I climbed surgery mountain, and then I started having panic attacks in the OR…

I knew I wanted to be a doctor since the age of thirteen.

I grew up in significant poverty and trauma, and medicine became my North Star. It was the proof that I could do something that mattered. After med school, residency, and fellowship, I had a brief soiree in academics. I quickly realized how much I loved my autonomy and pivoted into private practice. Ultimately, I achieved every external milestone that was supposed to mean something.

And then I waited for it to feel like enough.

It didn't.

The arrival fallacy hit me hard. I had beaten the video game, climbed the mountain, collected every credential, and standing at the summit, I realized the view wasn't what I thought it would be. My external validation bubble didn't deflate slowly. It popped. In 2021, I started having panic attacks in the operating room.

I thought that would be the end of my career.

Instead, it was the beginning of a new one.

Those panic attacks cracked something open. They forced me to do something surgical training never required of me: look inward. I started doing the deep work, like healing the childhood trauma that had been secretly running the show, rebuilding my sense of self from the inside out, and learning what it actually meant to live in alignment rather than in performance mode.

What I found on the other side surprised me.

After ten years in a successful private practice, one I had built exactly the way I dreamed, I left. My practice had not failed me. I had become someone new, and with that, my mission shifted. I no longer wanted to spend my career serving patients with nose and sinus disorders. I wanted to serve the surgeons who were suffering, dissatisfied, or standing at their own summit wondering why it didn't feel like enough.

I started a podcast: Surgeons with Purpose.

I started talking about these ideas out loud, including surgical complications, anxiety, imposter syndrome, panic attacks in the OR, and the gap between surgical excellence and genuine wellbeing. I became a thought leader in a space that didn't really exist yet.

In the course of about a year and a half, I pitched and delivered two TEDx talks. One was selected for the coveted Editor's Pick accolade.

I founded a coaching program. I cofounded a multimedia company. I became a medical expert witness. I finished my first book, a memoir called Scrubbing In.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I figured out how to design a surgical life entirely on my own terms.

Today, I work one week per month as a surgeon. The rest of the time, I spend building everything else. I wear multiple professional hats, and I love it. It’s not that surgery wasn’t enough. I realize now that I was no longer willing to conform into what surgery culture wanted me to be. And many surgeons feel the same way.

That freedom is what I want for you.

Not freedom from surgery. Freedom within it. The ability to show up to the OR because you genuinely want to be there.

I've learned that it comes down to three essentials:

Protect yourself as the asset.

You are the most important instrument in the room. Your psychology, identity, and nervous system are the foundation of everything.

Serve your patients.

Not fix or people-please. Serve. The distinction is everything.

Diversify your professional identity.

No single role should have the power to define you or dismantle you. Build beyond one thing, and watch how much freer you feel.

Master those three and you will build a surgical career that is not only successful but genuinely joyful.

I know it. I've lived it. I've helped many surgeons do it too.

And I built everything I offer to help you do the same.

• Board-Certified ENT Surgeon

• Master Certified Coach

• TEDx Speaker with 230k views Editor's Pick

• Host, Surgeons with Purpose Podcast

• Author, Scrubbing In (forthcoming)

• Founder, Empowered Surgeons Group

• Co-Founder, Hippocratic Collective

• Medical Expert Witness