave their unique path in medicine by pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. We seek to create an environment where women uplift each other, share their secrets to success, and encourage each other to reach their fullest potential.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met Natalie Crawford and Pam Mehta back in 2018 through social media. At that time, there were very few physicians on platforms like Instagram and YouTube and we connected on multiple fronts – as surgeons, as moms and and as physicians seeking to educate on social media. Along with 9 other physicians, we also founded a non-profit for healthcare in social media. We all arranged to meet to solidify the non-profit framework and that is when we met for the first time in person. Once I met Natalie and Pam, I knew these women could help bring this dream I had to create a women’s medical conference to reality.

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

Possessing a growth mindset is the single most important factor in succeeding as a physician and now as an entrepreneur. There is a lot that I don’t know. There’s a lot that my business partners don’t know. But we know that we are entirely capable of learning the skill set necessary to succeed. We are unafraid to research, to ask questions and to start from the ground up. There are so many times we have had to pivot – when we had to cancel 3 in person conferences during 2020 and 2021, but we were able to make those our most profitable years, by converting to a membership and virtual format. This occurred because we each employ a growth mindset in our medical and entrepreneurial lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: pinnacle-conference.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/pinnacleconference
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1012278868970649
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pinnacle-conference/

Image Credits
Angela Doran