Dr. Hoyt Gets Interviewed: Her Story, Her Mission, and 100 Episodes

We're celebrating 100 episodes of Food Allergy and Your Kiddo and the release of Dr. Hoyt's book "Navigating Food Allergies: A Parent's Guide to Care, Coverage, and Confidence" — and we're doing it a little differently. This week, the Hoyt Institute's communications strategist Lindsay Levine turns the mic around and puts Dr. Hoyt in the hot seat. From her LSU roots to launching a food allergy ecosystem, Dr. Hoyt opens up about the journey behind the podcast, her practice, and everything in between.

Subscribe to YouTube: @hoytfoodallergy
Instagram: hoytfoodallergy
Facebook: Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy

Resources

📖 Navigating Food Allergies: A Parent’s Guide to Care, Coverage, and Confidence by Dr. Alice Hoyt - order from Amazon and more 

For Parents ➡️ Office Hours for Parents 

For Providers ➡️ Food Allergy Pediatric Hub

For Schools ➡️ Code Ana

For Potential Patients ➡️ Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy

🔎 Find an Allergist
AAAAI Allergist Finder
ACAAI Allergist Finder
OIT Allergist Finder

This podcast is the official podcast of the Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy. Information on, within, and associated with this site and Food Allergy and Your Kiddo is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Food Allergy in Your Kidddo's 100th episode. I am Lindsay Levine, the Hoyt Institute's communications strategist, and today we are celebrating this important milestone by flipping the script and putting Dr. Hoyt on the spot to tell her story and answer some questions that she has not yet seen. Welcome to your own podcast, Dr. Hoyt, and congratulations on 100 episodes. That's huge.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Thank you so much, Lindsay. And I couldn't do it without people like you, um, other people behind the scenes podcast, but really our viewers, our listeners from that time when I started this years ago at this point. So thank you.

Why She Chose Allergy Medicine

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yes. Well, we're excited. And um before we jump into your work, I want to start with you because all of this did not happen by accident. So take us way back. What originally drew you to medicine and specifically allergy and immunology?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, I I've always wanted and I always wanted to help people. And when I was growing up, you know, people who were doctors were looked at as like very smart people and very like caring people and very, very well respected. And I was like, I want to be like that. And I did this this program when I was in high school called Day with the Docs at LSU School of Medicine. It was so cool. And so then I did um actually nutrition pre-med at LSU and loved it because I love nutrition. Very, I mean, it's like hindsight is 2020, right? Like God totally knows, knows our path, even when we're like, what is happening? Um, but did nutrition pre-med at LSU and the tiger. And went to med school and go tigers. And just being able to help people, I thought going into residency. I did a residency in what's called MedPeeds, it's combined internal medicine and pediatrics. So we're trained to help even very, very sick people who are adults, little kids. We do a lot of intensive care unit. Um, but I knew I wanted to be able to take care of kind of all ages. And during that time, I was very interested in how our bodies were interacting with our environment, and especially from a nutrition standpoint and foods. And uh, one of my mentors recommended I look at allergy because I wasn't quite finding what I was interested in in the GI world. And so I looked at allergy, I was like, oh my gosh, this is absolutely what I want to do. And I've been full steam ahead ever since. And I love it.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Great. And was there a moment early in your career when you realized how life-changing food allergy care could be?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I don't know if there was one particular moment because I feel like the more I learn about this field and the more advances we have, the more impact and potential impact we can have on families. Case in point, like when I went into allergy fellowship over 10 years ago, there there were not a lot of ways to treat food allergies. And now here we are today, where there are options for families. I will also say though, that my husband has a food allergy. And we started dating before I decided, I think it was before I decided to do allergy. I was still trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. Um, and he has a food allergy. So, you know, looking back in hindsight, I wonder how much that did play some sort of role where I saw that he had to be very mindful when he went out. I saw the quality of life impact that it can potentially have. Um, I also saw, you know, some of the blessings around it, which is you have friends and loved ones, family members who look out for you, who are demonstrating their love for you by helping you navigate food allergies, by helping you be safe at when you go out to eat at a restaurant. Um, so, you know, I mean, looking back, I wonder how much all of that really played a role. I feel like I was completely, I mean, I was, right? Like just totally in my infancy of understanding of food allergy. Um, but the more I understand it, the more I know there's so much less left for us to learn and then share with our patients.

