Surgeons with Purpose

***********SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING************************** This episode discusses suicidal ideation. Please listen carefully. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Jeremy Heffner is a trauma and acute care surgeon fifteen years into practice. He ran the COVID response at his institution. Somewhere in there, his compartmentalization strategy stopped working. He would find himself in situations where he couldn't contain his emotions and couldn't locate where any of it was coming from: which part of the past, which patient, which year. He had hypercompartmentalized to the point that he could no longer find the source. He saw therapists. He did EMDR. Eventually he admitted himself to a residential program for a month. Frontline workers, he says, are given almost nothing to process the day-to-day, so they don't. In surgery we keep running until we hit a wall. He describes a room full of surgeons nudging each other about who is earning more and taking the harder cases, and nobody ever asking the only…

Interested in the Cabo retreat? Learn more about it here. And interview for a spot here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Gopi Shah and Ashley Agan met when Ashley was a PGY-3 and Gopi was a fellow. They’ve been friends ever since. Both went on to spend about eight years in academic medicine. Ashley made associate professor at UT Southwestern and was the first physician in her family. Gopi built her own academic career. And eventually, they both hit a wall. They describe that wall differently. For Gopi, it was the realization that what she thought her career would feel like was not what it actually felt like. For Ashley, it looked more like a seven-year itch, coupled with a vision she’d carried for years of running a small practice of her own. What I love about their story is that they didn’t leave in the same direction. Gopi and her family moved to Paris on what she calls a pipe dream: the chance to live abroad. She put her professional life completely on hold. She needed the reset, not just…

Empowered Surgeons Group is going to Cabo January 6th-10th, 2027 for a mindset coaching intensive. Learn more about the retreat here. Interview for a spot at the retreat here. You know that old adage: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade? What that means is solving for a result we want as opposed to indulging in our own mind drama. That's what this episode is all about. When you learn how to process through mind drama, you reach your goals faster and raise your self-concept to someone who can solve any problem. Easier said than done. This is where a coaching relationship helps: to pick you up in your failures. If you are ready to jumpstart your personal development, the Women Surgeons' Retreat is the ideal place to do that. Get on my calendar today to interview for a spot. And join Empowered Surgeons Group to get started on this process right away.

My TEDx journey started while I was pooping on a very fancy toilet in NYC. But before I say more about that... First things first, get Cesar's book, Great Speech, here. Then book a call with him here. And finally, join us for the Women Surgeons' Retreat in Cabo Jan 6-10, 2027. Calling all women surgeons who want to uplevel their lives and mastermind with colleagues. Get on my calendar here to interview for a spot in this mindset coaching intensive. Back to that fancy toilet in NYC… I was with my family on spring break, and an email from Cesar somehow showed up in my inbox. Next thing I knew, I had the thought, "I can do a TEDx talk." I booked a call with Cesar, and that same year I landed my first talk. Then I landed a second talk, which was selected for the coveted Editor's Pick (an honor reserved for less than 0.1% of TEDx talks). You can watch my first talk, How to save lives with two minutes of listening here and my second talk, Can we end fear-driven healthcare? here. Cesar Cervantes was the kind of…

*************SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING******************* This episode discusses a recent suicide. Please listen carefully, or if this is particularly triggering for you, forgo listening completely. On July 23, 2025, Vaibhav Duggal turned 24. He spent the morning of his birthday in a women's health clinic in El Paso, on his OB/GYN rotation as a third-year medical student at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Six days later he was dead. In this episode, I share more details that have come to light about this case, including the processes the institution followed to address the complaint against Vaibhav, what the culture was like inside the institution, and the conversation between the Dean of the school and Vaibhav's parents. Please go back and listen to the first episode #111, Vaibhav's Story, before listening to this one. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text in the U.S. Medical students and physicians can also reach the…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Interested in the Women Surgeons' Cabo retreat Jan 6-10, 2027? Get on my calendar here. Dr. Erik Pearson grew up the son of an X-ray tech, trained in Dublin, and matched in Utah, where watching the pediatric surgeons at work made the decision for him. It wasn't only the operations. It was the weight of being trusted with someone's child. After fetal intervention research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and pediatric surgery training at Emory, he found a growing practice in Las Vegas looking to build out its ECMO program. Ten years later, he joins us to talk about what that work actually asks of a person. We get into the parts of pediatric surgery that don't make it into the training curriculum: the driveway moments after a hard case and learning to compartmentalize without going numb. Erik describes the mental shift that let him keep doing this work: I get to be there to help. Not so much be the hero. The second half of the conversation turns to October 1,…

