Click here to get on my calendar for a 15 min interview for the Cabo retreat. Women surgeons only.

Click here to learn more about Empowered Surgeons Group.

It's back-to-back Chrissy(ie) episodes! Dr. Chrissy Guidry is a trauma and critical care surgeon and founder of Whole Body Optimism, a program designed to empower busy healthcare professionals find integrity of mind, physical body, and soul by implementing practical intentional practices into their everyday lives.

In this conversation, we explore Dr. Chrissy's journey through academic medicine, infertility, and institutional betrayal, and how it all led to a deeper integration of mind, body, heart, and soul.

After seven and a half years at Tulane, she found herself at a crossroads. While navigating marriage and fertility treatments, she faced the harsh reality of how academia often punishes physicians for being human. What began as an ultrasound appointment became a weapon used against her and a defining moment in reclaiming her integrity and purpose.

• Surgeon Purpose Check: Who are we really doing this for: ourselves or the patients?
• Coaching as Catalyst: How hiring a coach for the department transformed the culture for everyone.
• Fertility and Academia: The tension between starting a family and the unspoken expectations of academic productivity.
• Integrity in Healing: How her fertility journey sparked a whole-self integration of mind, body, heart, and soul.
• Becoming the Medical Education Wellness Director at Tulane
• Creating wellness champions across departments
• Using GME funding to host interdisciplinary networking events
• Developing an app to centralize well-being resources for residents
• Expanding the Mission Online: How she brought physician wellness work to the digital space, helping clinicians worldwide prioritize their humanity.
• Mindset Over Strategy: Why happiness isn’t a moving target; it’s a mindset shift.

Key Reframes for Resilience:

• We are human beings, not human doings
• Life doesn't just have to happen to you; it can happen for you.

1. How can I take more responsibility for the outcome?
2. How can I grow from this opportunity?
3. What good is already present in this challenge?

Interested in Empowered Surgeons Group? Click here.

In today's episode, Dr. Chrissie Ott and I sit down to discuss my journey.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• How panic, insomnia, and “I must be broken” thoughts can be early sirens of burnout—and what healing looked like for me.
• The Drama Triangle (victim–hero–villain) vs. David Emerald’s Empowerment Dynamic (creator–coach–challenger), with real clinical scenarios
• Why the “healthcare hero” narrative can unintentionally disempower patients
• Fiduciary ethics in the exam room: naming incentives, protecting integrity, and keeping decisions in the patient’s hands
• Why creation must be “for you first”
• What agency looks like in career evolution: closing one chapter so another can fully begin
• How to transmute suffering into service without bypassing the hard parts
• The vision of the Hippocratic Collective: every physician’s voice belongs

Dr. Chrissie Ott is a physician, coach and host of Solving for Joy Podcast.

Find her on instagram here.

Follow me on instagram here.

Join Empowered Surgeons Group here.

In surgery, it's tempting to attach our identity to surgical outcomes. But what result does that create? Because complications are inevitable, patients are unpredictable, and surgeons are human--and fallible, the result of grasping onto perfection is always the same: suffering.

If we instead define failure as simply failure to serve, we create freedom for ourselves. Our focus shifts from trying to control the uncontrollable to setting a clear intention: service. In that reality, we reclaim agency and purpose no matter the outcome.

Are you a woman surgeon interested in our Cabo retreat? Click here before we fill our cohort!

Today I’m talking with financial activist, author, and viral TEDx speaker Mel Dorman about how to create wealth in a way that’s simple, sustainable, and rooted in community. This conversation will stick with you long after you listen.

Watch their TEDx talk [here], grab their book [here], and explore the Seller Finance Academy [here].

Ready to join Empowered Surgeons? Click here.

Women Surgeons interested in the Self-Concept Weekend in Cabo, click here to schedule a 15 min interview with me.

In this episode, my guest, Dr. Priya Kothapalli, and I discuss the beauty and power of intuition, the challenges of corporate medicine, imposter syndrome, don't know mind, and what it's like to have the courage to design a life true to oneself.

Priya Kothapalli, MD, is a coronary and structural heart disease interventional cardiologist based in the Dallas Fort Worth area, model, yogi, and host of the Open Heart podcast.

Follow Priya on instagram here. Follow her podcast, which debuts this fall, here.

Join Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Check out Hippocratic Collective here.

After a tragic car crash in 1983 changed the course of his family forever, Dr. Brian Hoeflinger pursued neurosurgery with a new sense of purpose. Decades later, when his teenage son died suddenly in a car accident, he found himself once again reshaped by grief. In this episode, Dr. Hoeflinger shares how these experiences inform the way he practices medicine: communicating with clarity, leading with empathy, and honoring the reality that it’s families who must live with the consequences of life-and-death decisions. He and his son, Kevin, open up about what it means to carry unimaginable loss, and how they've chosen to turn tragedy into a source of hope, compassion, and human connection.

