Inside The Doctor's Lounge

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Howie Mell, an emergency medicine physician with decades of experience in emergency services, to reflect on how emergency medicine—and healthcare more broadly—has changed throughout his career. They discuss: What people often get wrong about the purpose of the emergency room, and why the appeal of emergency medicine isn’t necessarily the adrenaline...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Amit Mehta, an interventional pain physician and founder of ABM Pain Consultants, who transitioned from traditional private practice to an independent 1099 model. He shares how his model of working across synergistic private practices and building out a personal injury and workers’ compensation practice has allowed him to reduce overhead, increase...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Ashley Caravelli, a family medicine physician and menopause specialist who recently launched her own cash-pay telehealth practice, Axis Precision Health. She shares a behind-the-scenes look at going from an idea to actually seeing patients via telemedicine in just six months—and the business, legal, operational, and marketing decisions she had to m...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Aaron Broadwell, rheumatologist and President of the Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations (CSRO), to discuss the dangers of the proposed changes to payments for same-day E&M services and procedures in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. They also dig deep into not just how to advocate against it, but broaden the discussion about makin...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Saurin Patel, cardiologist and co-founder/Medical Director of MD365, a multi-specialty primary care and cardiology group. They break down CMS’s proposed 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, and what the changes could mean for physicians, private practices, and the future of healthcare reimbursement, both good and bad. They discuss: What the propos...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Christine Li Wan Po, board-certified family medicine physician and owner of Pinnacle Health, to discuss what it’s like to leave traditional employed medicine and build a direct primary care (DPC) practice. They discuss: Why she transitioned from a high-volume, insurance-based practice to direct primary care — and how it has helped her to maximize t...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Jay Sridhar, vitreoretinal surgeon and host of two popular medical podcasts, to discuss what it really takes to build a successful podcast while balancing a busy clinical career and personal life. Whether or not you’re interested in starting a podcast, the second half of this episode carries valuable insights for any side gig that involves consiste...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Lakshman Swamy, pulmonary and critical care physician and creator of the tabletop game Critical Care . They discuss: How a joke on social media evolved into a globally funded Kickstarter campaign and successful board game, and the creative process of turning a passion project into a real product How crowdfunding through Kickstarter can validate a p...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. L. R. Huntoon, neurologist, past president of the American Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of ‘sham peer review.’ While we believe the vast majority of peer review proceedings are done with patient safety and quality of care in mind, this episode is intended to inform physi...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Michelle Mudge-Riley, Medical Director in Global Clinical Development, to pull back the curtain on pharmaceutical industry careers for physicians. They discuss: The biggest misconceptions about physician careers in pharma — and why they’re neither sales jobs nor “backup” careers What day-to-day life actually looks like across the...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Aaron Reinke, family physician, health tech advisor, and physician innovator, and Jody Tropeano Greene, Head of Content at HLTH. This episode flips the script — Dr. Mehta hands the hosting reins over to Jody, who interviews Drs. Reinke and Mehta about the Physicians @ HLTH program goals and how it has been impactful in helping physicians break into...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Ami Bhatt, Chief Innovation Officer at the American College of Cardiology and the inaugural Chair of the FDA Digital Health Advisory Committee. They discuss: Why it’s so important for medical societies to be involved in innovation, and how to do it appropriately to navigate conflicts of interest How shiny object syndrome can distract us from invest...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Mark Ayzenberg, an orthopedic surgeon who turned to photography as a respite from residency training. Today, he talks about how photography has created freedom outside medicine, and private practice has created freedom inside medicine, and why entrepreneurship is key to retaining joy in medicine. They discuss: How being in the right place at the ri...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Susan Trocciola, a cardiothoracic surgeon who trained at Cornell, NYU, and Texas Heart. She now earns over $1 million annually (which is significantly more than her prior employed salary), while taking at least 16 weeks off per year.    They discuss: How she successfully transitioned to full-time locums after a cancer diagnosis prompted a majo...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Kevin Spencer, emergency physician and Co-Founder and CEO of Ring Rescue, a medical device designed to safely remove stuck rings from swollen fingers. They discuss: The long (but rewarding!) process of taking a medical device from idea to market, including funding, prototype, legal, regulatory, and go-to-market processes How and why he chose this p...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Benjamin Toh, MD, and Stephen Chahn Lee, Esq. Dr. Toh is a physician who was prosecuted by the federal government for a side job that he did for a few months in 2019, and actually had to serve time in federal prison.  They discuss: How Dr. Toh got involved in this side gig, how it was pitched to him, and how, unbeknownst to him, the government felt it...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Chethan Sathya, pediatric surgeon, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Northwell Health, and Founding Director, Center for Gun Violence Prevention.  They discuss: How being proactive helped Dr. Sathya open up doors outside of clinical medicine, including everything from tech leadership and advisory roles to serving as producer for an Academy...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Kevin Pho, MD, founder of KevinMD.  They discuss: His decisions to start blogging in 2004 and to eventually start amplifying other voices in healthcare, what’s contributed to his success, and dealing with (and learning from) the occasional negative feedback that comes along with what he decides to publish How his platform has evolved with the rise...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Austin Chiang. Dr. Chiang is the Chief Medical Officer of Endoscopy at Medtronic as well as well known physician on social media.  They discuss: How his role at Medtronic in part stemmed from consistently sharing authentic interests and expertise on social media, and his 3Ps for social media success The role physician executives play in a med devic...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Tina Shah. Dr. Shah is a triple boarded critical care physician, former Chief Clinical Officer of Abridge, policy leader, and advocate who has served in multiple administrations as an advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General, and who is now taking that to the next level by running for office herself.  They discuss: How she first entered the policy and a...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Kameron Matthews, MD, JD, and Chief Health Officer of IMPaCT Care and former Chief Health Officer at CityBlock Health and former Chief Medical Officer of the US Department of Veterans Affairs..  They discuss: How her unique combination of the MD and JD degrees shaped and supported her throughout her career trajectory Value based care, direct primar...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Shiv Rao, MD, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. They discuss: Shiv’s journey from clinician to investor to builder, and how being a clinician gives you something that no pure technologist has – the ability to feel the problem firsthand How the barrier to entry to build something has never been lower, but the barrier to doing it right in healthca...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Yele Aluko, MD, MBA. Dr. Aluko has been a health system executive, Chief Medical Officer at Ernst and Young Americas, and now healthcare strategist and Founder of Aluko Advisors.  They discuss: How patients are the most important industry stakeholder, and where the industry falls short in serving them and why What physicians need to learn about the...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Kedar Mate, CMO and Co-Founder of Qualified Health, a digital health company deploying the critical infrastructure needed to safely create the AI-enabled hospital of the future.  They discuss: How technologically that intrinsically hallucinates both creates opportunity and risk, and what hospital systems need to be thinking about with deployment of...

In this episode, Dr. Nisha Mehta is joined by Dr. Christina Jenkins, a physician turned venture capitalist, board member, and advisor who invests at the intersection of AI and medical science, therapeutics, and diagnostics.  They discuss: The pivot from practicing physician to a full time career in venture capital, advising, and board member work, and her advice for physicians looking to make majo...