Interested in the Cabo retreat? Click here to schedule a 15-min interview. Learn more about the powerful coaching community & mindset course, Empowered Surgeons Group, here. Decades of research point to the same conclusion: social support is one of the strongest protective factors in the face of trauma. But what happens when the way we've learned to relate to others gets in the way of that connection, especially in a profession where repeated trauma exposure is routine? In this episode, Dr. Sacha McBain joins me to talk about the intersection of attachment, community, and trauma-informed care in medical settings. We start with the research: Australian psychologist Richard Bryant's work following the Black Saturday bushfires showed that it wasn't just individual relationships that predicted recovery; it was the shape of a person's whole social network. People who were diversely connected, and whose connections were also connected to each other, fared better. The overlapping network itself served as a buffer.…

Interested in the ESG Cabo Women Surgeons' Retreat in January 2027? Get on my calendar here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. In today's episode, you will learn the three success tenets to create success and sustainability in surgery: Protect the asset Serve the patient Diversify your professional identity When we master these three things, life as a surgeon becomes easy and fulfilling. Even in the face of moral injury, decreasing reimbursement, litigation fear, complication fear, and the public's mistrust of the medical profession in general. I know because I'm living proof.

*************SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING******************* This episode discusses a recent suicide. Please listen carefully, or if this is particularly triggering for you, forgo listening completely. ”If we could save one student, one kid, one life, we are spreading his shine,” Neeru Duggal. On July 23, 2025, Vaibhav Duggal turned 24. He spent the morning of his birthday in a women's health clinic in El Paso, on his OB/GYN rotation as a third-year medical student at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Six days later he was dead. In this episode, I sit down with Vaibhav's parents, Vivek and Neeru Duggal, who are passionate about spreading the truth about what happened to Vaibhav with hopes to prevent this from happening to anyone else. We talk about who Vaibhav was, why he became a physician, his dreams for the future, and the events that ultimately crushed those dreams. We also reconstruct those six days, hour by hour, email by email. Vivek and Neeru hope to turn this needless tragedy into a…

Sheikh C. Ali dreamed of becoming a private practice surgeon from age seven. Then, when COVID hit between his third and fourth year of medical school, he noticed the landscape shifting. The pathway he'd spent his life walking toward no longer seemed viable, so he built a new path. He became the strategist healthcare leaders now hire to turn their expertise into visibility, authority, and opportunity on LinkedIn. This conversation is the playbook. Sheikh makes the case for why LinkedIn beats every other platform for clinicians. It is the one platform where you have direct access to 1.3 billion users and key decision-makers. He defines personal branding as what people say about you when you are not in the room, built from three components: core values, applicable expertise, and personality. Then he walks you through his 4 P's framework (Position, Polish, Publish, Pursue), reveals the gold mine hiding in plain sight, and gets tactical about writing a headline that works ("I help X do Y in Z"). You'll learn…

For 19 years, Dr. Adrienne Towsen practiced in the kind of orthopedic group most surgeons dream of: five partners, employees who'd been there forever, a 30-year reputation, a family feel. Then came the supergroup. Then came private equity. The pitch: liquidity events, surgery centers, top-dog status. The math: one year's salary upfront, paid back over five years through a 25% management "scrape." The reality: 12-to-14-hour days, a salary cut in half, a practice that couldn't pay for gauze pads, and a call center in another location that didn't even know she was a doctor there. Her breaking point came after a weekend of hip fracture call, when she did the math and realized she'd essentially volunteered her time. She sent her resignation the next morning. With no plan. Just the certainty that there had to be another way. Five months ago, she opened The Towsen Clinic: a concierge direct-care practice built entirely on her own terms, where visits last 60 to 90 minutes and patients finally get what they're…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Most of us got less than 20 hours of communication training in four years of medical school. Then we were thrown into the real world. Dr. Anthony Orsini has spent his career fixing that. A practicing neonatologist and founder of The Orsini Way, he's trained thousands of clinicians to navigate medicine's hardest conversations: breaking bad news, disclosing medical errors, and rebuilding trust when everything's gone wrong. His methods have helped hospitals boost patient satisfaction scores by as much as 60% and reduce malpractice risk. Learn more here. Follow Dr. Orsini on LinkedIn here.