Closing Clinical And Education Gaps

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah, it does, it feels like it's constantly evolving and improving. And you do such a great job of managing those care options for your patients. Um you built, speaking of your patients, you've built more than a practice. You've built this entire community. We I like to call it the ecosystem. And you've got your podcast, obviously, and you've got your practice and your nonprofit and your advocacy work and just all of these things. Um so what gaps, I guess, what gaps were you seeing in food allergy care that pushed you to create all of these resources for families?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So I think there were two big things. One was clinically, the gap clinically. I remember I was at the Cleveland Clinic. I came back from the American Academy of Allergy Astro Immunology Conference one year, and this was before Palforsia launched. Palphorsia was the first treatment FDA approved for specifically for peanut allergy. It was before that was out, but I had, you know, I went to the academy meeting and learned so much about oral immunotherapy, had already been learning about it, had already kind of done some in fellowship under the supervision of some very cool mentors. And I said, you know, I just can't keep telling patients there's nothing I can do for their child. There is something I can do for their child. And even though I don't have this, what I thought at the time was some sort of like fancy magical peanut flour, even though it wasn't, it's just defatted peanut flour. Um, I said, you know what, it's all about the protein, the peanut protein. And so I took what the academician researchers were doing with their protocols and converted it into a peanut butter protocol. And over the years, what's been amazing is that I've been able to connect with other allergists and really get plugged in with what's called Fast OIT Food Allergy Support Team, which is this network of amazing food allergy-focused allergists who were doing a lot of oral immunotherapy, sublingual immunotherapy, just really trying to be very proactive and caring for patients. Because that was the other side of it, is okay, so the clinical gap, right, is just being able to offer the therapies that patients need. The other gap is providing families with the information, the evidence-based family-focused information. And that's actually how I started the podcast. Now, I didn't originally start the podcast though, I originally started my blog, Food Allergy in Your Kiddo. And I used to call it an info blog. And I found myself writing, and I'm very particular when I write because I don't want to be misinterpreted. Because if a family misinterprets what I as a doctor say, even if I'm writing in the capacity of an allergist, not your allergist, I've talked with your allergist about what you're learning today, even if I write in that capacity, then I would be part of the problem of providing bad information. And I want to be providing good information. And I was so meticulous about my blog posts, and it was taking me so much time. Um, around that same time was COVID, and I was home with my daughter. I had a newborn at the time, and I there was this online course to take to learn how to do a podcast. And I was like, well, I can do that. Like I like medical media. I actually love medical media. I love taking concepts that are medical and and can be just kind of like difficult for a non-medical person, right? Because you're not medically trained, and in discussing it in a way that anybody could understand it. Because at the end of the day, anything medicine, it has to do with our bodies, and we need to understand our bodies and our children's bodies.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

And I will say, us non-medically minded people really appreciate that. So thank you. Well, you're very welcome.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Um keep going. And so that's why I started the podcast was because clearly, I mean, I can sit here and talk about food allergies all day with anybody. Like, and I love what I love about the podcast is I will absolutely I have no shame when it comes to trying to get like the best, best, like the most amazing experts for our audience to hear. I will just cold email people, introduce myself, send a link to the show. Um, it's much easier now, right? Like, I mean, we've been doing this since 2020. Yeah, a hundred episodes. The hundredth episode. But back in the day when, you know, I was a newer allergist, I'm much more established now. Um, I was a newer allergist. Podcasts were not as popular back then, right? Um and so it's it's just those two gaps that I really saw and why I really am doing the things that I'm doing is because of the clinical gaps, but also because of the education gaps.

