What a 2AM PubMed Search Revealed: A Conversation with Dr. Bojana Jankovic Weatherly

Episode 87: What a 2 AM PubMed Search Revealed: A Conversation with Dr. Bojana Jankovic Weatherly

• Opening the Episode with Dr. Bonana Yankovich Weatherly
• Residency, Pregnancy, and the Moment That Changed Everything
• Dr. Bojana’s Turning Point Toward Integrative Medicine
• Seeing Medicine Differently: The Patient Experience That Changed Everything
• Chronic Symptoms and the Limits of Traditional Care
• Why Physicians Need Integrative and Functional Tools
• The Truth About Supplements, Nutrition, and Gut Health
• Rethinking Balance for Physician Moms
• The Three Circles: Comfort, Challenge, and Overwhelm
• What Truly Energizes Integrative Physicians Today
• AI in Medicine: Partner, Not Replacement
• Dance as Medicine: Creativity, Play, and Cognitive Health
• A Message for Physician Moms: Compassion and Inner Guidance
• Connect with Dr. Bojana + Free Meditation Guide

“Balance is a myth we outgrow.”

That line stayed with me long after my conversation ended with guest Dr. Bojana Jankovic Weatherly.

She captured an experience many busy moms barely notice – that life doesn’t always fit into tidy categories. It will expand and contract, asking things of you that no one prepares you for.

In this unique interview, you’ll hear how integrative wellness for physician moms takes root in lived experience and becomes a way of honoring your energy and your limits.

Dr. Bojana has built an integrative practice dedicated to whole-person healing, but her story started long before she opened her doors.

Before she became a leader in medicine, she was an exhausted and overwhelmed pregnant resident searching PubMed at 2 AM for answers her training didn’t give her.

What she found shifted the way she practices, the way she teaches, and the way she cares for herself.

Find the full transcript and bonus resources for physician moms at inspiredmommds.com/87.

[You’re listening to the Inspired Mom MDs podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Cindy Van Praag. I help physician moms take back control of their time and energy so they can prioritize what matters most and thrive at work and at home. In each episode, I bring you honest conversations, inspiring stories, and practical strategies — including interviews with incredible women who are redefining success on their own terms. Let’s dive in.]

Opening the Episode with Dr. Bojana Jankovic Weatherly

Dr. Cindy: Today I am joined by a special guest. Her name is Dr. Bojana Jankovic Weatherly. She's a double board-certified physician in internal and integrative medicine with certification in both functional medicine and as a menopause practitioner.

She founded Bojana MD, a concierge integrative medicine practice where she focuses on thyroid hormones, gut, and cardiometabolic health to support longevity and health span.

Ana is an adjunct faculty also and clinical mentor at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine and is a highly sought after health educator and speaker dedicated to helping people feel and live better.

I am so happy you're here. I got to know you a little bit because of our connection through the Andrew Weil Center of Integrative Medicine. I'm really, really glad that you're here today. Welcome.

Dr. Bojana: Thank you. I'm happy to be here and always nice to connect with fellows from our integrative medicine program.

Dr. Cindy: I know I love seeing what everybody is doing. We all had the same foundational training, and everybody goes in different directions and it's really neat to see that. So that's what we're going to get into today – what you're doing today.

Residency and Pregnancy Led up to the Moment That Changed Everything

Dr. Cindy: I would like to back up a little bit and start kind of more at the beginning.

And the beginning, meaning that time of your life when you were a resident. What was going on about that time when you were learning to become a doctor and learning to become a mom at the same time? Tell me about that part of your life.

Dr. Bojana: What I find really interesting is that I had no idea going into internal medicine residency, I had no idea what integrative medicine, functional medicine were that I would ever be practicing it, learning about it. And so we all kind of go in having an idea about a certain path.

And then of course, life presents us with challenges, with opportunities, and then it's up to us to decide how to solve that and what that leads us to.