Take the quiz: What kind of surgeon are you becoming? here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons group here. One of the most surprising truths about medical malpractice is this: the work that prepares you to become a strong defendant is the very same work that helps prevent lawsuits in the first place. It's the work that strengthens your relationships with patients, your spouse, your children, your colleagues, and your friends. At the heart of all of it are two skills: compassion and communication. In today's episode, I sit down with Heather Hansen, a medical malpractice defense attorney and expert in effective communication. As surgeons, most of us will face a lawsuit at some point in our careers. Yet no one teaches us how to navigate that experience, or how to become the kind of defendant a jury can trust. The research is clear: patients are less likely to sue physicians who communicate with empathy, authenticity, and compassion. Heather has spent decades defending physicians in the courtroom, and she shares…

Take the quiz, What Kind of Surgeon Are You Becoming here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. We often believe we have to create villains in the world in order to effect change. But what if that were not true? In this episode, I teach villain compassion, the difference between helping, fixing, and serving, and the power of intentionally choosing our thoughts before we make decisions. Because when we change our mindset, we open up a portal to new ideas and solutions. That's the heart of coaching.

Join us in Empowered Surgeons Group here. Why are so many talented women surgeons questioning whether they belong in surgery, and what does that reveal about the culture of surgery as a whole? In this episode of Surgeons with Purpose, I talk to pediatric surgeons Dr. Cornelia Griggs and Dr. Jose Greenspon about the relational challenges of practice, imposter syndrome, the hidden emotional labor women carry in surgery, and why leaving is often a self-preservation response rather than a personal failure. We discuss the toxic conversation around resilience, the narrow line women are expected to walk between being likable and authoritative, the concept of "status leveling," and the exhaustion of constantly managing others' perceptions. We also explore why women are often the first to challenge the status quo, what gives Dr. Griggs hope for the future of academic surgery, and why creating a more equitable culture will require a critical mass of men who are willing to help level the playing field. This is a…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Join Dr. Gita Pensa’s Litigation Education And Preparedness course here. Dr. Stephen Cohen is a board-certified general and colorectal surgeon, Section Chief of Surgery at the VA, and an experienced medical expert witness with nearly 30 years in the medicolegal field. We explore what it really means to build a sustainable career in surgery: one that allows surgery to enhance your life rather than consume it. Dr. Cohen shares why he left more than 20 years in private practice for academic medicine, how financial conflict influenced that decision, and why he believes every physician should consider developing multiple streams of income. We discuss the many career opportunities available outside of direct patient care, including medical expert witness work, utilization review, consulting for medical device and pharmaceutical companies, research, and other non-clinical physician roles. He also offers practical advice on how physicians can get started, how to value…

Take the quiz "What Kind of Surgeon Are You Becoming?" here. Join Empowered Surgeons Group here. Dr. Racheal Peterson joins me to share her journey into neurosurgery, a path she set her sights on before medical school and ultimately made a reality. We talk about her first experiences in the operating room as a medical student and the sense of wonder that comes with being able to truly change a patient's life with surgery. Our conversation explores what made her residency genuinely formative rather than simply something to survive, the unique "bro nerd" culture of neurosurgery, and the common trap of believing the next milestone will finally make you feel like you've arrived. We also discuss how she discovered an unexpected creative outlet through social media, her experience becoming a mother during training and as a young attending, and how her aspirations, priorities, and communication style have evolved throughout her career. This is a thoughtful conversation about identity, ambition, growth, and what it…

What kind of surgeon are you becoming? Take the quiz here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Check out Behind the Sports Medicine Podcast here and follow them on instagram here. Dr. Cameron Roth is a fellowship-trained orthopedic doctor specializing in hand, wrist, and upper extremity surgery and co-host of the podcast, Behind the Sports Medicine Podcast. In this episode we talk about what it actually feels like to finish training and go out into the world as an attending for the first time when the buck stops with you. We talk about imposter syndrome and the real divide between how men and women experience the culture of surgery, particularly orthopedic surgeons. We touch on the fallacy of certainty. You train under one attending who tells you there is one right way to do things. Then you rotate to another attending who tells you the same thing about a completely different technique. Both are certain. Both are wrong about their certainty. We also get into the first complication after training,…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Sham peer review can be one of the most devastating threats facing surgeons today. But it doesn’t have to. Physician, educator, and coach, Dr. Tracey O'Connell, pulls back the curtain on a reality most surgeons don't see coming until they're already inside it. This conversation is sobering. It is necessary. And it ends with a message of genuine hope: that the surgeon who protects herself, serves her patients, and diversifies her professional identity is also the surgeon who is hardest to destroy. What Is Peer Review, and What Is Sham Peer Review? Legitimate peer review is a quality assurance process initiated when a patient, fellow physician, or staff member reports that a physician failed to meet the standard of care or acted improperly. A hospital committee reviews the case, the physician may testify and present evidence, and a determination is made. Sham peer review is something else entirely. It is the weaponization of that same process for personal,…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons here. Every surgeon enters the profession knowing the clinical risks. Complications happen. Patients are unhappy. Outcomes fall short. That is part of the contract. But what about the other risks? The systemic and structural ones that have nothing to do with how compassionate of a human you are, how good of a diagnostician you are, or how slick of a technician you are? You got into this to take care of people. But the system was designed to protect patients from bad actors, and those protections can be weaponized against good doctors for nefarious reasons. In this 100th episode, neurosurgeon Dr. Christian Bowers joins me for an unfiltered convo about the systems governing physician careers and the gap between what those systems were designed to do and how they actually function. Dr. Bowers draws on years of watching colleagues' careers upended to illuminate what no one teaches in training. "The thing that could totally derail someone's career overnight, with no fault of…

