What happens after you leave the path you spent your entire life building toward?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, is joined by Colin for a reflective birthday episode after officially turning 35.

Frances Mei talks about what it has felt like to step off medicine’s conveyor belt and build a career without a clear blueprint, including the uncertainty, fear, and freedom that come with losing sight of the shore for a while. She shares one of the questions that has become central to this season of life: is it really a risk if what you are risking is a life you do not want?

They also talk about the criticism Frances Mei still gets for leaving surgical practice, why “you could have just done locums” misses the point, and why working harder now feels completely different from working hard at a job she did not want.

The conversation moves into entrepreneurship, ambition, birthdays, gratitude, and the tradeoffs involved in building work that actually matters to you. Frances Mei reflects on why she no longer expects a perfect separation between work and life, and why meaningful work can feel life affirming even when it is demanding.

And yes, Stardew Valley makes an appearance. Frances Mei realizes that even in a video game, she loses interest once the farm is fully optimized and profitable, raising a bigger question about whether the real reward is sometimes the act of building itself.

In this episode:

• Turning 35 after leaving surgical practice

• Getting off medicine’s conveyor belt

• Becoming more comfortable with uncertainty

• Why leaving surgery was not about working less

• The criticism physicians face when they change careers

• Building a portfolio career without a blueprint

• Risk, ambition, and trusting yourself

• Why meaningful work feels different from burnout

• Entrepreneurship and the “love of the game”

• Gratitude without suppressing frustration

• What Stardew Valley can teach us about ambition

• Why how your life feels matters more than how it looks

Frances Mei ends with the mantra that may best summarize this new chapter:

“How my life feels is a lot more important than how my life looks.”

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Following Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What happens when a successful surgeon starts having panic attacks in the operating room?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, sits down with fellowship-trained rhinologist, Hippocratic Collective co-founder, surgeon coach, and author Mel Thacker, MD, to talk about her debut memoir, Scrubbing In, out October 6, 2026.

Mel shares the story behind the book, from growing up with housing instability and becoming financially independent as a teenager to building a successful career in ENT. For years, medicine represented an escape and an arrival point. Becoming a physician, she thought, would mean she had finally made it.

But seven years into a successful surgical practice, Mel began experiencing panic attacks in the operating room. She talks candidly about the shame, fear, and uncertainty that followed, including the worry that patients or hospital leadership might see her differently if they knew.

Rather than hiding that experience, Mel chose to write about it.

Together, Mel and Frances Mei discuss why surgeons are so often expected to perform as if they are immune to normal human experiences, why silence can be more dangerous than vulnerability, and what it means to stay in surgery while redesigning the profession around a life you actually want to live.

They also talk about the craft of memoir, learning to see yourself as a character rather than always the hero of your own story, and why storytelling may be one of the most important skills physicians never learn.

In this episode:

• Mel’s childhood and path into medicine

• Why becoming a doctor felt like an escape

• The arrival fallacy in medicine

• Learning to write a memoir as a surgeon

• Panic attacks in the operating room

• Shame and vulnerability in surgical culture

• Why talking about struggle can improve patient safety

• Redesigning a surgical career instead of leaving it

• Moving from private practice to locums and part-time surgery

• Storytelling as a leadership skill for physicians

• Why surgeons need permission to be human

• Who Mel wrote Scrubbing In for

Mel ultimately wrote Scrubbing In for the surgeon who feels too sensitive, too different, or too far outside the traditional mold of what a surgeon is supposed to look and act like.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Mel Thacker, MD

Connect with Mel: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/mel-thacker-md

Scrubbing In available now: https://a.co/d/03CPHRRm

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What can Get Out, Kafka, surrealist art, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and contemporary film teach us about medicine?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, and Colin sit down with clinical psychologist Sacha McBain, PhD, to talk about Pathologizing Pop Culture, her long-running Hippocratic Collective column exploring healthcare, illness, disability, trauma, and recovery through movies, television, literature, music, and art.

Sacha explains why art can give language to experiences long before medicine does, and how engaging with stories can expand perspective, empathy, compassion, and even our own capacity for emotional processing.

The conversation moves through some of the column’s most memorable pieces, including Get Out and its relationship to medical racism, trust, and the history of harm within healthcare. They also discuss Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, surrealist art, disability, grief, and how abstraction can sometimes help us understand experiences that are difficult to put into words.

In this episode:

• Why pop culture belongs in conversations about healthcare

• How art can build empathy and perspective

• Get Out, medical racism, and trust in healthcare

• Trauma, illness, disability, and recovery in art

• Why horror and science fiction can make difficult ideas more accessible

• The role of storytelling in emotional processing

• What clinicians can learn from patients’ favorite music, movies, and art

• How creativity can make healthcare professionals more human

• Why art sometimes understands suffering before medicine does

A conversation about what happens when we stop treating art as separate from medicine and start asking what stories can teach us about the people we care for.

Pathologizing Pop Culture: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/pathologizing-pop-culture

Articles mentioned:

1 Year Anniversary: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/the-benefits-of-pathologizing-your-pop-culture

Get Out: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/get-out-a-horror-story-of-medicine

RuPauls' Drag Race: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/chronic-illness-and-disability-on-rupauls-drag-race

Matt Sesow: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/matt-sesows-choice-life-and-art-after-amputation

The Metamorphosis: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/the-metamorphosis

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Sacha McBain, PhD

Connect with Sacha: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/sacha-mcbain-phd

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.