{"id":3902,"date":"2024-03-27T20:01:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T20:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medschool.prd.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2024-03-27T20:01:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T20:01:43","slug":"alumni-profile-healing-the-mind-and-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/alumni-profile-healing-the-mind-and-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Profile: Healing the Mind and Body"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Lauren Bethany Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cardiologist Sarah Samaan, MD, may have specialized in affairs of the heart, but she has always been interested in the whole patient \u2014 mind, body and well-being.<\/p>\n

Thus, it makes perfect sense that when she retired from her 30-year cardiology practice in 2022, she shifted her focus to providing compassionate and actionable coaching for physicians.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After she completed an internal medicine residency at the University of California, Irvine and a cardiology fellowship at the University of New Mexico, \u200b\u200bSamaan dedicated her career to helping her patients achieve optimal health and well-being as a cardiologist, author and educator.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhen I went into medical school, I had the idea I might go into psychiatry, but I quickly realized I liked the immediacy of cardiology, and I like the ability to change the trajectory of someone\u2019s disease and bring them back to a healthier state,\u201d Samaan said. \u201cCardiology was just a very positive field to go into.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Samaan recalls that renowned Vanderbilt cardiologist Rose Marie Robertson, MD, made an impression on her as a medical student \u201cas a thoughtful, caring, but rigorous and innovative cardiologist. She was a role model even though I did not get to know her \u200b\u200bwell. Just seeing someone like that \u2014 who is a woman \u2014 was empowering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Samaan was a liberal arts major in college and \u200b\u200bhas stayed connected to the arts throughout her life and as a supporter in the Dallas-area community where she lives. A competitive equestrian, Samaan discovered the benefits of yoga after she broke her arm in \u200b\u200b1997, which made her realize she needed to gain more control over her body and move with her horse in a more organic way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThat led me to find yoga,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat I realized, a few months into it, is that I was using the breathing techniques I was using in yoga in my medical practice. It was an eye-opening situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Samaan decided in 2022 that it was time to explore her interest in the arts more fully and enrolled as a BFA student at Arizona State University where she is now a senior. She hopes to earn a master\u2019s degree in fine arts and then teach in the medical humanities.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition to being a certified yoga teacher, Samaan completed physician coaching training at the Physician Coaching Institute.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cPhysician coaching can take a number of different paths,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we talk about coaching, we are talking about the individual and helping them align their personal and professional life with their values and their strengths and develop their plans to achieve goals that are meaningful to them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cardiologist Sarah Samaan, MD, may have specialized in affairs of the heart, but she has always been interested in the whole patient \u2014 mind, body and well-being. Thus, it makes perfect sense that when she retired from her 30-year cardiology practice in 2022, she shifted her focus to providing compassionate and actionable coaching for physicians….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,10,47,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-alumni-news","category-vm-alumni-profile","category-vm-spring-2024","category-vm-vanderbilt-community"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-10W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3902"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3906,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions\/3906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}