Join Empowered Surgeons Group here. Dr. Won Kim is a brain and tumor neurosurgeon at UCLA Health, where he trained, completed a fellowship in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, and built a practice around treating tumors that were once considered inoperable. He is also the kind of surgeon who will tell you he is hard to work for, that M&M should be about quality improvement not blame, and that the last five percent of a perfect resection isn't worth the cost of your patient's quality of life. Won's path to neurosurgery started with a childhood friend who had clinical depression. He wanted to understand how a brain could work so well and suffer so much at the same time. That question took him from a fascination with psychology to watching his first awake craniotomy, and it never really let him go. He ultimately chose neurosurgery over psychiatry. But the question of what makes one person able to thrive while another person can't escape the darkness has followed him throughout his career. In this…

Join Empowered Surgeons Group here. Dr. Red Hoffman has spent her career sitting with people at the hardest moments of their lives. As a physician who combines trauma care and palliative medicine, she has built a practice around something most of us spend our whole lives avoiding: death. But what makes Red's perspective so singular is that she isn't just a professional witness to loss. She has lived it, repeatedly and violently. Her grandparents died in a car accident when she was 12. Her father was killed in a terrorist attack in Egypt when she was 19. Her partner sustained a traumatic brain injury and later died by suicide when she was 49. This is a woman who knows grief from the inside out, and she has chosen to meet it with love rather than distance. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually means to have a good death, and what it means for the people left behind. Red explains why violent deaths carry a unique burden — not just the loss itself, but the law enforcement, the media, the legal…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. What happens when being a doctor is no longer enough to sustain you? Dr. Shieva Ghofrany, OB/GYN and founder of A Tribe Called V joins me to explore identity, autonomy, and the hidden pressures of practicing medicine. Dr. Ghofrany didn’t follow a traditional path into medicine, and she doesn’t practice it traditionally either. From switching majors multiple times to building a parallel business, she shares what it looks like to question expectations, tolerate failure, and expand beyond the narrow identity many physicians inherit. We talk about the emotional and psychological realities of OB/GYN, the weight of responsibility in high-stakes situations, and the courage it takes to step outside the “golden handcuffs” of medicine. This episode is about more than career decisions. It’s about how you relate to yourself, especially when things don’t go as planned. 🔍 In This Episode, We Discuss Why identity in medicine can become limiting and how to expand beyond it The…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Dr. Jake Goodman is a psychiatrist who works with healthcare professionals and has built a following of over 2 million people by saying the things most physicians are thinking but not saying out loud. His practice started in a telling way: his first patient was a surgeon, then a dentist, then a veterinarian, then an OB/GYN. That pattern wasn’t random; it revealed something much bigger. There is a massive, unmet need for mental health support in healthcare, and most of us are silently struggling more than we admit. Jake shares his own story of depression during intern year, when he thought he was “burned out,” but was actually depressed. Low energy. Numb. Going through the motions. And here’s the part that hits: he was a psychiatry resident and still couldn’t see it in himself. That’s how deep the stigma runs in our profession. We talk about what it actually takes to come out of that place and why “working harder” is not the answer. At some point, the armor has to…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. What if your relationship with food had nothing to do with discipline and everything to do with your nervous system? In this conversation with Luis Mojica, we explore the connection between developmental trauma, chronic stress, and the way we relate to food. Luis shares his own story of using an eating disorder to cope with undiagnosed PTSD, and how that led him to question the traditional psychology model that focuses on behavior without getting curious about environment, physiology, or nutrition. His work in nutrition counseling revealed a pattern: people with unresolved trauma and chronic stress often struggle to stabilize their health in ways that have nothing to do with discipline and everything to do with their nervous system. We talk about food as a relationship. Not just something we consume, but something that becomes us. Our tissues, our skin, our blood. Food can stimulate, suppress, or balance the body, much like our relationships with people.…

