Surgeons with Purpose

Hippocratic Collective
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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

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    #87 Women are Leaving with Dr. Cornelia Griggs

    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 meant to be the crown jewel of her training. Following intensivists on early medical Twitter, she became convinced by February that disaster was coming. What frightened her most wasn’t ventilator shortages but the prediction that hospitals would run out of staff as clinicians fell ill. She felt dismissed, even gaslit, when others minimized the threat. Yet she knew—capital B Bad was coming. When the surge hit, it felt dystopian: inadequate PPE, mounting loss, the emotional toll of watching a system strain and fracture. That experience deepened her commitment to nurturing the softer, intuitive, vulnerable parts of herself—and to helping others do the same. Cornelia also speaks candidly about women’s attrition from medicine, including her co-authored work with Dr. Andrea Merrill examining why so many are leaving. From differential treatment in the OR to referral streams quietly diverted to younger male partners, from pay disparities to the subtle “thousand paper cuts” of heightened expectations, she describes the cumulative mental load women surgeons carry. She has a unique vantage point watching how OR staff treat her husband compared to how they treat her and her female colleagues. Meanwhile, medicine offers few of the perks seen in tech and other industries—despite the time, sacrifice, and invisible labor the profession demands. We explore the erosion of public trust, the ways academic medicine has ceded ground to the wellness industry, and how rebuilding credibility will require more than data—it will require humanity. For Cornelia, the path forward means reinjecting compassion into the profession, setting boundaries, and redefining what it means to be a powerful physician in today’s world. Follow Dr. Griggs on TikTok here. Check out Dr. Frances Mei Hardin's book, Surgeon on the Edge here. Sign up for "When you Can Cut the Tension with a #10 Blade: Anxiety, Performance, and the Surgical Nervous System" here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here.

    1 hr

  2. 23 FEB

    #86 Magician to Physician to Attorney to Actor with Raymund King, MD, JD

    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.

    46 min

  3. 16 FEB

    #85 From Gaslighting to Real Care: A Patient's Perspective with Tiphany Kane

    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, nephrologists, and endocrinologists. It wasn’t until she independently enrolled herself in a clinical trial that she finally received the care she had been searching for. And it wasn’t easy. Despite surgical complications and unexpected setbacks, Tiphany speaks with gratitude and deep respect for the surgical team who cared for her. Her story is a powerful example of what becomes possible when physicians make compassionate, patient-centered, service-based care their highest priority. Follow Tiphany and her medical journey on instagram here.

    1h 13m

  4. 9 FEB

    #84 From OR to AI with Dr. Ivan Capobianco

    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 surgery culture felt different, and what that revealed about surgical identity -Burnout that didn’t announce itself until it did -A pivotal moment during parental leave that forced a reckoning between career, family, and self -Attrition in surgery, particularly for women -The unfortunate truth that productivity and profit override patient-centered values in modern surgical systems -The realization that helping healthcare workers may help more patients than operating alone Ivan also shares how his love of research, data, and prevention led him to: -Learn coding and machine learning -Found the healthcare documentation startup Briefly -Create STITCHES, a daily newsletter that curates and summarizes the most relevant surgical literature from hundreds of papers published each day We explore: -Why most “AI in surgery” papers miss the mark -The value of small case reports and practical technique papers -Why knowing open surgery still matters in a robotic era -The loss of discussion and collaboration in modern academic medicine -The myth of “I don’t have time” -How essentialism can reduce cognitive and bureaucratic burden for surgeons This is a conversation about agency, courage, and redefining service and usefulness in a system that often narrows our sense of who we’re allowed to be. About the GuestDr. Ivan Capobianco leads the Surgical AI anda Digital Phenotyping Group at the Department of General Surgery, University of Tübingen. His research focuses on machine learning and artifical intelligence, Big Data in medicine, with a a particular emphasis on natural language processing methods applied to clinical data. He is the founder of the healthcare startup Breeflee, and creator of the surgical research newsletter STITCHES, which reaches over 5,000 readers daily. His work focuses on improving working conditions for surgeons and other healthcare professionals through better data, automation, and access to meaningful research.

    55 min

  5. 2 FEB

    #83 Clean vs Dirty Pain in Surgery

    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.

    34 min

  6. 26 JAN

    #82 Becoming a Surgeon on Her Own Terms with Dr. Mandy Rice

    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 - left her asking, “Why would people who are paid to train me treat me this way?” We talk openly about the pain and disorientation of being fired from a training program, and the rude awakening that truth, logic, and “first, do no harm” do not always govern surgical culture. From there, Mandy navigated her first job out of training, reimagined the life she wanted, and ultimately designed a practice on her own terms, including direct-care surgery and later, community-based women’s health and hormone therapy. Along the way we examine burnout, depersonalization, and the subtle spectrum between over-empathizing and dehumanizing patients. The middle ground, we learn, is compassion and skillful empathy. We also explore the gifts of palliative medicine and how it reshaped her ability to have difficult conversations, confront uncertainty, and meet suffering without collapsing into it. Today, Mandy practices community surgery through a circuitous and self-authored route - proof that there are many ways to practice surgery, many ways to serve, and many ways to live a life in healthcare that is meaningful, humane, and your own. Learn more about Dr. Mandy Rice here. Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here.

    1h 7m

  7. 19 JAN

    #81 Putting Purpose Over Path with Dr. Mark Shrime

    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 inner voice, and the question of whether doctors are truly risk-averse or simply trained to be. A turning point comes with Mark’s service work on Mercy Ships, where he performed head and neck surgery in a purely service mindset. An epiphany in Monrovia - punctuated by a near-fatal car accident - clarified his path in a way that finally felt aligned rather than obligatory. Conversations in Madagascar later informed his paper Trading Bankruptcy for Health (Value Health, 2018), a study I referenced in my TEDx talk Seeing Beyond the Red Swans. We talk black swans, white swans, and red swans, and the privilege of being present with people in their deepest truths. Ultimately, we circle back to what humans crave most: to be seen, accepted, safe, and unjudged, even though safety is not incentivized in modern healthcare. We close with positive psychology, the inner judge and its saboteurs, and the uncomfortable but necessary skill of falling in love with failure, especially in surgery, where complications become harder emotionally even as skill peaks. Watch Mark's TEDx talk, Putting Purpose Over Path. Work with him and buy his book here. Follow him on instagram here.

    59 min

  8. 14 JAN

    Special Episode: Processing Pain to Create Power with Steph Sheldon

    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 how inner beliefs, creativity, and somatic experience inform business success. Follow her on instagram here.

    1h 5m
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About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Hippocratic Collective
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    91
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Surgeons with Purpose
  • Show Website
    Surgeons with Purpose

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