Hello, Surgeons.
I’m Dr. Mel Thacker, an ENT surgeon and founder of Empowered Surgeons, where we learn how to stop pretending that we’re machines and start practicing the skills that let us stay human, inside and outside the OR.
I’m so glad you’re here.
Being a surgeon comes with invisible costs.
You’re trained to keep going no matter what: ignore the exhaustion, silence the doubts, take care of everyone else first. Over time, that conditioning pulls you into a pattern where you feel completely disconnected from who you truly are.
It doesn’t have to stay that way.
Empowered Surgeons begins by helping you wake up and see clearly where you are. From there, we teach you simple, practical skills to shift out of old patterns and into a healthier way of relating to your patients, your colleagues, your family, and yourself.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about daily practice, support when you need it most, and staying in the work long enough to feel steady again. Over time, you rebuild a career and a life that feel sustainable, meaningful, and deeply human.
The result?
You move from just surviving the profession of surgery to creating real impact with clarity, presence, and purpose.
About the empowered surgeons program + space
In Empowered Surgeons, you won’t be required to prove how tough you are, or how flawlessly you can perform. We gently (but firmly) refuse the scripts of perfection, sacrifice, heroism, or martyrdom that surgery culture hands us.
This is a place to set down comparison and competition, and instead pick up curiosity and connection. Our focus is on you experiencing more steadiness, more impact, and more connection that actually feels good to your human self.
Here, we remember that life is bigger than the OR, and that being human is what actually supports you in doing this work well. No part of this requires a checklist on how to become the perfect surgeon or the perfect human. What you’ll find is an earnest teacher and partner wholeheartedly invested in your human side as much as in your surgeon self. Someone who understands the highs, lows, extremes, and particular challenges you face in surgery today.
Empowered Surgeons is a place to practice presence, boundaries, humanity, and leadership in the hardest rooms: the OR, the clinic, with your colleagues, and at home. I can’t fix the broken system for you, but I will help you find a way to live and lead inside it without losing yourself. In fact, you might just find even more meaning in your work, in your moments away from work, and everywhere in between once you’ve allowed space for your human animal to thrive in ways that your surgeon self doesn’t require.
This isn’t just about your career. It’s about the culture of surgery, about what kind of colleagues we are, about how we treat each other and ourselves. It’s about preparing you not just to survive surgery, but to have a life beyond it — because one day, whether by choice or retirement, you will.
I can’t know why you’re here until you tell me.
Maybe you’re exhausted. Maybe something major went wrong and it shook you. Maybe you’re just tired of feeling like you have to choose between your work and your life. Maybe you’re just at the beginning, and you know that if you don’t create boundaries, you’re likely to falter.
Whatever it is, I hope you’ll tell me.
xo, Mel
PROGRAMS + OFFERSLet’s explore what might be right for you, right now.
empowered surgeons, the online program + group
Empowered Surgeons is support designed specifically for surgeons who want sustainable success in the OR and beyond it. It’s both a steady practice space and a reliable lifeline when things feel urgent.
It’s not a curriculum you check off, it’s something you can come back to over and over, whether for ongoing growth or in a crisis moment.
private coaching with me
1:1 is best if you want a dedicated space on your calendar with a high-level partner. It’s also for those moments when the thought of bringing your most vulnerable truths into a group feels paralyzing.
In this space, you get to practice the skills of being seen vulnerably, without pressure, without performance. This isn’t about dumping or trauma-bonding. It’s about learning how to show up as a competent, steady partner in relationship. Skills that will carry you into group spaces and beyond.
explore + expand: our twice a year retreats just for surgeons
We were never meant to do this alone.
Our retreats are our ritual against isolation. Time carved out to step away from the grind and back into connection, creativity, play, and honest conversation.
Here, you get to be more than “the surgeon.” You get to be human, witnessed by other humans who know what the work costs and what it gives.
It’s where you remember yourself, and remember that you belong.