Learn more about Love and Science Fertility here. Join Empowerd Surgeons here. Infertility is shaping the lives of female physicians, and we need to talk about it. Dr. Erica Bove, creator of Love and Science, shares the startling fact that 1 in 4 female physicians and 1 in 3 female surgeons experience infertility. Interestingly, the very mindset that makes us successful in surgery can work against us when it comes to building a family. We explore the hidden role of stress, trauma, and nervous system dysregulation, and the trap so many physicians fall into: trying to solve infertility by working harder, researching more, and disconnecting from their own bodies. Dr. Bove offers a radically different approach, one that begins with humanity. We talk about: Why going on a certainty frenzy doesn't solve the problem How trauma states impact fertility physiology The courage it takes to receive care, not just give and give Reconnecting with your deepest “why” Boundaries, community, and learning to say: I deserve to…

Surgeons, join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group today. In this episode, Dr. Karen Leitner and I explore the hidden thought patterns that keep women physicians stuck. And how to break free! We cover: Why charting paralysis happens (and the thought loops that drive it) Being diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) later in life and the shift from self-judgment to self-understanding The power of acceptance and letting go of control over outcomes The moment Karen realized even “good doctors” get sued How medical training builds a hypercritical inner voice (and how to replace it with self-compassion) Moving from walking a tightrope → to feeling solid and safe within yourself The reality of inequity: women physicians being undervalued and underpaid Lessons from Women Don’t Ask on why women avoid negotiation The mindset shifts needed to negotiate powerfully: Your value is yours—even if others don’t recognize it Hearing “no” is part of the process, not the end Discomfort is the price of…

Interested in our retreat to Norway? Get on my calendar for an interview here. What does it really take to survive and succeed in a system that wasn’t built with you in mind? In this episode, I explore that question with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Sonya Sloan. We talk about the hidden curriculum of medicine: the unspoken rules, the power dynamics, and the strategies required to navigate surgical training, especially as a Black woman in a historically white, male-dominated field. From early inspiration in the operating room to enduring microaggressions, bullying, and even physical assault during training, Dr. Sloan shares what she learned, how she protected herself, and why resilience alone is not enough. This episode is not just about survival; it’s about strategy, leadership, and rewriting the rules for the next generation. We talk about: How her early experiences sparked a career in orthopedics What it was like being one of the only Black trainees in a surgical program The reality of bias, microaggressions,…

Join Empowered Surgeons Group here. Learn more about what's inside ESG here. In the perfectionist surgeon's mind, either we get a perfect outcome or we fail. But in the realm of humans, perfection is impossible. And we don't always have full control over the final surgical result. Instead of thinking in terms of surgical "success" and surgical "failure", what would it look like to categorize circumstances into mistakes, complications, and missed expectations? That's what I explore inside this episode.

What does it mean to stay grounded in your identity and your humanity inside a system that often asks you to override both? In this episode, orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Brian Nwannunu, shares his journey from being the son of Nigerian immigrants to building a career in surgery rooted in purpose, faith, and service. Brian knew from a young age that he was called to medicine, but his path wasn’t linear. After not getting into medical school on his first attempt, he pursued a master’s in physiology, eventually gaining admission and thriving - reinforcing a powerful truth: test scores don’t define clinical excellence or future success. We talk about the realities of surgical training, where Brian faced criticism, microaggressions, and the pressure of being one of the only Black residents in his program. Despite external narratives that questioned his performance, he had objective evidence of his excellence and mentors who helped him stay grounded. His story highlights the disconnect that can exist between perception…

What do physicians actually need when they find themselves on the receiving end of a malpractice lawsuit? In this episode, I have a conversation with emergency physician, educator, speaker, coach, advocate and legal expert Dr. Gita Pensa about the reality of medical malpractice from the physician defendant’s perspective. We explore why getting sued can feel like being dropped onto another planet. Also why shame, fear, and avoidance often keep doctors from learning how the system actually works. Gita explains how the malpractice landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years. Public trust in medicine has eroded since COVID, nuclear verdicts are increasing, and third-party investors are now funding lawsuits in pursuit of massive payouts. Meanwhile, physicians often stay silent, leaving the narrative about medicine to be shaped by media outlets, documentaries, and plaintiff attorneys who are highly organized and strategic about influencing public perception. We also unpack a crucial misconception: a verdict…