I feel that during my residency training, that was definitely one of those critical points. And what had happened was I was in internal medicine training. I absolutely loved what I was doing.

Medicine is definitely my calling. I love working with people. I'm endlessly curious about everything medicine, everything health and wellness, the studies that are coming out. And so absolutely felt that like this is what I want to be doing and should be doing.

However, I found myself pregnant during residency training as well. And believe it or not, it was actually planned. I spoke to my OB GYN and I was like, I don't know, is it better to do it now? Versus like, wait until, you know, later and whatnot. And he was like, listen. He literally said, “It's like the Nike slogan – Just do it.”

And so I thought, okay. You know, he has a good point. It's never, especially for us physician moms, right? If we think about the trajectory of our careers and the lengthy training, there's never the right time, so to speak, and I thought, you know what? I'm probably always going to feel this way. May as well, just go ahead and get started.

Dr. Bojana’s Turning Point Toward Integrative Medicine

I found that throughout my pregnancy, in internal medicine, we do a great deal of ICU rotations. We're mostly in inpatient rotations, taking care of very sick patients, learning the skills, and learning to develop our medical judgment. And there's a great deal of both physical, mental and then emotional stress as well.

I found myself as this was kind of accumulating. I found myself, kind of getting really burnt out and feeling really exhausted. And part of this was pregnancy. Part of this was the long work hours and 30 plus hour shifts and so on.

And this all culminated one night at 2:00 AM I was exhausted, yet I couldn't sleep. And just feeling, really defeated. I went on PubMed.

I started looking up, you know, what are the possible complications, in pregnancy with long hours. I was really concerned about what I was doing to my baby about all these things. And of course, there's a lot of evidence with respect to long work hours, with respect to, to shift work as well and negative consequences in pregnancy, preterm birth and so forth.

I found that this was, of course, very depressing to find out, but at the same time, it was one of those moments where I really had to make a decision of am I going to be the victim of these circumstances that I've created or am I actually going to do something about it?

Find a way to feel empowered in this situation and say, okay, yes, there are some challenges here, but we'll navigate it. We'll figure this out.

I was really lucky to, literally in the following days after that come into contact with, some integrative medicine providers and slowly starting dipping my feet into everything from prenatal yoga to acupuncture support.

I was working with a chiropractor as well. My baby at that time, as well as my second one, were both measuring very large. So, there were some concerns from my OB GYN with respect to that. And somehow my chiropractor had full confidence that I would be able to deliver naturally, that there would be no anatomical issues and that my body is absolutely prepared to do that.

I thought that this integrative approach, that this kind of sense of you got this. Your body can do this. Like you're meant to do this. And rather than thinking, I mean, of course it is important to think about, okay, what are the possible outcomes? Am I ready for these things? How do I plan for this? Reduce the risk?

But on the other hand, also be aware that our bodies are designed actually to overcome and to have this incredible capacity and incredible resiliency, right? And there are all these backup systems and all these ways in which we stay in homeostasis.

And so, to really start to believe in that and to really feel that my integrative medicine practitioners believe in me, they believe that I'm going to have a positive outcome. Unfortunately in medicine, we just don't come across that enough. Right?

Seeing Medicine Differently: The Patient Experience That Changed Everything

Dr. Bojana: It feels that everything is, and again, we must take into account statistics and studies and so forth, but at the same time, there has to be the human element, the belief, the kind of visualization, of what are the optimal case scenarios and really of like how to create that path forward.

I felt that that was really one of the biggest differentiators of how I had seen medicine up to that point as a patient and as a physician in training. And this approach that was given to me as a patient, as a pregnant resident, was such a gift.

Because it forever changed the way that I saw the role of medicine as we're treating and partnering with our patients and the way that I saw my own health outcome.

This forever changed how I interacted with my patients and not just conducted my visits, but just really kind of that overall, sense of what the discussions are and that sense of how to achieve those optimal outcomes.

Dr. Cindy: Wow. You were lucky to be exposed to this during your training, so you were able to integrate that into your traditional internal medicine program.