Writing A Parent Guide That Flows

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah, for sure. And you are just putting so much incredible information out there. Um, and you said writing your blog, so that made me think, you know, and also shameless plug for navigating food allergies, which is out today. So double whammy, congratulations. But from the outside, you know, all of the things that you're doing on a daily basis, in addition to treating patients and all of the 1,000 things going on. Like you just wrote a book in your spare time with your two small children and your husband and your household. How do you do that? And what does that look like day to day?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Oh my gosh. So um, I was totally naive to writing a book. I did write a children's book, Wally the Seafood Allergic Walrus. Um, such a lovely fun story, but that is very different than writing navigating than writing navigating food allergies. I went into writing navigating food allergies because I wanted to basically take everything in my brain about food allergies and share it with parents. Because again, it comes back to there's a lot of information available, but what is good information and what is not good information? What's actively bad information, or what is information that is good information, but it's not relevant to your child. And so I, you know, I'm so naive. Um, one of my friends, Tamara Hubbard, was writing a book and her book is out. Um, and um, you know, I was like, Tamara, you know, how, you know, how did you how did you do this? And she talked to them about applying to the different publishers. And I was like, well, well, this is absolutely amazing. Um, her book is May Contain Anxiety, by the way. You should totally go back and listen to that episode. It is, it is an excellent, excellent book. Um, and so she told me what she she did. I was like, well, this is real, this is so cool, Tamara. Like, this is awesome that you're putting like all this good information out there. Like, I want to do that too. And I, I, you know, doing the market research of was there already something that that filled this gap? There wasn't anything that that I found that filled the gap in a way that is really just talking to parents, like parent to parent. Um, there's a lot of like really good um books out there by some of my colleagues, but as you know, you do communications for us. Like there's a very specific um like brand tone that we follow, where we're always trying to provide good information, accurate information. We're never trying to fear-monger, we're the opposite of that. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Um, we recognize that there are different ways to approach food allergies for different kiddos. There are different strategies that different allergists use, and all of that, all of that is is good. It's all okay. It all just has to be applied to me as a doctor to the patient in front of me. And so going back to your question about like, how did I do it? I thought it was going to be easy actually, because I was like, oh, I have all this content from all these podcasts and these blogs and all these presentations I've given. Well, let me tell you, it was not easy. Um, the first draft of the book was terrible. It wasn't terrible because the content was bad. The content was great. It was terrible because it wasn't organized well. Um, classic Alice overcomplicating things. When I was going into organizing the book, I really didn't want the book to start out in like an encyclopedic fashion of like, this is a food allergy, and these are different types of food allergies. I really wanted it to be more of like you enter the book from where you are on your journey.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

That's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

But clearly that has problems. People are gonna be in different places in their journey. And really, I did want to provide that foundational information to families, to parents in particular, about what a food allergy is, what types of food allergies there are, what is not a food allergy. And so when I reorganized the book, um, it came out to be the book that is now out at the time of this recording. And I know some some people have gotten it early already, and that's really awesome. Um, but it is it is an it is an it is a solid book. It is very good. One of the reasons I can very confidently say that is not only the reorganization to make it just like flow beautifully, and that's the feedback I'm getting before I go on this whole story of like it was such a terrible flow before. Um, that's the feedback I'm getting from people looking at. It's like it's it's easy to read and it flows nicely, and you can go like different chapters, whatever's like super relevant to you right now. Um but I also I had really amazing people review specific chapters. So if you look at the back of the book where I expressed gratitude and and called out specific people, okay, so those, yes, so the back of the book, the blurbs are amazing from these amazing people, but also the acknowledgments towards the end inside. Um, I mean, there are so many amazing allergists and other clinicians who who really helped um like iron sharpens iron, right? So so this book really is for any parent who is navigating food allergies. This this book will be a helpful guide for you.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