In 2019, two patients complained to the Board of Registration in Medicine about me. At the time, it felt deeply unfair. I felt hate. I felt indignation. I felt like a victim. I even fantasized about horrible things happening to the people who complained about me. They were my villains. But, through my own coaching journey, I began to understand that pain is not individual; it is inherited, relational, generational, and cultural. These two complaints were sources of clean pain, but they were not the source of my suffering; my decision to indulge in drama was the real cause of my suffering. In this episode, I'll teach you the important lessons I learned from that year. I now feel immense gratitude for experiencing what it's like to be investigated by the Board, and I'm so happy I can bring these lessons to all of you. If you want to take this work deeper and master the lessons I now teach, you're going to want to join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Not ready yet? Definitely get on my email list here…

Surgeon-writer, Dr. Cornelia Griggs joins me this week. Check out her article with Dr. Andrea Merrill, The Hidden Reason Women are Leaving Surgery: They're Being Pushed Out here. Check out her book, The Sky Was Falling here. The first physician in a family of writers, artists, and communicators, she grew up surrounded by people willing to speak openly about medicine’s vulnerabilities. A former theater kid, she found early inspiration in Atul Gawande’s Complications and the patient safety movement—so much so that she wrote her senior honors thesis on its history. After college at Harvard and medical school at Columbia, she developed a deep interest in health policy and the cultural forces shaping modern medicine. She reflects on how differently she writes when her “research hat” is on—passive voice, sterile, stripped of self—compared to the personal writing she uses to metabolize the hardest moments of her career. We talk about what it was like to be a young surgeon in New York City when COVID hit—what was…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. Life is more fun when your career path isn’t linear. Dr. Raymund King knows this well. From performing magic to practicing medicine, from the courtroom to the screen, Raymund’s life reflects a deep willingness to evolve and follow his inner knowing. We talk about witnessing tragedy, bucking the norm, the mindset of a doctor vs lawyer vs creative, reinvention of self, becoming a good steward of service, and the importance of trust, even when things are scary and uncertain. For physicians navigating burnout, or identity shifts, Raymund’s story is a reminder that your path does not have to be singular to be coherent. Reinvention is not failure. And sometimes the most powerful next step is the one that makes the least sense on paper. Find Dr. Raymund King on IMDB here and Linkedin here.

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here. ”It makes you feel crazy as a patient,” Tiphany Kane. As physicians, we have more influence than we realize over how patients feel and how they perceive us (and the profession in general). Whether or not we diagnose them or operate on them, patients want—and deserve—to be treated humanely. At its core, our job is simple: serve the patient. But that becomes profoundly challenging inside a dehumanizing healthcare system rife with moral injury and burnout. I get it. It’s easy for physicians to slip into a transactional mindset when the system itself is transactional. And still, both things can be true. We can humanize ourselves, humanize every patient we see, and work to change the system at the same time. In fact, I believe everyone wins when we choose this path. In this episode, you’ll hear one patient’s journey. Tiphany Kane is an entrepreneur and a medical mystery. She shares what it was like to be gaslit for years by her primary care physician, cardiologists,…

Join us inside Empowered Surgeons here. Subscribe to Stitches here. What happens when the skills that make you a great surgeon begin pulling you toward a different kind of impact? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Ivan Capobianco, who trained as a hepatobiliary and transplant surgeon and whose career journey spans Italy, Germany, global health work in Angola, academic research, AI, entrepreneurship, and medical publishing. Ivan shares a deeply honest account of how he moved from the operating room into startup life and research, not because he couldn’t handle surgery, but because he began asking a bigger question: How else can I serve? We talk about: -Growing up in Italy in a creative family, and why medicine wasn’t always the obvious path -Training at the University of Padua, one of the oldest medical faculties in the world -Key differences between European and U.S. surgical training systems -How a year “off” before residency led him to Angola and permanently changed how he saw medicine -Why pediatric…

The Pain to Power Workshop is the foundation upon which your self-concept is built. You can't step into the next version of yourself until you heal old wounds and rewrite your past. We start this work Feb 2nd, 2026. You have access to the content until March 2nd, 2026. Sign up here. If you are catching this episode outside the window, no worries! You can still join us inside Empowered Surgeons group here.

