I was told to keep my head down. It almost cost me my career.
I’m Dr. Qaali Hussein — double board-certified trauma and acute care surgeon, mother of six, and founder of Defiance Academy. I teach women in medicine how the system actually works so they can advance without burnout.
Nobody handed me a strategy. I had to build one.
I became a double board-certified trauma surgeon while raising six children
I overcame racism, sexism, pregnancy discrimination, and Islamophobia that actively tried to push me out of surgery
I had all six of my children during a surgical residency that had never graduated a mother. Not one, in the program’s history.
I’m still in the trauma bay. That matters because I’m not writing about a system I left. I built Defiance Academy so that you don’t have to reverse-engineer this from scratch the way I did.
You don’t have a confidence problem. You were handed a playbook written for someone else.
You’ve got Black, Muslim and woman going against you. What were you thinking getting pregnant?A surgery attending — to me, as an intern
Four ways this work reaches people.
Defiance Academy
Where I teach The Defiant Career Strategy™ — understand the system you're actually navigating, learn to read the hidden curriculum, stop coping and start strategizing. Built for women working clinical schedules.
Visit the Academy →The Defiant Career
My podcast. Every week I break down the things nobody taught you in training — burnout, bias, imposter syndrome, and how to navigate a hostile workplace without putting a bigger target on your back.
Listen →Speaking & grand rounds
Keynotes, grand rounds, and workshops for hospitals, residency programs, and conferences — on physician burnout, retention, and what it actually takes to keep women in medicine.
Request a speaking date →Writing
Essays and reporting on medicine, bias, and the cost of staying. My work has appeared in STAT News, Stories in Science, and Global Somali Magazine, and I’ve lectured at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Read the blog →Everything above is the short version. The book is the long one — and more importantly, it’s the method, laid out in order.
DEFIANCE is the book I needed at my lowest point and couldn’t find anywhere: a strategy for building a career inside a system that was never designed with you in mind. Not a memoir about surviving it. A plan for winning anyway.
Get the first chapter when it’s ready.
Join the waitlist for early excerpts, cover reveal, and pre-order access.
Find out what’s actually blocking you.
Two minutes, free, and private. It won’t tell you to do more self-care. It’ll tell you which barrier you’re actually up against which is a better starting point than guessing.