DRIVE TIME DEBRIEF: A Physician Wellness Podcast with The Whole Physician

By Drs. Cazier, Dinsmore and MorrisonBusiness Medicine Health & Fitness Mental Health Careers

DRIVE TIME DEBRIEF: A Physician Wellness Podcast with The Whole Physician episodes

December 08, 2022#39: Stress with Shideh Shafie, MD
Meet our friend, Dr. Shideh Shafie! She's a mother of twins, performance and malpractice coach, business owner, and ER doc. She talks with us today about stress (something she knows a thing or two about).
Some highlights:
Not all stress is negative.
Stress is linked to value.
Stressors are not the same as stress. Stressors are the inciting event, but stress is a physiologic response.
Many of us stop the physiologic response, which can cause problems. One of the best ways to finish the stress cycle is movement.
There are different reactions to stressors:
Fight, Flight or Freeze Response - the classic fight, flight or freeze, characterized by corticosteroids and adrenaline. Gets us prepared to fight or flee. It prepares us for movement.
Challenge response - characterized with a DHEA component. Prespares us to rise to challenges.
"Tend and Befriend" response - which has an oxytocin component. Creates community.
Resources:
For more info on the circadian rhythm study email: [email protected]
Touch of Joy Book
Neurogenic tremor demonstration
Roseto Effect explanation
The L Word Podcast with Dr. Gita Pensa
Dr. Shideh Shafie's website
Dr. Shideh Shafie's Instagram

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.
For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
*DISCLAIMER: This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional.
32 min
December 01, 2022#38: Limiting Beliefs
Limiting beliefs, or this idea of learned helplessness, is a thought or belief about yourself that restricts you in some way. Usually these beliefs are actually false accusations that we make about ourselves. Usually they start somewhere in that non-conscious or subconscious mind. Sometimes we're not even aware that we have them because they've been a belief we've had maybe since our childhood or some other programming in the past. Which may have served us then, but are not serving us now.
In this episode, we discuss what it would look like to become aware of where we have limiting beliefs and what we can do to challenge them for a better result. Once you become aware, we can actually do something about it. As humans, we do things that are comfortable or known because they require less energy and less energy means it's not a lot of effort and it just occurs. In our natural state, we're risk averse. We don't even try cause it'd be too much effort and energy. And so we take the path of least resistance. We choose this option because of the results that it has produced in the past. And the fact is, we believe that that same result will continue to happen. But in reality, we are choosing that option.
With the help of Tony Robbins and his “What do you believe? 16 limiting beliefs that are preventing you from thriving”, we can become aware and begin to change the thoughts that we have had and then work toward overcoming this to produce more positive results.
If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.
For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
References:
Tony Robbins book, “What do you believe: 16 limiting beliefs that are preventing you from thriving”
https://core.tonyrobbins.com/limiting-beliefs-3
"Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions" by Dr Daniel Amen
https://brainmd.com/captain-snout-and-the-super-power-questions
22 min
November 24, 2022#37: Anger with Arpita Gupta-DePalma, MD
This week we are excited to introduce you to our friend, Dr. Arpita Gupta-DePalma. A pediatrician by training, she now specializes in coaching for anger. Today she gives some tips on what to do when anger is negatively affecting your life.
Highlights:
Many times anger is a secondary emotion. We feel angry because it feels more powerful, more protective, than something like disappointment or sadness. It can feel better than embarrassment or shame, for example.
While most of the time anger gives us results that we don't want, it CAN be used to harness energy for change.
Changing from anger as a default requires a lot of grace. A lot of people have shame around it.
The first step is building awareness around your anger.
The second step is recognizing where it shows up in your body.
Next, Dr. DePalma recommends pulling yourself out of the situation. She many times will excuse herself to the bathroom.
Then you can process the anger and decide what you want to do.
There is tremendous power in pausing before responding to anger. Anger creates an imaginary sense of urgency.
Resources:
To reach Dr. Arpita DePalma or find out more about her new course on anger, visit her website www.thoughtworkmd.com
Follow her on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn
Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
23 min
November 17, 2022#36: Thoughts, Beliefs, and Neuroplasticity
Did you know that every thought that comes into your mind is not true? This was a mind-blowing revelation! Get it? Ok, well just because we capture a thought in our conscious mind doesn't mean that we need to keep it, especially if it isn't a thought that serves us. In this episode, we talk about where thoughts come from and how they form into a belief and what we can do to change them if they aren't serving us anymore! Good news is there is decades of research on neuroplasticity and we just touch the surface of it on this show. Enjoy!
we have tens of thousands of thoughts daily, 95% of those are on a nonconscious level. And so once you become aware of them and realize what is giving you your feelings, that then drives your actions and results, gives you a whole lot more explanation for why you are, where you are in life and what to do to change it...the idea of neuroplasticity
beliefs are really thoughts that we have thought over and over again
sometimes our beliefs and our reality reflect each other and they kind of compliment or coincide with each other and that's comfortable or that is what we've created so that we don't feel tension. When they contradict, on the other hand, tension is created.
People/places/things mentioned:
Byron Katie
The Hiding Place - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hiding_Place_(biography)
Brooke Castillo
Bob Ross
Dr Caroline Leaf, "Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess"

