Direct Well-Being Podcast

In Part 1, Dr. Jerry Schreibstein shared the money stories that shaped him. In Part 2, the conversation turns practical and personal. Together, they explore the real meaning of “enough,” why a financial plan must remain dynamic, and how the time value of money rewards early discipline more than perfect stock picks. They examine the high-stakes decisions of a physician’s 30s, housing, cars, savings...

Physician burnout isn’t only about hours or systems. It is also about the quiet pressure that comes when income rises but freedom does not. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Dr. Anders Apgar welcomes Dr. Jerry Schreibstein, for an honest look at the money stories physicians carry into their careers. Jerry shares growing up in a blue-collar Brooklyn family, the blunt reality of student loans...

What if the most consequential contract of your life is negotiated by a version of you who has never owned the things that contract will ask you to price?  At twenty-six or thirty, physicians are asked to decide about the next thirty years while still operating on static beliefs about family, health, energy, and identity. Medical training teaches endurance and self-sacrifice; the salary looks...

Physicians spend years learning medicine but often receive little education about how healthcare actually works. Jonathan Moss, a longtime healthcare finance and revenue-cycle executive, explains why understanding FTEs, CPTs, RVUs, contracts, and organizational finances can help physicians make better career decisions while protecting their well-being and professional identity. The conversation go...

What happens when medicine isn't just a parent's career, but something woven into the fabric of family life?  In this special episode of Direct Well-Being , Dr. Anders Apgar hands the microphones to two of his children, Katie and Sean, to hear what it was really like growing up with both parents practicing full-scope OB/GYN. Katie and Sean Apgar discuss call schedules, patient privacy, missed...

What does a physician actually sign up for when they choose military medicine?  Dr. Aaron Pitney made that decision in his early twenties as a West Point cadet, one of only about 20 graduates each year selected for medical school. He received a debt-free education through the Uniformed Services University, a living stipend, and the structured pathway of Army medicine, then discovered, after 9/11,...

Burnout rarely happens overnight. It often begins quietly, with lost sleep, neglected hobbies, less time with loved ones, irritability, dread about going to work, and the gradual loss of the person behind the physician. In this deeply personal conversation, Dr. Diane Shannon draws on her own experience leaving clinical medicine and her years coaching physicians to explain what she sees in physicia...

Physician burnout isn’t simply about long hours. It’s about the slow erosion of autonomy, purpose, financial security, healthy relationships, and systems that allow doctors to practice medicine the way they intended. In this reflective episode, Dr. Anders Apgar pauses at the midpoint of Season One to ask a more important question than “how tired are we?”: What have we actually learned? Drawing on...

Burnout is a symptom, not the whole story. Created at Mayo Clinic by Drs. Tait Shanafelt and Lotte Dyrbye, the Well-Being Index was designed to measure clinician well-being holistically, capturing not only burnout but also severe fatigue, risk of medical error, turnover risk, suicidal ideation risk, meaning in work, and work-life balance. In this conversation, John McMahon shares how the tool work...

Physician burnout isn't simply about working too many hours. It's about losing autonomy, purpose, and the ability to care for patients the way physicians intended. In this insightful conversation, Dr. Anders Apgar welcomes Dr. Neil Roy for an honest discussion about what physician leaders actually worry about behind the scenes. Together they unpack the realities of physician shortages, why hospita...

Many physicians enter medicine as a calling, only to face barriers that lead to burnout and moral injury.  In this powerful conversation, Dr. Anders Apgar reconnects with longtime colleague Dr. Ridgley Salter, who shares his personal burnout journey and how it led him to lead WellSpan Health’s comprehensive well-being program. Together they explore the evolution from individual “resilience trainin...

It starts in medical school with stacks of loan papers and the societal promise that “it’ll be fine.” But years later, many physicians wake up feeling trapped despite high incomes, crushed by debt, lifestyle creep, taxes, and the reality that personal finance was never taught. In this candid conversation, Dr. Anders Apgar sits down with Brian Case, CFP, to unpack the real drivers of financial stre...

Physicians often enter medicine as a calling, but what happens when two physicians build a life and family together? In this candid and vulnerable conversation, Dr. Anders Apgar sits down with his wife, Dr. Jacqueline Apgar, a practicing OBGYN of 22 years, to explore the real costs of dual-physician careers. They discuss how medicine dominated their home, the challenges of call schedules and exhau...

It hits early,  sometimes just two years out of residency, you’re no longer a trainee on paper, but the schedule still feels like one. Five shifts in a row. Nights. Weekends. Young kids at home. A mortgage and six-figure student loans that make you feel like a “negative millionaire.” In this first full episode of Direct Well-Being, Dr. Anders Apgar sits with Dr. Daren Girard, as they unpack the ea...

It rarely announces itself. It arrives quietly — somewhere between the charting, the call, the prior authorizations, and the exhaustion — the first time the thought becomes words: I can’t do this anymore. For most physicians it isn’t one moment. It’s death by a thousand cuts. A thousand clicks. The missed birthday seen three hours late.  The anniversary dinner canceled an hour in. The softball gam...