Better Physician Life: How to Get Unstuck in Your Medical Career

What if the problem isn’t your productivity system, but the assumption that you should be able to fit everything in? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh reflects on Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and the reality that time is not something physicians can endlessly optimize. While medicine trains doctors to work harder, absorb more, and stay endlessly productive, the...

What if the real issue isn’t burnout in the dramatic sense, but quietly realizing you’re continuing more out of familiarity than desire? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh discusses Annie Duke’s book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away . He examines how the same grit that got physicians through training and early career can make it hard to recognize when a practic...

What if the financial plan you’ve been working toward is already working, but your life hasn’t caught up? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh explores a powerful idea from Die With Zero by Bill Perkins: money isn’t the only resource that matters, time and health are just as important, and they don’t grow in the same way. He examines a common but rarely discussed pattern amo...

What happens when you’ve mastered medicine, but something still feels incomplete? In this solo episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh reflects on a powerful idea from From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks: the skills that drive success early in a physician’s career are not the same ones that create meaning later in life. He explores the concept of fluid intelligence: the speed...

You finished clinic, the inbox is mostly clear, but those six charts are still open. You know they’ll only take 15 minutes, yet you keep putting them off. Sound familiar? In this solo episode of the Better Physician Life Podcast, Dr. Michael Hersh explores why procrastination feels so personal for physicians. Even though doctors are highly responsible and excellent at handling difficult tasks, sma...

What if the real reason negotiation feels heavy for physicians isn’t the topic itself, but that we were never trained for it, and we’ve been taught to villainize instead of understand? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh sits down with Dr. Lee Sharma, a practicing OB/GYN with nearly 30 years in private practice and a Master’s in Conflict Resolution. Together, they unpack wh...

What if the real issue isn’t hating medicine, but that medicine never really leaves you at the end of the day? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh reframes physician burnout not as disliking the work but as the inability to shut it off. Many doctors still love complex cases, enjoy diagnostics, and care deeply about patients, yet their brains keep thinking about the work dur...

What if caring deeply didn’t mean carrying everything? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh gives physicians permission to care less, not about clinical excellence or patient outcomes you control, but about the extra weight of everything else that lands on you. He shares how accountability for decisions can silently spread to carrying noncompliant patients, system delays, pr...

What if the real issue isn’t how much you’re paid, but what your paycheck has quietly become the only scoreboard for your entire career? In this episode of Better Physician Life , Dr. Michael Hersh explores the hidden shift many physicians experience: compensation stops feeling like fair pay and starts feeling like proof that all the sacrifices were worth it. Drawing from his own journey, he unpac...

What if the real solution for physician well-being isn’t another self-care lecture, but fewer impossible demands and more people who actually understand what you’re carrying? In this raw and hopeful episode of the Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh welcomes Kim Downey, founder of Stand Up (for) Doctors . A physical therapist and three-time cancer survivor, Kim’s life changed forever when her...

What if feeling "stuck" in medicine isn't just the system's fault, but a subtle handoff of your agency? In this episode of the Better Physician Life Podcast , Dr. Michael Hersh validates the real constraints of 2026 medicine: metrics, monitoring, and constant pressure, while unpacking the victim cycle: from pre-bracing reactions and habitual grievance to armored resignation that conserves energy b...

What if your "team player" yeses are quietly eroding your energy and authenticity? In this candid episode of the Better Physician Life Podcast, Dr. Michael Hersh exposes people pleasing as medicine's unspoken training ground, from med school squeezes to mid-career overloads, where obligation masquerades as reliability, leading to irritation, resentment, and half-present relationships.  Sharing his...

What if your hesitation isn't about ability, but trusting yourself to handle the unknown? In this episode of the Better Physician Life Podcast , Dr. Michael Hersh dives into the self-confidence gap that keeps high-achieving physicians stuck in the familiar rather than pursuing new roles, boundaries, or pivots. Drawing from his own journey, he distinguishes clinical confidence ("see one, do one, te...