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
30 min
November 10, 2022#35: Organizational Wellbeing with Hani Chaabo, MD
Share this episode with your hospital leaders!
In this episode, you get to meet one of our favorite humans, Dr. Hani Chaabo. He's a family doctor with integrative medicine training, now serving as the medical director of wellbeing at his hospital in Ridgecrest, CA He speaks with us about organizational wellbeing.
Some highlights:
70-80% of burnout is actually institutional - related to high workload and job demand that are disproportionate to the available resources to the clinician
burnout is the highest in healthcare, more than any other helping profession
burnout leads to decreased quality of care
the bureaucratic admin burden of healthcare is uniquely to the United States
prioritizing wellbeing is actually lucrative to an organization in many ways
some things that organizations do that don't work:
scapegoat physicians
many of the typical things done in the Era of Distress
some things that organizations do that DO work:
incorporating people's voice
allowing more autonomy
give a sense of meaning and purpose
allow workers to feel like they're growing in their work environments
leaders being led by the changes the team wants to see
compassionate communication and culture
appoint wellbeing leaders
"Everybody who has traveled through their suffering and found healing was able to change the world somehow." - Dr. Hani Chaabo
Resources:
Joy in Medicine Framework
AMA Steps Forward Modules
Wellbeing 2.0 Framework
Hani Chaabo - Mindfulous
[email protected]