Chronic Symptoms and the Limits of Traditional Care

Dr. Cindy: When did you go on to learn, formally, integrative medicine?

Dr. Bojana: It was afterwards. I started practicing as a primary care physician. And I found that this was kind of that second critical point, that second reminder. Because again, in primary care we work with a lot of people that are coming in to manage chronic diseases.

Then I found that I was working with a lot of people, especially women that that were coming to me with chronic unexplained symptoms. It could be a combination of chronic fatigue, autoimmunity that wasn't well regulated metabolic issues, depression, anxiety, again, not well controlled.

It felt sometimes like, again our system is designed to be very much about checking the boxes and being very prescriptive, and I felt that the skills that I had were not fully able to address all of these complexities and I wasn't able to find, the satisfactory answers for my patients.

Why Physicians Need Integrative and Functional Tools

Dr. Bojana: And in the area where I was practicing at the time, this was in Los Angeles, I found that a lot of people that were coming to me had an interest in everything from Ayurveda to integrative medicine.

Maybe some were seeing a naturopath. I was really curious about the intersection between these different modalities and what we were doing in medicine and it didn't feel right that these were completely two different entities that were not communicating with each other. And so, I was starting to look up studies.

If somebody had recommended something to my patient that I'd never heard about or never saw a study about, I would start to research or call that person up.

And then I realized I really need to get formally trained in this area if this is what I want to practice and integrate. So, in 2016, I started the integrative medicine fellowship training through the Andrew Weil Fellowship, and it took two years to complete.

Around the same time, I also did Ayurvedic training as well. That was more lifestyle and coaching, not strictly medical Ayurvedic. And then I also did mindfulness-based stress reduction, which has been such a valuable tool in terms of supporting patients and again, giving them some tools to kind of develop their own mind body connection and so forth.

So, I just kind of dove right in. And it was maybe a couple of years later as I was completing my integrative medicine fellowship that I started the Institute of Functional Medicine and the functional medicine training as well.

What I do now is I essentially tell patients I don't, and this is what I love about our integrative medicine program and our philosophy is we don't reject conventional medicine.

We a hundred percent see the value in conventional medicine, but also in medications when they're indicated, in appropriate work workup. Again, once you're an internist and you have your kind of system of working things up, that's still your system in which you operate.

Except that now we have these added modalities that we can add. So, whether that's a combination of lifestyle, mind body, sleep, and stress counseling, nutrition and having a deeper understanding of the different aspects of nutritional counseling and the fact that one size does not fit all and really identifying what may be some triggers for individuals gut health support.

The Truth About Supplements, Nutrition, and Gut Health

Dr. Bojana: I have to tell you, one of my pet peeves is when people say either all supplements are bad or these are must have supplements. It's like neither one of these statements is true.

There is absolutely a role if somebody is nutrient deficient and they're not able to get their nutrients through diet for whatever reason, you a hundred percent should get them to the optimal level. There's no question about that.

And there is a great deal of research on some of the herbs and some of the supplemental supports that we use, but again, we have to ensure that we're-doing so safely, effectively and we're tailoring that treatment to the person we're working with.

I think that a lot of the times, unfortunately, this nuance gets lost and we tend to live in an all or nothing world, which is not at all how medicine works.

Dr. Cindy: Oh, I 100% agree. That's a hundred percent "all in". I really like how you're approaching patient care from the whole person standpoint, because that's what helped you when you were pregnant.

Let's look at the positive. Let's look at the fact that I believe in you. And I think bringing in all these modalities helps.

So, you have the science to discuss all these modalities and you really are treating the whole person. I love how you brought that all together.

I do have a somewhat related question about balance.

Rethinking Balance for Physician Moms

Dr. Cindy: You've been doing all this training how do you balance the medicine and your family, or do you believe the balance is even the right word here?

Dr. Bojana: It's a good question. I do think that it's a bit of a misnomer because, or kind of hard expectation, right?