And I will say it's only 200 pages, so it's very digestible and it's not overwhelming. The way you laid it out, you can just hop to the chapter that you need right now in this season of your journey and and get what you need, and it's incredible and amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Um yes, and at the beginning of each chapter, it has basically a way to kind of like set set your mind, um, get ready to receive the information that's going to be presented by having very like specific uh learning objectives, right? That doesn't really sound super attractive, but they're very important so that you know what you're about to get out of that chapter. And then at the end of that chapter, there are action items so that you can start to put these strategies into practice yourself.

Patient Stories That Changed Her

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I love that. And um, I'm a big fan just for my own kids and our in our journey too. So we we really appreciate it. Um moving to, you know, we just want to pick your brain a little bit. Has there been in your career a patient story that has really stuck with you and kind of you know molded the way you approach cases today?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, I would say there are a few that are coming to mind very quickly. One is the child of a family medicine physician who uh one one of the phrases she said is Dr. Hoyt, the only thing that scares me more than doing OIT is not doing OIT. And I thought that that was very, that was very um clearly very deep, but very insightful. And this child now is doing awesome, very, very, very well. Incredible. And she is happy, clearly, that we did that. We did we did oral immunotherapy to help desensitize him, um, to help him be safer, whether or not he wants to eat a ton of peanuts for the rest of his life, or he just wants to be bite-safe. Meaning, if he were to accidentally take a bite of something with peanut, he wouldn't have a severe life-threatening reaction, right? Different goals for different patients, personalized evidence-based medicine. And when she said that, you know, she is she is a physician, you know, so she she could really understand risks, benefits, and alternatives. And that just stuck with me because of the clinical aspect, but also because of the relationship that I really believe a doctor and the patient and the patient's parents need to have. It's one of trust, of two-way communication, of accessibility. Um, and so that has really stuck with me as how can I make this journey as less stress, more joy as possible? It's because of those kinds of comments. Another patient also did oral immunotherapy and started he was under two when he started, which is a great age to start. And mom's a teacher. And I remember talking to her when he was going into kindergarten, and she the way she was saying, you know what, it's so nice that I don't have to worry about him accidentally eating peanuts, because as his mom, I'm already worrying about the transition of okay, we were in this really controlled early childcare environment, and now we're going into big school. And he's like, I just can't even imagine if I did have to worry about that. And so all of these discussions that I have with patients, with parents especially, they feed into how can I care more? I had a discussion with my friend Karina Venter the other day, and we talked about how in in in healthcare, now we we call it like delivering care. It's like here is care, here you go. It really should be how do we care? How are we caring for our patients? Those two phrases, they're different, right? And so I am always trying to care for my patients that the best way that they need to be cared for, and the only way I can be good at that and continue to grow to be better at that is if I'm listening to them.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

And how how has a becoming a mom shaped the way practice?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Oh my gosh. Um it shaped it a lot. Um, when I became a mom, it was during COVID. I was still working at the Cleveland Clinic, which was my dream job. I had a wonderful job there. Supportive, amazing supportive boss, supportive group, super motivated to have the food allergy center of excellence. Um, I was blessed to help launch that. And then COVID struck. I actually went on bed rest before COVID hit. Um, so then I'm just like sitting on my couch watching these alerts, and I'm like, this isn't good. Yeah. So then we have our daughter, and she's early. We were, I had some complications. Uh, so we were expecting her to be early. But um when she came home, I mean, I was like, here's this, here's this beautiful little girl that I've prayed for and prayed for. Um, and here she is. And so I knew that I couldn't go back, and I had already had some insight. God had already whispered that on my heart, and I had talked to my boss about when I come back to work, what it was gonna look like. And it was a very um, it was a very different approach than many, many doctors were doing at the time. Um, you know, doctoring was really the the standards were set for for doctoring, doctors' hours, doctors, you know, things we think about when we think of doctors. It really wasn't a women's world, right? And so now that more women are doctoring, um, we want to do things a little bit differently. And it's not to say that the way men doctor is wrong. I think the way a lot of men doctor is very appropriate for them as men. But for I as a woman and especially as a mom, it is very important to me. And I center my life around my kids, which is why my practice is not full time. That being said, I use that insight that I now have as a mom, also have a little boy, to try to make me a better doctor. And so when families are reaching out to me and it's after hours or whatever the case may be, then they're reaching out to me because they're a parent and they're concerned about something. And it's it's so easy for me to just it's I don't even feel like it's tapping into my momhood because I'm just like always a mom. You know, now I'm just always a mom and I always am like thinking as a mom a lot of times, right? But marrying that with doctoring. And so I I find that maybe I just I respond differently because I can better understand where that parent's coming from with that question, with that concern. Um, long, long story short, I think I'm a better doctor because I'm a mom. Yeah, I love that.

