Surgeons with Purpose – Details, episodes & analysis

“First Do No Harm” is an impossible oath—a wonderful intention but an unlikely reality. So how do we create safety for ourselves in this profession, knowing we’ll inevitably cause harm?

This episode will teach you actionable steps to go from the “distract and avoid” type of surgeon to the “process and create” type of surgeon. The result for you? Empowerment.

Speaking of empowerment, if this resonates, you are going to want to sign up for the Empowered Surgeons Group! Learn more here.

Get Cesar's and Steven's book, Great Speech! here.

Watch my TEDx talk, How to Save Lives with Two Minutes of Listening here.

The best way to protect yourself in the profession of surgery is to build real connection with your patients.

People don’t retaliate against physicians they know, like, and trust.

This webinar will teach you how to cultivate know, like, and trust with every human you encounter.

You can take this work deeper by joining Empowered Surgeons Group. Learn more about what's included in the group here. Have questions? Feel free to email me at mel@melthackercoaching.com.

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Essentialism is the disciplined pursuit of less, and the profession of surgery could use a hefty dose.

Surgeon Essentialists do less, but better. This means we focus on the results we are trying to create, and then we reverse engineer the actions required to get us there. The primary goal of a surgeon is to help patients sustainably. In order to do that, we must honor two main essentials:

1. Showing up in service to the patient

2. Protecting the asset

 Learn more about Greg McKeown and Essentialism here.

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Mental health struggles, self-sabotage, rock bottom, psychiatric admissions, having the "wrong" facial expressions and tone of voice, an intra-op assault accusation, grief, discrimination, bad teachers, big emotions, and creativity.

In this episode, Dr. Cindy Lee Neighbors shares her experience as a creative, passionate, and vocal presence in a system that couldn’t handle her. Her story highlights the immense emotional toll when training programs target their trainees.

I was definitely a troublemaker in residency too, and I watched other troublemakers get pushed out—just like Dr. Neighbors was. But are the troublemakers really the problem? Or are they the solution?

Cindy Lee Neighbors is a physician, writer, and advocate for mental health, education reform, and women's rights. Born and raised in Honolulu, she pursued her dreams of acting in Los Angeles before embarking on a career in military medicine. Her debut memoir, TOO MUCH, is a raw and honest account of her experiences navigating mental health challenges and fighting for change within the demanding field of military medicine. She won a 2024-2025 Reader Views Readers Choice Gold Prize in Humanities and was a Finalist in Memoir/Biography/Autobiography.

TOO MUCH is a gripping true story of a woman driven to the brink, sacrificing everything—love, loyalty, and sanity—in the name of retribution. It's a raw and honest look at the dark side of medicine, the challenges of mental illness, and the courage it takes to break free. It’s a story that will remind you how a brighter future is possible, even when it feels like everything is broken. This is the story of a whistleblower.

Find Dr. Cindy Lee Neighbors on instagram @cindyleeneighbors @surgerylandbooks @toomuchthebook, her websigte, www.cindyleeneighbors.com, and LinkedIN Cindy Lee Neighbors

TOO MUCH can be purchased from Amazon here, Barnes and Noble here, and Strand Book store here. Get Benji and Briana Become Booger Doctors here.

Here's that poem she talks about in our discussion and submitted to The Pharos:

I actually miss

The stupid little things

Retracting

In the OR

Suturing

People

Wearing a headlight

Starving

Not being able to pee

Freezing

Standing on a stool

Bumping heads

Having to suction the blood

Adjusting my loops “loupes”

Holding my breath

Because of the plume

Praying

Not to kill someone

Even though I know that doesn’t change thin

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Going from trainee to attending requires a death and rebirth. One identity dies and another is born. Stepping into the identity of an authority, an expert, an attending IS the first step. If you are studying for oral boards or about to graduate, elevating your self-concept is the best thing you can do. Here are some self-concept qualities to consider for a trainee vs attending:

Trainee:

- In service to patient first, then program and self

- Surgery looks easy (it's not)

- Self-worth is detached from outcomes

- Striving

- Revere your mentors' ideas

- Say "yes" to everything for approval and popularity (sacrifice your own needs for success)

- World is small in a good way; it's a container you signed up for

Attending:

- In service to patient first, then self and practice/employer/institution

- Surgery might seem hard or scary, until you get to know your new environment and build muscle memory and confidence, then it can get easy to the point of boredom

- Self-worth is attached to outcomes (can shrink your world)

- Stagnation (unless you learn to strive for something you desire again)

- Revere your own ideas

- Say "no" more than "yes" knowing respect matters more than approval (unless you stay stuck in trainee identity, particularly the story that you have to sacrifice yourself for success)

- World can become big if you allow yourself to evolve or world can shrink from anxiety and experiential avoidance

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here.

From ambitious and intelligent young woman who fast-tracked through college and medical school to hard-working surgery resident to new mom in her chief year to attending trying to navigate life after training, Dr. Vassell tells us all about how she reinvented herself multiple times to create a career that aligns with her desires and values. Her story is an example of what is possible for all of us. We are NOT stuck. There are paths that allow us to help patients in meaningful and fulfilling ways without sacrificing our autonomy, freedom, or joy. We just have to get creative and learn how to feel comfortable with uncertainty. If she can find her happy place, so can you.

Dr. Rashida Vassell is the CEO and Founder of Safahla Medical PLLC, an integrative, cutaneous surgery and medical aesthetics practice. She is double Board-Certified in Wound and Hyperbaric Medicine and Anti-aging Medicine. Dr. Vassell spent years honing her clinical skills as a Medical Director at the teaching institution, Montefiore Mount Vernon, in Westchester County, NY; followed by Guthrie Corning Hospital.