Because I think that if we expect ourselves to constantly be in balance and performing equally well in all areas of our lives, I think this is just not possible with all the demands of being a mom and being a physician, owning a business doing all of the things that we want to do.

And by the way, there's also this thing called self-care, right? Where we try to our sanity and our health and get enough sleep.

I don't think there's such a thing as a perfect balance. But I do think that what has helped me personally is, number one, prioritizing kind of knowing that if we're looking at a week, let's say, and dissecting a week schedule, knowing that, okay, these are my priorities for this week.

Maybe I'm not going to hit all of my goals, but these are the things that absolutely need to happen.

Yes, it's very easy to fall into the trap of feeling I'm inadequate, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I think we all do, right? All of us physician moms, we have moments where we feel like, oh, I just totally failed as a parent, or I did not do A, B, or C.

But I think it's so important to cultivate that compassion towards ourselves as well. And I think it helps to have a community of like-minded individuals and colleagues where we cannot necessarily so much vent to one another but just have compassion for one another and realize that we're in this shared experience.

And that it's totally normal to feel like we should be or want to be in two places at the same time, but we can't. And that sometimes one thing has to give for the other thing.

One of the people in our integrative medicine program, I don't want to misquote who she quoted, but I think it was Anne Marie Chiasson actually that quoted someone around having different times in our lives where certain areas might take that priority, that center stage.

I think that very much is true again, in my experience of motherhood and seeing how my own kids have different needs over time, and then that partly informs me where I can dedicate my own efforts and dedicate my own attention.

I think it is important at the same time to be mindful of what's important to us, what's important to people around us, and ultimately do the best we can.

Dr. Cindy: Right. It is a flow back and forth between the different seasons of life but within that flow, you can still prioritize each week, each day, what matters most at that time.

Dr. Bojana: Definitely. One of the things I think for me and a lot of my friends and colleagues, it took some time to learn how to set boundaries.

I'm still learning how to do that. But I think that over time it becomes a little bit easier if we look at it through this lens of, if I say yes to this, that means I'm saying no to something else. Let's see if I have the bandwidth to do that.

And that it's perfectly fine to say no or to delay something or to say if there simply isn’t capacity, because I think it's much easier to stay in this state of challenge or to rise to the occasion when needed. Then go all the way to burnout and then have to kind of build ourselves back up.

The Three Circles: Comfort, Challenge, and Overwhelm

Dr. Bojana: There's a beautiful image of these three concentric circles that I was first introduced to in my mindfulness-based stress reduction class.

The smallest circle on the inside is comfort. The middle one is challenge, and then the outward one is overwhelm.

When we reach that overwhelm or burnout – when we're in that state for long enough – where we feel: I have nothing more to give. I'm exhausted. I'm no longer enthusiastic about the things that I love. I don't have any more of myself to give.

We really have to go back into the nourishment mode.

Which means we can't go back into challenge and go back to the high-performance person we used to be. We first have to go back to that nourishment and to that comfort and then build ourselves back up.

If you think about it, the more we get to that burnout, the more it's going to take time to recover and bounce back.

So, this is one of the ways in which I really try to, when I'm motivated to say yes to everything, of course I can do that to then have a reality check with myself. And say, “Can you really, because no, that's not realistic.”

To have a little more compassion to say, “No, I think I'm going to kind of just gauge how best to stay in the challenge zone rather than completely stretch myself and then fail miserably in all different ways and burnout and then take a while to get back up.”

Dr. Cindy: I love that visual of the three circles. I think a lot of us might, when we're overwhelmed, want to just go back to the challenge [circle]. Okay, let's pivot, let's fix it – and that sounds like the challenge part. But really what you're saying is we need to get withdraw a little bit more and get back into self-care, the comfort.

What a beautiful visual that puts it in the perspective. Thank you.

