Operate with Zen

Dr. Mick Malotte, MD is a retired ENT surgeon from California who has been practicing mindfulness as a surgeon for over 30 years.  Not only does Mick practice mindfulness through a daily practice and retreats, but he teaches mindfulness to physicians and surgeons around the country!  Mick gives us a brief history of mindfulness in medicine and helps us understand how mindfulness practices are adopted to medicine and surgery.  We ta...

Dr. Angela Smith is a frequent flyer on the Operate with Zen podcast.  She is guru to me and many others for life hacks and practical, personal improvements to be more efficient and to have more ease and enjoyment in our daily routine.  In this podcast, we discuss “A Day of Reflection” – what exactly that means, how to set one up, and how to make it successful.  A day of reflection creates the opportunity to be present for oneself,...

Dr. Kelly Casperson, MD is a surgical rockstar!!!  … a urologist and sexual medicine expert, a extremely successful podcaster, author and now Ted-Talker!  Kelly hosts the “You Are Not Broken” podcast (https://www.kellycaspersonmd.com/podcast) which empowers women (“and the partners who love them”) with science and conversations to break down sexuality improve the intimate lives of the tens of thousands who listen each month!  But w...

Being a cancer surgeon can be tough.  Being a cancer patient even tougher.  Brian Lane, MD is facing both daily.  He is an accomplished surgeon and academic urologic oncologist.  In this thoughtful and honest discussion, we cover facing tough diagnoses as a patient and a surgeon; developing perspective as a patient to help our patients; finding purpose and meaning despite tough circumstances; and ultimately finding peace in faith a...

Kevin Turner, MA, DM, FRCS (Urology) is a Consultant Urological Surgeon at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.  In 2015, he helped to start the Surgeon Wellbeing Research Team with colleagues from the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University.  Kevin and team ran a UK national survey from 2016-2019 – data from which has helped us understand how complications affect surgeons, the pervasiveness of this issue, and helped to create im...

Andrew Gabrielson, MD (@urogabe) is currently a resident at the Brady Urological Institute and Department of Urology at Johns Hopkins.  He is a budding pediatric urologist and developed an interest in surgical ergonomics and physical well-being before he started residency.  He is an integral member of the Society of Surgical Ergonomics and well-published in the field despite his young age!  He gives us lots of practical knowledge f...

Jeff Bloovman, BSN, RN, is an operating room nurse with really unique interests and perspectives on life.  He has been an actor and director, is currently a firearms and combat instructor as well as an avid practitioner and instructor of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.  Like many of us, Jeff is also challenged by an extremely active mind.  What do all of these experiences have in common?  They are all enhanced through mindfulness practices.  ...

Physical ailments are a part of life, and all surgeons will encounter physical pain or injury in their career.  Good friends and fellow surgeons, Angela Smith, MD, and Jay Shah, MD, (and repeat guests on the show) are no strangers to injuries.  In this podcast we discuss chronic and acute physical injuries from diagnosis through long-term changes to our surgical and work-out routines.  Coping mechanisms, management of pain in the o...

Dr. Joan Naidorf, DO (https://www.drjoannaidorf.com/) is an Emergency Room physician who, through clinical experience, developed expertise in managing the difficult patient.  She is the author of “Changing How We Think About Difficult Patients: A Guide for Physicians And Healthcare Professionals” (https://a.co/d/fWLWY5W) and was featured in a Washington Post article on the topic (Some doctors don’t like some patients - The Washingt...

Jeremy Grummet, MBBS, Master of Surgery, FRACS is a urologist in Melbourne, Australia and a world leader in prostate cancer imaging and diagnostics.  He is also a deep thinker and deeply interested in the wellbeing of surgeons and his colleagues.  Our conversation meanders through personal struggle, burnout or "spin" as Dr. Grummet calls it, mental illness, and emotional challenges associated with life and surgery.  Core ...

Dr. Carter Lebares, MD is a Gastrointestinal Surgeon at the University of California San Francisco and the Director of the UCSF Center for Mindfulness in Surgery.  In addition to being a thoughtful and skilled surgeon, she ran two randomized trials incorporating mindfulness based practices into surgery.   She developed ESRT or Enhanced Stress Resilience Training from principles of John Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reductio...

Bradley Block, MD is an otolaryngologist in New York and founder of the “Physician’s Guide to Doctoring” podcast.  The founding principle of the Physician’s Guide is “all the stuff we should have learned in medical school but didn’t.”  While we only have an hour, we cover a lot of it!  We talk personal and professional development, social engineering and how it impacts patient and personal interactions, and vulnerabilities as a bus...

Dharam Kaushik, MD is a urologic oncologist who does big time cancer surgeries.  He is also a researcher and educator at the University of Texas San Antonio where he runs the urologic oncology fellowship program and leads the kidney cancer research program.  Despite an upbringing in India and early exposure, he only recently picked up yoga as an outlet for wellness in his life.  We explore yoga and mindfulness as strategies to comb...

Michelle Quirk, MD is a pediatrician and pediatric hospitalist in the Philadelphia area.  She is also a certified run coach and started Mindful Marathon (mindful-marathon.com) to help busy professionals develop well-being through running and fitness.  Importantly, Michelle was not always a runner, but over the years learned how to engage with her own personal wellness through running and fitness.  That engagement led to the Mindful...

Dr. Elizabeth "Betsy" Koehne, MD is at the wonderful transition between training and complete surgical independence.  She is a urologist and Acting Instructor and Society of Urologic Oncology fellow at the UW School of Medicine in Seattle.  While she is may be junior is her surgical experience, she is seasoned in transcendental meditation, yoga, and incorporating mindfulness into her daily and surgical existence.  I learn...

Dr. Bradley Erickson is a Professor of Urology, a reconstructive urologist, and Director of Functional Urology at the University of Iowa.  We are great friends and bonded over similar loves of baseball and skiing – sharing quite a few lift rides and challenging mountain runs in Colorado.  Brad is also an extremely accomplished academic surgeon from very early on in his career – in fact, that’s what brought us together.  I say this ...

Diana Londoño, MD is a urologist in Los Angeles with a specific interest in coaching surgeons through tough times.  She is the founder of Physician Coach Support (https://physiciancoachsupport.com/), a free peer-to-peer service for surgeon personal development.  She is a mom, a yogi, and so much more!  We discuss how Buddhist principles guide coaching, how being both a healer and a teacher are important to our roles as surgeons, an...

Jason Han, MD is a cardiac surgery resident at the University of Pennsylvania, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the founder of The Modern Surgeon.  Jason provides unique perspective from a trainee with his eyes uniquely on the future - he graduates from residency this year!  We talk about the changing perspective from student, to trainee, to surgeon and how being present and simplifying one's own principles can k...