WTL 5: Meet Z. Colette Edwards

     Five provocative questions answered by an inspiring and fabulous woman  – a woman with something to say.

Meet  Z. Colette Edwards, M.D., M.B.A.

Z. Colette Edwards, M.D., M.B.A. helps individuals and organizations in the healthcare arena access their best by identifying opportunities and developing distinctive solutions through innovation and collaboration. She is the founder and CEO of:

• PeopleTweaker, a coaching service for individuals and corporations providing integrative, holistic health, wellness, and life/executive coaching and seminars. Individuals who benefit from her coaching focus include physicians with burnout, C-suite executives, female business owners, peri/menopausal women, and individuals with GI health conditions. (She is a gastro-enterologist.)
•  Insight MD, a healthcare business consultancy, which offers program design and implementation, targeted strategic planning and development, innovative product design, consultative data and clinical ROI analysis including benefit design and large claims analysis, and health disparities/health literacy/cultural competency consultation.

Dr. Edwards is also Managing Editor of the Wharton Healthcare Quarterly and has written on various health topics for Her Mind and Women’s Day magazines.

People would be surprised to know that:  Although very much a novice, I love fencing, ballroom dancing, Pilates, and golf. My three dreams: (1) open my own restaurant, (2) work for a healthcare foundation, and (3) create a holistic, integrative, “one-stop shopping,” patient-focused care delivery system that marries the best of Western medicine and technology with the wisdom and healing of evidence-based Eastern (and other cultures) modalities which serves the patient and community while functioning as a model of care.

The WTL 5: 

What’s the conversation that changed your life? 

I can recall many moments that have truly fed my soul, both while caring for patients and throughout my journey; it would be impossible to select a single conversation which changed my life. For me, it has been more of an evolution mightily impacted by the people in my life as well as my experiences. To observe strength, courage of conviction, determination, grace, passion, humor, generosity of spirit, elegance of thinking, rising above circumstance, unbridled optimism, and zest for life in others inspires me to try to be a better person each day. 

What are you most conscious of today? 

Life is short, fleeting, and can change dramatically in seconds, both for the worse and the better. While it’s critical to use common sense to plan and to create a vision for the future, I do my best to take time each and every day to be truly present and to be grateful for what I have and for the people in my life. Don’t forget to express your passion and to nurture your soul. Figure out what you were really put on this earth to do and do it, because tomorrow is not promised. 

What part of you have you yet to give voice to? 

I survived a car accident, an earthquake, and a hurricane; clearly I am lucky to be here. I believe I was saved to do something “big” enough to serve as my legacy. I am still on the journey to figure it out, recognizing it may not be any single thing. Is it that the way I live my life might positively impact others?  Is it to create more moments in which being and doing become inseparable concepts, time falls away, focus is crystal clear, energy is unending, and a sense of serenity descends?  It may also be something I never consciously discover. 

What’s the conversation women need to be having collectively? 

How to become “a healthcare rebel.”  Only you know how you really feel inside your body, when something doesn’t seem quite right, no matter what the tests, x-rays, Google, and the doctors say. At times, healthcare presents many (often overwhelming) options but sometimes few choices or none at all. Only you can make the decision that is best for you, weighing all the information, benefits, potential risks, and type of life you want to live. Only you can say yes or no and live with the consequences of that decision on your life. 

What needs to be said bigger, louder, stronger? 

There are others who have eloquently stated what I believe can’t be said often enough. Edward Everett Hale’s quote resonates most for me:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”

And remember:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead

“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”
– Thomas Edison

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 Thank you, Dr. Edwards, for sharing your powerful voice
with WomanTalk Live.