Now you've woven together so many roles in your career – physician, speaker, mentor for fellow physicians, and advocate for integrative health. What part of your work feels most energizing right now? What do you love speaking about and teaching?

What Truly Energizes Integrative Physicians Today

Dr. Bojana: The most energizing, I have to say, I love patient care. I love working with patients one-on-one. I love the "aha" moments. I love to see, like, literally, this is so nerdy, but I love to see reversing diabetes or pre-diabetes or improving thyroid antibodies or like my menopausal patients feeling so much better when they're on treatment and so on.

So that is the number one thing that lights me up. And this is what's always been kind of the primary driver of being in medicine.

I also love educating because again, I recognize not everybody can have a personal integrative medicine doctor, and there is so much information out there, right?

People are being targeted on social media. There is so much marketing from all sorts of health and wellness companies. And it's very, very noisy out there.

It is satisfying to be able to talk to a group of people that maybe doesn't have their own integrative medicine doctor, but they can take the tools and say, Okay, this is what I've learned. How do I now go and advocate for myself with respect to getting certain labs done with respect to asking certain questions about [my] treatment and being more involved in [my] healthcare.

I really do enjoy that part of work and that sense of empowerment because knowing how to implement that knowledge is power. It's so rewarding. It's so beautiful.

Then similarly with mentoring and working with other physicians and kind of sharing the things that I appreciated being shared with me or that I would've wanted shared with me when I was starting out. And this constant exchange of knowledge.

AI in Medicine: Partner, Not Replacement

Dr. Bojana: I think that we're, um, you know, we're living in a world where AI is taking on a more and more prominent role, but I think it's so important to continue to refine and work on our own medical judgment and medical decision making judgment, but then incorporate that into our world.

But continuing to use our brain, like we're really continuing to critically think. That's just as an aside, but that's one of the things that I'm really so mindful of and often think about – in medical education and in how we're now working with some incredible tools like Open Evidence AI in medicine, right?

We want to leverage these incredible tools that have such a great capacity, but at the same time, we don't want that to lead to us having less skills or less ability to critically think and apply information and only rely on that.

Dr. Cindy: I love that you brought AI into this because AI is available to everyone, not just the physicians.

Patients are coming in, some fully educated on what's going on with them, and they have AI telling them what questions to ask, what it may be, what it may not be. I love seeing your passion for that one-on-one interaction with your patients. You mentioned earlier in this interview that that was your passion while you're in medicine. And again, now.

I personally think that in medicine we can't lose that. We can't, as physicians lose that one-on- one, human touch, listening, guidance alongside AI. And I fully support AI, but I just also fully support the human touch part of it, which is exactly what you're doing.

So, I like that you brought that in and that you're using that together. Wonderful.

Dr. Bojana: Yeah, and I love it by the way, when patients bring in, their questions that they've generated through using AI and various tools, I think that it often helps to make the discussion more informed, but at the same time, there again needs to be some education around that discussion.

And there's a lot of discussion around, are people using the right prompts, right? As physicians we know the prompts, I know the relevant prompts to put into my medical AI that I use to help the AI shape and give me the top priority diagnoses that it's thinking about or treatment or thinking about that it's generating.

But, sometimes again, for a person without medical training, they might put in all the information, which is great. Or maybe certain areas could be omitted and that could mislead. So obviously we still need a human, a trained human, to go through that. But I do like that people do come in more engaged, which is great.

Dance as Medicine: Creativity, Play, and Cognitive Health

Dr. Cindy: Shifting gears as we wrap up today, I wanted to quickly touch on something that you mentioned to me about dance and how important it is in your life and what it means to you. Can you explain that to us?

Dr. Bojana: Yes.

So, back to kind of exploring the idea of balance, right? The non-existent balance. I think that this is one of the ways in which I try to cultivate a little bit of that balance in my own interests and so forth. And also, dance is great for reducing the risk of dementia and whatnot. So there, there's that as well.