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
33 min
November 03, 2022#34: Our Prescriptions for Others
We are all very familiar writing a prescription. But did you know that you actually have prescription for people? You have a name (label), instructions on how they should act or behave and how much they should behave that way in a given situation. This contributes to why we have the kinds of thoughts we have in certain situations. This can be positive or negative. Most of the time when a feeling is negative, it is because we have created a negative script about this person. What can we do about it? In this episode, the team candidly describes many examples of our effects of the prescriptions we have for people and how to change them to serve us in a more productive and positive way!
Favorite quotables:
...the circumstance is neutral. It's our thoughts about it that give us our feelings.
And here's the curious thing is that most of the time, we've never told these people that we have this prescription for them. They don't even know. We just think that they should somehow be able to read our minds and respond in the way that we want to.
The biggest bottom line of everything that we're gonna try to teach you is that we are in control of our own experience. We're in control of ourselves. We are not in control of anyone else.
We have to accept that people come in a package and that is them. That is on them, their choices to act how they're acting comes from their thoughts, which causes their feelings, which causes their action, which gives them their result. None of that has anything to do with our happiness or our desired result.
But getting curious is something that's usually available to me. Like I wonder what they're thinking, or I wonder why they said that...
But what a lot of our clients are realizing is that, what serves us so well in the hospital building, many times is the same thing that is ruining our experience outside of the hospital building.
We can just realize that our own experience is up to us and we can have a good experience whenever we choose to. That's always available to us. We can always be at peace. We can always feel gratitude. We can always feel some excitement. Sometimes it's harder than others, but these things are all available to us because they're just coming from our thoughts.
If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
30 min
October 27, 2022 #33: Relationships
Relationships are strange because they're just the thoughts you have about someone. You can have a long distance relationship with someone and still feel close, and in comparison, you can have another person sitting next to you and feel lonely. It is your thoughts about the other person that is the experience of your relationship.
A lot of our relationship problems stem from wanting someone to be different. When we can drop that and accept reality as it is, it frees up a lot of energy to serve ourselves better.
While we can't change another adult person's behavior, we CAN change our own thoughts about it to better serve us. It's never the thing (eg. socks left on the ground) that upsets us - it's the meaning we assign to it (I'm being disrespected v This is low priority for my spouse but isn't necessarily about me).
We can make requests and set boundaries and have consequences, but another person's behavior is ultimately up to them and doesn't cause emotions in us. Even with requests and boundaries, we remain responsible for our own feelings and reactions.
Our most important relationship is the relationship with ourselves. This is the basis upon which all of our other relationships are founded. Loving and appreciating yourself is NOT the same as arrogance. We are all infinitely worthy. There is no "earning" your worth.
This episode also discusses having grace with our family relationships. The principle is the same. We can have boundaries and consequences, but their behaviors and choices don't cause our emotions. And dropping our "prescriptions" for how another "should" be is key in getting our own emotional power back. We teach others how to treat us, and in turn, our children are watching us as the example for how to treat themselves.
Resources:
Louis Anderson's book- Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime

28 min
October 20, 2022#32: Goals
On today's show, we talk about GOALS and what it is to set them and what we need to get started and KEEP GOING! We talk about how we get in the way of just starting and how every excuse in the book sabotages us into staying stuck. Using the acronym, SMART, we give you a guideline of setting the goal and how to go about taking the small steps to accomplishing it! Also, learning how to celebrate accomplishing the small actions steps on the way towards achieving our SMART goal. Here are a few of our favorite comments:
Happiness is a feeling that comes from the thoughts that we have about our circumstances.
Happiness can happen regardless of our circumstances.
We set goals to help us to bloom into the next version of ourselves.
Setting goals helps us see ourselves more fully.
It's more about the journey, but it gives you direction.
Your priorities are what's important to you. The goal is the result that you want to create for yourself.
That is dreaming and goal setting from a place of abundance.
S.M.A.R.T, is one that's used frequently for goal and action planning.
Be specific.
Make it measurable.
Action-oriented.
Realistic.
Timed.
But a small adjustment on the rudder of a boat over time leads to a completely different direction.
References:
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
19 min
October 13, 2022#31: Priorities
A priority is a thing that is regarded more important than another. So are you living your life in alignment with your own priorities?
In this episode we discuss the importance of really looking at what is important to you in your own life and the questions to ask yourself in order to start your "do over" today.
Highlights:
Treat the minutes you have each day as if they were dollars.
Steven Covey: "Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important."
A little planning goes a long way to spend more time on what's important rather than what's urgent.
"Having our priorities in order will help us make those decisions in a way that is most in alignment with how we want to live and how we want to show up in the world."
"Having priorities helps us identify the things that are truly needed in our life versus what someone else thinks is important."
"If our goals are specific results that we want to achieve in our lives, then priorities are the things that we need that help to say yes or no in order to reach our goals."
Alexander den Heijer: "You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you."
We don't actually HAVE to do anything. We have free agency.
Priorities in life change, but the goal is to be spending enough time on the priorities that matter to you now.
Common priorities include: work, family, health, home, relationships, friendships, hobbies, recreation/fun, self-care, personal growth, sports, spirituality, religion, money, volunteering, etc.
Questions to ask from Brooke Castillo at The Life Coach School:
If you had 6 months to live, how would you live it?
If you have 5 years to live, would you make any changes from how you're living now?
When you're 100 years old, looking back, what will you regret most NOT doing? Are you willing to live with that regret?
The beautiful part of doing this exercise is that you can start your do over now.

