Dr. John Mason has spent decades saving lives in the ER — until the job nearly broke him.
In this unfiltered conversation, we talk about what it really costs to care for others when you never slow down long enough to care for yourself. From burnout and emotional trauma to dirt bike crashes in Africa and near-miss moments in Ukraine, this is what life looks like when your job becomes your identity.
We talk about:
→ Why empathy makes you a better doctor but a worse friend
→ How he finally learned to say “I’m off duty” — even to family
→ The emotional weight ER doctors carry but never talk about
→ How exercise and adventure became survival tools
→ Stories from war zones, orphanages, and losing patients
→ What it really means to be healthy when you work in trauma
This episode is for the ones who keep showing up. The ones who carry too much. The ones who don’t get to fall apart — even when everything around them is.
If you’ve ever thought, “Why can’t I turn off?” this one’s for you.
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Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.