But, prior to medical school, I did salsa dancing and absolutely loved it and then left it for a number of years. Mostly I was really not dancing during medical training and having kids and all of that. And so just in the last four years or so, I started doing Latin ballroom dancing and it has been fantastic.

It's my only kind of creative endeavor that I have in my life. I'm not otherwise. Really there's nothing else really created. It's kind of boring. I mean, not to me, it's not boring to me, but like it's there, there's something else creative really that I haven't, so this is one way in which I find that I can express creativity, but also work in a different way.

I mean, I absolutely need to work out for my mental health and physical health, but with dance, it's a little bit of a mixture of a different kind of physical workout, but also a mental workout, exploration of creativity, being together with music.

I have been competing in the ProAm Latin ballroom as well, which is also kind of nice because then I get to set goals and so I still get to kind of have that competition with myself really with just, Okay, how much better can you get?

It kind of allows me to practice that focus and that alertness and so on. But in a completely low- pressure way because this is something I do for fun.

So, the performance is not as important as the actual process. So, this is like the thing that I do for fun. That's my play, that's my version of play. And kind of trying to release a little bit of that like nervous system, tone that I normally have.

Dr. Cindy: Absolutely play and creativity as an outlet for all of the the tone, as you say, that we carry in medicine, caring for others and how important that part of our life is.

A Message for Physician Moms: Compassion and Inner Guidance

Dr. Cindy: Thank you for sharing that. As we close, I'd love to ask you to speak directly to the woman who's listening right now. What do you hope that she takes away from this conversation today?

Dr. Bojana: I hope that the takeaway for anyone listening is that: number one, practicing medicine can take on different forms and that it's important to listen to yourself if there are areas that you want to further develop in your career or in your work with patients.

If that feels like the right path, if that feels like what's going to make the most meaningful impact, I think it's so important to follow that rather than continue to stay in a preexisting idea of maybe something that was true 10 years ago.

Plus, I think the second thing is continuing to cultivate that self-compassion that no one is able to be everything to everyone at all times. And just knowing how to listen to yourself.

If you need the time for yourself, if you need to, go to a yoga class, do a meditation, or do a quick 4-7-8 breath or any kind of breathing exercise, to really give that to yourself, to really give those little bits of nervous system release, these little bits of regulation and relaxation, time in nature.

I think that's so, so important. I know we didn't touch on that, but I think that really cultivating that area, that middle circle of challenge where you're giving yourself a bit of nourishment while also being able to, stretch and perform.

Dr. Cindy: Hmm. So having self-compassion and listening to yourself, listening to your inner calling.

Connect with Dr. Bojana + Free Meditation Guide

Dr. Cindy: Bojana, how can we connect with you if we want to learn more about you?

Dr. Bojana: Absolutely. People can reach me through my website. It's drbojana.com. More than happy to connect. I’m also happy to connect on social media. On Instagram, we are @drbojana as well. I'd love to hear from you.

Dr. Cindy: I will put those in the show notes for anyone listening, so you don't have to try to remember. You can look it up later, jot it down, connect with you. I am so thankful for you showing up today and sharing your wisdom and your experience so generously, and I'm just so grateful and I hope people reach out to you and connect with you. Thank you.

Dr. Bojana: Thank you. And we do have a meditation guide on our website as well, so people can get that when they go on.

Dr. Cindy: Oh, wonderful. Got it. Thank you.

[Thank you for tuning in today to Inspired Mom MDs. If this episode resonates with you, please share with a friend who may benefit too. And I humbly ask to please leave a review so other doctor moms can find me too! Just a quick reminder – this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and isn’t a substitute for medical advice or care. I’m a board-certified physician, but this content isn’t connected to my clinical practice, and no doctor-patient relationship is formed here. Please always talk to your own health professional about any mental or physical health concerns. And as always, take what helps and leave the rest. Please see InspiredMomMDs.com for full disclaimer.]

Guest links: 
https://drbojana.com/articles/
https://drbojana.com/new-patient-application/
https://drbojana.com/