You’ll hear:

• How loss reshaped their family and his career as a physician
• Why talking about death matters more than avoiding it
• The art of skillful empathy and being present without absorbing every tragedy
• Why doctors should guide, not decide, for families

Dr. Hoeflinger's words of wisdom for physicians:

"The world’s not on your shoulders…Don't expect so much of yourself."

"Spend more time away from the hospital."

Follow the Hoeflinger podcast on Apple podcasts here and on YouTube here.

Get on the Dr. Hoeflinger newsletter here.

Follow Dr. Hoeflinger on instagram here.

Join Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Check out Hippocratic Collective here.

Are you a woman surgeon interested in the Cabo retreat Jan 9-11? Click here to learn more about it. Click here if you're serious and get on my calendar for a 15 min interview.

Dr. Karuna Dewan was accepted to medical school at just 16 and knew early on she wanted to be a laryngologist. Today she is an Associate Professor of Otolaryngology, the Jonathan Glass, MD & Cherie-Ann Nathan, MD Endowed Professor in Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, and Director of the Ark-La-Tex Voice, Airway and Swallow Center at LSU Health Shreveport.

But her path was anything but straightforward. In this conversation, she opens up about the bullying, rumors, and systemic failures she endured during residency, and the long shadow of trauma, PTSD, and professional stigma that followed.

Dr. Dewan speaks candidly about:

• How residency culture can mirror high school bullying.
• The “weaponization of professionalism” and the absence of true advocacy for residents.
• Why labeling trainees as “problem residents” causes lasting harm.
• The power of mentorship, and what anti-mentors teach us.
• Concrete ways faculty can offer curiosity, specificity, and constructive feedback instead of dehumanizing criticism.

She also shares how she rebuilt her confidence, thrived in a new residency, and now fiercely supports her own residents with kindness and compassion. Her story is one of resilience, advocacy, and a vision for a future where training doesn’t come at the cost of humanity.

“I didn’t get here by magic. I earned this.” – Dr. Karuna Dewan

Follow Karuna on instagram here.

Learn more about Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Learn more about the Hippocratic-Collective here.

Women Surgeons, click here if interested in the retreat in Cabo.

Have you ever considered the creative process of your favorite artist?

I, personally, will never forget the moment I found out that Jerry Seinfeld wrote his jokes on napkins!

Comic book artist and family practice physician, Dr. Ryan Montoya, comes on the show to talk about his evolution as a physician and an artist, how he balances his dual life, and the value of a creative outlet.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• From Rags to Resilience: Growing up on welfare in California and being treated like just another number, then moving to Massachusetts and experiencing a system that valued him as an individual.
• Education & Isolation: How higher-quality education and feeling singled out shaped his perspective and fueled his drive.
• Creativity as Survival: Using art, movement, and creative thinking to solve problems when conventional support systems weren’t enough.
• Capturing Creative Moments: The importance of noticing and preserving moments of creativity in everyday life.
• Learning from the Greats: Insights drawn from creative icons like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David on harnessing creativity effectively.
• Creativity vs. Anxiety: Why channeling energy into creative outlets is healthier than letting the brain default to anxiety.
• A New Lens on Media: How approaching shows and comics with a creative, analytical mind can unlock new perspectives.
• Balancing Medicine & Art: Managing parental pressure to pursue medicine while following artistic passions, and finding harmony between professional and creative endeavors.
• Preventing Burnout: How maintaining a creative outlet and staying aligned with personal values protects against professional exhaustion.
• Career Wisdom: The pitfalls of overvaluing power, status, or wealth over meaningful experiences, and the importance of self-knowledge before taking leadership roles.
• Introspection & Self-Knowledge: Understanding your conative style, whether you’re a visionary or implementer, and how tools like the Kolbe Index can guide career and creative decisions.
• Creating for Yourself: Embracing imperfection, starting before you’re ready, and why being “paid for your art” transforms you from hobbyist to professional.
• Who Before How: Why understanding yourself and your values is always the first step in any field or endeavor.

Follow Dr. Ryan Montoya on instagram here.

Join Empowered Surgeons group here.

Learn more about the Hippocratic Collective here.

Dr. Ryan Montoya, MD is a board certified Family Medicine physician. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Biology, and completed graduate courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University, before attending medical school and residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Montoya provided full spectrum family medicine care and opioid addiction medication assisted treatment (MAT) at a Federally Qualified Health Center while starting his own direct primary care practice in Massachusetts. He has lived and provided community healthcare in...