What if the "just how it is" fatigue in your practice isn't permanent, but a signal to shift without abandoning what you love? In this empowering episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh welcomes Dr. Maureen Gibbons, a former emergency medicine nocturnist turned virtual lifestyle medicine pioneer and author of Freedom to Shift . Sharing her journey from 15 years of night shifts to a sou...

What happens the moment you open the envelope or get the news and realize the future you sacrificed years for, planned your entire life around, isn't going to happen? In this episode of Better Physician Life, host Dr. Michael Hersh opens up about one of the most defining moments of his life: opening his Match Day envelope in 2003 and realizing the New York future he had planned—family, friends, tr...

What if the reason true rest feels uncomfortable, guilty, or even wrong isn't that you're lazy, but that you've spent your entire life earning your worth through constant output, so doing 'nothing' feels like you're failing at being you? In this episode of Better Physician Life Podcast, host Dr. Michael Hersh tackles the paradox many physicians face: we say we want more rest, but when the opportun...

You accomplish hard things every day: patients cared for, decisions made, family time protected, and yet, almost immediately, your mind jumps to what's still not done. What if the reason nothing ever quite feels like 'enough' isn't that you're falling short, but that you almost never stop to look at how far you've actually come? In this episode of Better Physician Life Podcast, host Dr. Michael He...

Do you know that heaviness in your chest on Sunday afternoon, or the moment you sit in the parking lot, unable to get out of the car, even though you're not burned out or ready to quit? What if that 'work dread' isn't telling you to leave medicine, but to look more closely at what's really weighing you down? In this episode of Better Physician Life, host Dr. Michael Hersh dives into "work dread",...

What if the thing that's 'missing' in your life as a physician isn't leaving medicine... but building something outside of it that gives you true freedom—at work and at home? In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh interviews Dr. Alex Schloe, a family medicine physician, Air Force veteran, and real estate entrepreneur. Dr. Schloe shares his journey from childhood entrepreneuria...

Have you ever felt anger hit you so fast you didn’t even see it coming, and then felt ashamed for feeling it at all? Anger isn’t a character flaw, it’s a normal human emotion, and physicians feel it more than we like to admit. In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh explains why anger often arrives as a secondary emotion covering disappointment, fear, shame, or loss of control,...

Do you ever finish a ‘good’ day feeling like you’ve accomplished nothing because everything still feels urgent and unfinished? Overwhelm doesn’t just hit physicians out of nowhere; it builds quietly from carrying too many unanswered questions and subtle resistance. In this episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh breaks down what overwhelm really is and what it isn’t, why it feels so he...

What if the “agency” being offered to physicians isn’t empowerment—but a more polished way of staying inside the lines? In this episode of Better Physician Life , Dr. Michael Hersh examines the quiet shift from physician autonomy to what is now being labeled “agency,” and why that distinction matters more than it sounds. He unpacks how autonomy once meant real authority paired with responsibility...

In this episode of Better Physician Life , Dr. Michael Hersh speaks with emergency physician Dr. Gita Pensa about what it’s actually like to be named in a malpractice lawsuit—and how to get through it without losing your footing. Drawing from her own 12-year case, Dr. Pensa explains the emotional impact most physicians aren’t prepared for, including shame, doubt, and isolation, alongside the pract...

What if the moment you cringe at ‘Can I give you some feedback?’ is actually the exact moment you start growing fastest? For physicians, feedback rarely feels like a gift. It feels like proof we messed up. From brutal ICU rounds to hallway comments years later, we were trained that mistakes equal danger, so any critique hits our identity, not just our performance.  In this episode, Dr. Michael Her...

Every extra “yes” at 9 p.m., the quick message, the last-minute add-on, the coverage you didn’t have room for, is quietly stealing your life one compromise at a time.  In this powerful episode, Dr. Michael Hersh exposes why physicians are professionally trained to over-give and why saying no feels like betrayal of the very identity medicine gave us: the helpful, reliable, never-let-anyone-down doc...