LIMITED OFFER: The Pain to Power 5-day Coaching Program starts Feb 2nd. Sign up here. In this episode I speak with Dr. Mandy Rice, a dual board–certified General Surgeon and Surgical Intensivist whose path to surgery was anything but traditional. She began her career as a pediatric ICU nurse at 22, carrying the belief that she “wasn’t smart enough to be a doctor” - until a physician challenged that narrative, and she chose to believe him. Mandy loved medical school: the chaos, the autonomy, and the sense of purpose. Only later did she realize that the chaos she gravitated toward mirrored the chaos of her childhood, and that comfort and disorder had long been paired in her nervous system. After graduating medical school at 36, she entered residency and discovered stark differences between nursing and medicine, mentorship and hierarchy. A strong female role model in medical school contrasted sharply with a toxic training environment in residency, where lack of support - particularly from women in leadership -…

Have you ever felt like you were on a moving sidewalk toward retirement, as if you had committed to a life path long ago and now you’re simply being carried along it? If so, you’re not alone, and you won’t want to miss this episode. This week I speak with Mark Shrime, MD, PhD - Head and Neck surgeon, researcher, and former Chief of the Harvard Program in Global Surgery - about discernment, vocation, risk, and the search for meaning in medicine. Mark talks candidly about disliking medical school, nearly quitting, and ultimately choosing ENT after spending time with a surgeon who modeled what it means to balance work and play - a theme that never stopped mattering. We explore how physicians make consequential decisions under uncertainty, how intuition can be trained, and why medicine treats vocation almost like the clergy: you choose young, never leave, and give your whole life to it. Along the way, we discuss administrative bloat, the profit motives of healthcare, the indoctrination of not listening to our…

After returning from our inaugural women surgeon's retreat in Cabo, Steph Sheldon and I debrief about the lessons we learned. Please enjoy this special episode of Surgeons with Purpose. The "Pain to Power Workshop" will launch on Jan 18th. Get on my email list here to get all the updates about the program. And if you are ready to join us in Empowered Surgeons Group, click here. Steph Sheldon is a creative entrepreneur, business coach, website designer, and brand strategist who works primarily with women founders and coaches to help them clarify their voice, build intentional digital spaces, and grow sustainable, aligned businesses. She blends her background in architecture with business strategy and creativity to support her clients in creating meaningful, effective online presences and offerings. Steph frames business not just as technical work but as creative and personal expression, rooted in clarity, intention, and connection between the founder and their audience. Her content and coaching often explore…

Are you a woman surgeon who wants to retreat with us in Norway in August? Get on my calendar for an interview here. Join Empowered Surgeons Group here. In this episode, Dr. Lauren Umstattd shares her journey through otolaryngology training, a painful facial plastics fellowship experience, and the difficult decision to leave a path that no longer aligned with her values. First drawn to ENT as a medical student by its breadth and clinical complexity, Lauren enjoyed the precision of endoscopic and microscopic surgery during residency but found herself emotionally weighed down by head and neck cancer care. A rotation in facial plastic surgery changed everything, offering her clarity, creativity, and a sense of elective choice that resonated deeply. Fellowship, however, became one of the most difficult chapters of her training. Despite being a strong student, Lauren felt profoundly out of alignment with her fellowship director and increasingly isolated, questioning herself in ways she never had before. As the…

Dr. Kat Hudon shares her journey from enthusiastic learner to an employed physician slowly beaten down by a system designed to keep doctors exhausted, constrained, and disconnected from their creativity. In this convo, we explore how medicine places an impossible mantle of perfection on physicians, why resilience is a finite resource, and how the system punishes anything that falls outside the narrow definition of “excellence.” Dr. Hudon reflects on moral injury, middle management challenges, the growing administrative bloat in healthcare, and how she realized she always had a choice. This episode is about reclaiming agency through values, connection, collaboration, and the courage to design a life and practice that actually aligns with who you are. Key Themes: From Idealism to Disillusionment Kat describes the arc many physicians experience: entering medicine as a high-achieving, enthusiastic learner and slowly realizing, “I thought this was going to be better.” Residency forges some of her most meaningful,…

See you all in 2026! Click here to join us in Empowered Surgeons group. Check out my latest TEDx talk, "Seeing Beyond the Red Swans", here.

In this conversation, I’m joined by author and human performance expert Brad Stulberg to explore identity diversity, mastery, and what it really means to build a sustainable, meaningful career. We discuss the concept of the identity house, what it means to feel one's way to skill attunement, core values, process vs product, and how presence and flow are at the heart of mastery. This episode is especially relevant for surgeons and high-achievers who have poured everything into one role and are wondering how to prevent burnout without giving up ambition. We Talk About: The Identity House The idea that we all live in an identity house with multiple rooms (e.g., surgeon, parent, artist, athlete, writer) Why having multiple rooms matters: if one room floods or burns down, the entire house doesn’t collapse Not all identity rooms are the same size, and we don’t need to spend equal time in each You can spend most of your day in one “room”—the key is not letting the others get moldy The concept of minimum effective…

