{"id":75,"date":"2025-02-21T18:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T18:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024\/?p=75"},"modified":"2025-08-12T22:39:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T22:39:59","slug":"mudder-of-reinvention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/mudder-of-reinvention\/","title":{"rendered":"Mudder of Reinvention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

She entered medical school at 31, cared for a son with childhood cancer as a single mom, headed up a successful multi- million-dollar surgical practice, worked in a hospital during the early, deadly days of COVID-19 and, after switching careers during a pandemic, is now reimagining a new life chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all the storms that Michelle Gordon \u201994 has weathered throughout her life, she credits Harvey Mudd College with shaping her, sharpening her intellectual tenacity and mental toughness, and helping her get through challenging times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing through the Harvey Mudd curriculum was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done,\u201d says Gordon from her home in Cortland Manor in New York. \u201cI learned how to quickly assimilate and filter knowledge and how to be an effective problem solver. Being around people who think like you do really helps you grow. After that experience, I knew I could take on anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding a challenging and self-fulfilling career was harder than Gordon expected. She decided early in life to be a doctor. Gordon remembers overhearing her mother discuss her two brothers (who were doctors) and declaring they were \u201cso rich.\u201d \u201cMy five-year-old brain put this together: \u2018I want to make my mom happy. I have to be rich. And the way to be rich is to be a doctor.\u2019\u201d She pauses. \u201cAnd, you know what I got? Rich. And I also burned myself out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now as a \u201crecovering surgeon,\u201d Gordon sees herself as a \u201chealth coach,\u201d helping other high-powered professionals deal with burn out as they begin new careers. She\u2019s also working on other ventures that build on her medical background and personal experiences: women and menopause, combatting depression and adopting healthier habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Michelle<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Life\u2019s puzzles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Science is in Gordon\u2019s background and blood. She grew up in Richland, Washington, a town that Manhattan Project personnel took over to create plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Her father was a particle physicist. \u201cThe culture of the town was like a think tank; all the people who lived in the area were scientists,\u201d she says, remembering a pro-nuke rally she attended in high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating high school and moving to Seattle, Gordon took college classes and began to explore her personal identity. She moved to Southern California and married a man but, deep down, Gordon knew she was gay. She enrolled in Mudd at age 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gordon discovered she was pregnant around the time her marriage was dissolving. She kept her studies going and proudly remembers carrying her \u201cone-year-old son across the stage to receive my diploma.\u201d A few months later, her son was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer. Gordon cared for him after graduation while working in Mudd\u2019s IT department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the while, she held on to her goal of becoming a doctor. She was accepted into medical school at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona at age 31. She was sure she was starting her dream career. She moved to Queens for her residency, took a job in Westchester, and, in 2005, formed a surgical group which she led for almost 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019m 60 years old, and I\u2019m still building something new.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Gordon enjoyed the problem-solving aspects of being a surgeon, especially emergencies that she says \u201cwere like puzzles. People came in broken and left happy.\u201d But once her practice got big and the administrative paperwork overwhelming, she discovered she really didn\u2019t like leading surgeons with big personalities. Gordon\u2019s dream career was starting to crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When her medical director, who was going through difficult times in his personal life, died by suicide in 2019, Gordon looked at her own life: always exhausted, resentful and wanting more time with her son. \u201cIs this the life I want?\u201d she wondered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Gordon was figuring out how to close down the practice, the pandemic descended on New York City. \u201cEvery available bed at our hospital was an ICU bed,\u201d she recalls. \u201cEverywhere there were dead and dying Covid patients. We lost some of our best nurses to Covid because we did not know how to treat them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gordon worked most of the year at the hospital. After she closed her practice, Gordon gradually released her childlike idea of being a rich doctor, began to breathe easier and got excited about other career paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Career coach, podcaster and telehealth provider<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, Gordon has continued to reinvent herself: she\u2019s coached high- achieving professionals, established resources for women with menopause, and created a popular \u201cLaunch Your Life\u201d podcast where she shared personal stories and motivational talks about career, behavioral change, motherhood and life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gordon\u2019s current focus involves reinforcing wellness choices and helping to individualize medicine and private care. In March 2024, she started a telehealth practice and loves it. She often gives others advice about the value of reinvention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019m 60 years old, and I\u2019m still building something new,\u201d she says. In her opinion, it\u2019s never too late to go after your dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She entered medical school at 31, cared for a son with childhood cancer as a single mom, headed up a successful multi- million-dollar surgical practice, worked in a hospital during the early, deadly days of COVID-19 and, after switching careers during a pandemic, is now reimagining a new life chapter. For all the storms that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/fall-winter-2024-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}