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
24 min
October 06, 2022 #30: Difficult Patients with Joan Naidorf, DO
On today's podcast, we host a special guest, Dr Joan Naidorf. We had the pleasure of meeting her at a conference we attended in South Carolina hosted by Physician's Mom Group. She has recently published a book and several articles. She also writes a weekly blog that you can find on her website. She has done many lectures on this topic and we hope you enjoy all the little nuggets of wisdom she brings to us today on the topic of "The Difficult Patient".
Works cited:
https://www.drjoannaidorf.com
Changing How We Think about Difficult Patients: A Guide for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals: 9780996663212: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com
https://www.kevinmd.com/post-author/joan-naidorf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/06/30/patients-difficult-doctor-relationship/

If you want to work with us, visit our website: www.thewholephysician.com. We have private coaching and CME courses available. Additionally, we're happy to lecture for your institution. Sign up for our Weekly Well Check by clicking the link. The Weekly Well Check is your weekly dose of encouragement and your only access to secret insider sales on our products.
If you'd like something you can use today, download our free Top 10 Mindset Hacks for Doctors here.

For a free quote on Own-Occupation Insurance, you're welcome to use our affiliate link: patternlife.com/drivetime
33 min

About DRIVE TIME DEBRIEF: A Physician Wellness Podcast with The Whole Physician

From the publisher's feed

🔥 Doctors Feeling the Burnout? We’ve Been There—and We’re Here to Help You Climb Out of the Fire. 🔥

Drive Time Debrief: A Physician Wellness Podcast

Welcome to Drive Time Debrief, the anti-burnout podcast built just for physicians and healthcare providers who are ready to reclaim their joy, purpose, and well-being.

Hosted by the physician-coaches of The Whole Physician, this podcast delivers honest conversations, evidence-based tools, and practical strategies to help you navigate burnout, set boundaries, and find fulfillment in and outside of medicine.

Whether you're heading into a shift, decompressing on your commute home, or sneaking in a sanity-saving moment during your day, you’ll get bite-sized insights that speak to the *real* challenges of medical life—with compassion, candor, and a dose of humor.

If you’re tired of white-knuckling your way through your career and ready to feel like yourself again, you’re in the right place.

Episodes include:

- Physician burnout recovery stories

- Coaching tools for stress, imposter syndrome, & difficult dynamics

- Self-compassion, mindset shifts, and boundary-setting

- Conversations on career pivots, family life, and rediscovering joy

Hit subscribe and join us for a weekly debrief—because your well-being deserves to be non-negotiable.

You wouldn’t head into battle without armor, so why are we sent into the chaotic Dumpster Fire of Medicine without the tools we need to protect ourselves?

Medicine was supposed to be your calling. Instead, it feels like it’s breaking you—turning altruistic, purpose-driven, bright minds into frustrated, disillusioned, and exhausted shadows of who we used to be.

How do we know? We’ve been there. We’ve lived the long shifts, the impossible expectations, and the emotional toll. And we’ve watched too many of our peers struggle silently.

We’re The Whole Physician—three Board-Certified Emergency Physicians (and physician burnout experts) on a mission to rewrite the story of medicine. Our podcast isn’t just another pep talk. It’s a lifeline—and a quick remedy for burnout you can take with you wherever you go.

Whether you’re driving to your next shift, heading home after a long day, or taking a rare moment to breathe, our episodes are packed with practical tools and mindset shifts that actually work:

- Find hope for the future and a renewed sense of purpose

- Rediscover joy in your work and life

- Repair and strengthen relationships (even the one with yourself)

- Quiet the mental chaos and ease emotional exhaustion

- Realize you are NOT alone.

This is your space. A space where doctors like you—who keep showing up no matter what—get the care, support, and tools you deserve. You are our people. It’s about time someone put YOU first.

🎧 Ready to reclaim your hope and joy? Listen now.

Learn more at www.thewholephysician.com.

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