Trauma is more common than we think, especially in high-stakes professions like surgery. In this episode, I define trauma, PTSD, and post-traumatic growth and explore how these experiences can show up in the body, the nervous system, and everyday life. Drawing from my own experience with complex PTSD and panic attacks, I walk you through a practical, humane process for moving through trauma rather than around it. This isn’t about fixing yourself or returning to who you were before. It’s about learning how to metabolize difficult experiences and create something meaningful from them. If you need support, you can get on my calendar for a free consult here. Join us in Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Join Empowered Surgeons here. Book a free consult with me here. And if you're here for the free content, amazing! My next masterclass + open coaching is on December 14th at 10 am EST. Sign up for "5 Ways Surgeons Fail" here. In this episode, I break down what coaching is. Not the corporate wellness version, but the real, practical, life-changing version that surgeons and high-stakes professionals actually need. Coaching, as I define it, is choosing thoughts that generate feelings that empower you to create results you truly desire. It's the antidote to the soul-crushing grind of modern healthcare, moral injury, the day-to-day depletion, and the feeling that you’re running out of capacity while the system demands more. It’s also the only part of this profession that you can truly control. We start by identifying what you yearn for (your will), then reconnecting with your power, the internal clarity, agency, and authority that have been buried under years of training, cultural conditioning, and systemic…

⚠️ SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING This episode discusses suicide, which may be distressing for some listeners. If this subject is triggering for you, please consider skipping this episode. If you choose to listen, do so gently and take good care of yourself. If you’re feeling hopeless or suicidal, please reach out for support. You can call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or click here for additional resources. Dr. Michelle Chestovich is a family medicine physician, physician coach, and the host of the Remind Yourself podcast—soon to be renamed Stress Rx. She is also the sister of Dr. Gretchen Butler, a brilliant, beloved human and radiologist who died by suicide on March 5, 2021. Michelle’s story mirrors the quiet struggle many physicians face. She found herself living a life she didn’t quite sign up for, balancing the demands of medicine with a shifting sense of identity after becoming a mother. Coaching became her pathway back to clarity, alignment, and truth. Her sister, Gretchen, faced the impossible…

*********SENSITIVE TOPIC WARNING******************* This episode discusses substance abuse and suicide. Please listen carefully. In this powerful and deeply honest conversation, Dr. Courtney McKeown shares the story she was once told would be “career suicide”—a story of mental health crisis, addiction, recovery, and the hard-won journey back to her authentic self. She reflects on the research-year psychotic break that led to hospitalization, the healing support of an extraordinary program director, and her rise into a prestigious hepatobiliary fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. But even at the top, her body kept signaling what she now sees clearly: her life was misaligned, fueled by external validation and hidden coping mechanisms. When routine monitoring uncovered her secret drinking, she was thrust into the harsh reality of how the medical system treats physicians in distress—often punitively, fearfully, and without nuance. She describes how the state of Ohio’s approach pushed her to rock bottom, how a…

Trauma surgeon and healthcare leader Dr. Scott Ellner joins me to talk about the moments that reshaped his life and career, from witnessing a beachside intubation at age 21 to navigating one of the lowest points of his surgical practice. We explore complications, shame, psychological safety in the OR, and why compassion and emotional intelligence are essential (not optional) in surgery. Scott shares the retained foreign body case that transformed his approach to leadership, the danger of tense OR energy, and the difference between title-based authority and referent power. We also discuss the failure of punitive peer review, the legacy of Ernest Codman, and what it really takes for surgeons to regain confidence after early-career mistakes. We each open up about panic attacks—mine recently in the OR, his in medical school—and talk about vulnerability, preparation, and staying ahead of fear. Scott also previews his upcoming book, Wipe Out Rise Up, a blend of surgical stories and lessons from surfing on…

Get the pre-or mindset checklist here. Join us in Empowered Surgeons Group here. Anxiety can be transformed into resilience and courage, but only when we move toward it, not away from it. Anxiety is the life-saving fear response misapplied to the imagination. By definition, anxiety is a lie. What we fear—killing the patient, facing a lawsuit, losing our reputation, losing everything—is not actually happening in real time. Fear is intuitive, primitive, and immediately actionable. It comes in a wave, then recedes. Anxiety, on the other hand, never relents. The Five Fear Responses Fight Flight Freeze Fawn Flop When we close a loop with fight or flight, our brain registers safety and completion. But when we respond with freeze, fawn, or flop, the event can encode as trauma. That’s why exercising healthy fight—asserting boundaries instead of people-pleasing—is essential. In the hierarchical culture of surgical training, this can be especially hard to do. Managing Anxiety: Before, During, and After Surgery Pre-op…