Find out more about Dr. Vassell and Safahla Medical here. Follow her on instagram here.

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here.

We don't typically end up living the life we imagined we were going to live when we applied to our specialties. Dr. Amina Farooq shares her experience working as an academic interventional radiologist within a dehumanizing system. For many of us, this dehumanization erodes our sense of purpose. Healthcare is the one profession where institutions have normalized dehumanizing doctors and patients. If we want to humanize this profession, we are going to have to start with recognizing and stepping in to our own humanity.

Follow Amina on instagram here.

Surgeons, text topics you want me to cover here.

****SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING*******

****This episode discusses suicide, which can be distressing for some. If this subject is triggering for you, please consider skipping this one. If you are going to listen, make sure to listen carefully and take good care of yourself. If you are feeling hopeless or suicidal, please find support, call the suicide and crisis lifeline 988 or click here****

In this episode, Dr. Blake Palmer's widow, Dr. Andrea Palmer, comes on to talk about Blake's life, his committment to his patients and profession, his struggles, the lack of support from his institution, and the circumstances leading up to his death. Blake's story highlights how the glaring lack of humanity in our systems and institutions leads to desperate measures, particularly for a surgeon who is empathetic and caring, who feels isolated, and who is poorly resourced. His story is unfortunately not unique. 

Consider supporting the well-being and mental health support of healthcare workers by donating to the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation here. Find an Internal Family Systems Practitioner near you here.

Find Dr. Andrea Palmer on instagram or email her at andreabpalmer@gmail.com.

"Blake was a loving husband and father who enjoyed all things outdoors. From hiking mountains, to traveling, to running Spartan races with his wife and kids, he was a man who loved music, movies, good food and making people laugh with classic dad jokes.

Blake will be remembered as a skilled and caring surgeon who spent his working life devoted to his patients. Blake earned his Bachelor's degrees in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Colorado and went on earn his M.D. from the University of Oklahoma, College of Medicine. He completed his Urology residency and Pediatric Urology Fellowship at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He was board certified through the American Board of Urology in Urology and Pediatric Urology and was an active part of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section of Urology Executive Committee as the Vice-Chair for Education.

Prior to arriving in Fort Worth, Blake was an Assistant Professor in the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Department of Urology, Director of Pediatric Robotic and Minimally Invasive Surgery for the Children's Hospital of Oklahoma and was Pediatric Surgery Director in the Oklahoma Transplant Center. At Cook Children’s in Fort Worth he developed the kidney transplant program, the robotic surgery program and was Chief of Urology from 2018 until his death."

Excerpt from Blake's obituary.

Surgeons, text topics you want me to cover here.

"I think we need to stay relentlessly curious. And we need to understand what we're working in and recognize there is nobody who comes to work everyday and thinks I'm going to make somebody else miserable." - Dr. Wendy Dean

When service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were not responding to PTSD treatments, it became clear that they were not dealing with the anxiety and experiential avoidance caused by PTSD but instead the shame associated with perceived immoral conduct. This specific form of distress is called moral injury: "perpetuating, bearing witness to, or failing to prevent acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations" (from If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It's So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First by Wendy Dean, MD with Simon Talbot, MD).

Whenever the business of medicine gets in the way of our ability to provide care to our patients, we experience some form of moral injury. It's hard to escape moral injury when we have all the responsibility and all of the accountability but none of the autonomy. And that is the system we work in. None of us are completely autonomous. A whopping 78% of US physicians are employed by hospitals, health systems, or other corporate entities, and the meager few of us who are independent are still beholden to insurers for compensation. Because medicine has become corporatized and consolidated over the last several decades, we have slowly given up our ability to provide care efficiently and affordably. Sixty years ago, hospitals were locally owned and operated and decisions made by experts in healthcare--the physicians. In the 1970's, doctors formed groups and outsourced operations to administrators, entering an era of skyrocketing administrative growth and costs in a system in which executives do not see themselves as responsible to clinicians or patients but to shareholders, who have one goal: to maximize profit. 

But what can we do about it? In this conversation, I discuss the broken US healthcare system with Dr. Wendy Dean and Dr. Matt Ramsey and what we can do right now to make a dent in fixing this behemoth of a problem. We may have gotten into this profession to practice medicine and surgery, but it is part of our job to learn the bureaucracy and the business sooner rather than later. We have to understand where we are, and from there, maybe, just maybe, we can collectively come together to creatively solve this thing.

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here. One investment of $2,499 to learn essential concepts you didn't learn in training. This one course will change your perspective, and life, permanently.

Surgeons, text topics you want me to cover here.

Nobody in your audience, including your patients, wants your CV shoved down their throat. They don't care. They want to know if and how you can help them. Steph Sheldon is a website designer, former architect, and master at helping people reconnect with their creative side.

Creativity is the emotion we generate to solve problems. We tell ourselves we don't need to be creative, or we say "I'm just not creative", and that works fine when we only encounter problems humans have previously solved. But what about the times we encounter problems that have no tried or true solutions? We are all going to find ourselves in unique and novel situations, and we need to use our creative brain to find the solution, which sometimes leads to incredible innovations.

If your website needs an update or you want to launch a side gig and aren't sure how to market or brand yourself, Steph can help you! Find her at her website and on instagram.

Get on-demand, lifetime, risk-free access to the Empowered Surgeons Group here. One investment of $2,499 to learn essential concepts you didn't learn in training. This one course will change your perspective, and life, permanently.