Advocacy For Epi Access In Schools

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Um, I heard you say that your your practice is part-time. That's why you're not full-time. But um, the amount of things that we've already aforementioned, you know, listed out. Um, I want to talk about specifically just really hitting on the um advocacy work that you're doing. So you've met with our um our national lawmakers and you've done so many things for um epinephrine access and for emergency preparedness in schools. You and your husband started Code Anna. Um, and that work, you know, we've heard stories of what you've created translating into actual lives saved. And and I just want to understand how you found yourself in that advocacy space and what drives your passion around it.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I think I think you probably know me well enough by now, Lindsay, to know that to a fault, if I see a problem, I want to solve it. And I want to solve it promptly. Um, and so how Codana actually started was I was in fellowship and my fellowship director asked me to go talk to one of the local schools about Epi and food allergy. I'm like, absolutely. I had already done some school stuff in like high school and college, and and um, I think I did some in med school too, but like I've I've always just loved educating. So I go and meet with the school nurse who's absolutely lovely. This is an absolutely wonderful school. And she says, Well, okay, how am I gonna like I know how to use Epi, but how am I gonna know that the child needs it if I'm in my office and they're on the playground? And I said, thinking back to my many hours working in the intensive care unit of the hospitals in downtown New Orleans in my residency training, thinking back to, you know, and asking her, well, what is your medical emergency response plan? In a hospital, we'll call a code or we'll have a prevent a code team, right? Like, and we're getting a core group who has practiced this to the side of the emergency and handling it. There's good communication, everybody knows their roles or tasks are being assigned with closed loop communication during the emergency. And I said, you know, what's your medical emergency response plan? And there wasn't one at all. There's basics like they're gonna call the nurse. But when you really dive deep into this, and that's in part why we created Cody and his medi ready program, a totally free program that teaches schools basically. What do you do if there is a medical emergency at your school? And it is very specific. You have different roles, different tasks assigned. And all of that came from there was a problem, they needed a solution, and I had a creative approach to doing it. That's so impactful.

Advice To Her Younger Self

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Um, I bet you didn't anticipate you would be where you are today at the beginning of your career. So if there's one thing you could tell young, impressionable Dr. Alice, Dr. Hoyt, when you first started your career, what would you say to her?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Oh my gosh. I would say accept who you are, be confident in who you are, pray for God to grow your strengths and improve your weaknesses and go do it.

Closing Message And Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Go do it. Message for all of us. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Hoyt, for letting us flip the microphone around today and pick your brain and tell a little bit more of your story. Um, we are so excited to celebrate this milestone episode with you. So happy 100th episode of Food Allergy in your kiddo and happy navigating food allergies launch day. We are so happy for you. Um, and we appreciate all that you do for the food allergy community.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

That's the episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Remember, I'm an allergist, but I'm not your allergist. So talk with your allergist about what you learned today. And like and subscribe and share this with your friends. God bless you and God bless your family.