Surgeons with Purpose
A podcast for surgeons who feel like they are languishing in a career that didn't turn out to be as fulfilling or as prestigious as they expected. Dr. Mel Thacker, an ENT surgeon and coach, takes you on a journey to help you understand why you are feeling dissatisfied, burnt out, and stuck. With this newfound insight, you'll be able to reframe how you see your experience, rediscover who you are underneath your surgeon identity, and create a life that aligns with your authentic self. Find more info about Surgeons with Purpose and other shows on the Hippocratic Collective at hippocratic-collective.com
Episodes
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 tr...
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 h...
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 o...
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...
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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 li...
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 conversa...
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 t...
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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 he...
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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 ...
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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 p...
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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...
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 ...
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 bigg...
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 traditiona...
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...
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 ...
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 woma...
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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,...
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 medica...
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 avoi...
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