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Choosing a specialty is one of the biggest decisions you'll make in medicine, and most students weigh the wrong things. In this episode, a practicing hospitalist and walk-in clinic physician skips the match rates and salary tables and shares the thinking frameworks he wishes he'd had: why to prepare for the most competitive specialties early, how to think honestly about money and time to income, and why lifestyle is really about control over your time.
We also go behind the scenes of what specialties look like in real life, from limited OR time to private practice overhead, and why chasing status and prestige is one of the fastest routes to burnout. This is for premeds, medical students, and anyone still deciding where they fit in medicine.
0:00 How Not to Choose Your Specialty
2:13 Prepare for the Most Competitive Specialties
5:07 Money Matters, and That's Okay
9:28 Lifestyle and Control Over Your Time
16:17 The Behind the Scenes of Each Specialty
20:53 Forget Status and Prestige
24:45 Final Thoughts
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💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Imposter syndrome shows up at every stage of becoming a physician, and just when it gets better, the next stage brings it right back. In this episode, I break down why it hits so hard in medicine, from the social media highlight reel to the very real skill gaps between each level of training, and share the practical approaches that actually turn the volume down.
Whether you're a premed looking up at med students, a med student intimidated by residents, a resident watching attendings, or a new attending who feels like they should know everything by now, this one is for you. We cover giving yourself credit, trusting the process, winning the day, building evidence that you belong, and why you're never truly alone in this.
0:00 Why Imposter Syndrome Returns at Every Stage
0:37 The Social Media Comparison Trap
2:16 Real Skill Gaps and Staying in Your Lane
4:56 Giving Yourself Credit
7:31 Trust the Process and Win the Day
10:10 Building Evidence You Belong
11:37 Reps, Resources, and Asking for Help
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💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Finishing residency doesn't mean your training is over. In this video, I share the advice I wish someone had given me before I became an attending: why your learning really starts once your name is on the chart, why going slow early is a strength, how to make your acute care foundations rock solid, and why resourcefulness, mentors and experienced nurses matter more than anything you memorized.
This one is for senior residents getting ready to transition, new attendings and staff physicians finding their footing, and clinical medical students who want a look at what's ahead. We also cover staying humble at the top of the food chain and remembering that life still exists outside the hospital.
0:00 Intro
1:52 Your Training Is Far From Over
3:43 Go Slow and Prepare Early
5:46 Make Your Foundations Rock Solid
8:18 Resourcefulness, Mentors and Nurses
12:52 Never Lose Your Humility
14:57 Life Outside the Hospital
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Physicians spend their entire careers managing preventable disease in other people, and a startling number of us are not managing it in ourselves. This episode breaks down the practical system I have used since pre-med to stay healthy through training and now through attending life: how to set calories and macros without turning food into a second job, which supplements are actually worth the money, why intermittent fasting changed my cognitive output at the hospital more than it changed my body, and how to build a training routine you will still be doing in ten years.
This is for pre-meds, medical students, residents and attendings at any fitness level, including people who have never set foot in a gym. It covers what nobody teaches you in medical school, the mistakes I made chasing an aesthetic goal the wrong way, and how to scale all of it to the stage of training and the budget you are actually in right now.
0:00 Why Physician Health Gets Neglected
2:23 Why Your Degree No Longer Convinces Patients
4:58 Nutrition Basics: Calories And Macros
11:53 The 80/20 Rule And Why Perfection Backfires
14:58 Supplements And Intermittent Fasting
18:42 Training, Compound Lifts And Progressive Overload
26:04 Making It Work At Every Career Stage
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Medicine trains you for almost everything except the part of your life that happens after you leave the building. This episode covers relationships in medicine: how to actually meet people when your schedule is hostile to it, how to hold a relationship together through the busiest stretches of training, and the ego problem that quietly destroys more of these relationships than any call schedule ever has.
This is for premeds, medical students, residents and attendings, and it applies whether you are looking for a partner or just trying to build real friendships as an adult. None of this is expert advice. It is what I have noticed in my own life, what has worked for me, and the same patterns showing up over and over in conversations with friends and colleagues.
0:00 Why Relationships In Medicine Are Different
1:15 People Are Just People
3:17 Do Not Make Medicine Your Identity
4:21 Increasing Your Surface Area Of Luck
7:39 Values, Standards And Dating At Work
10:16 Clarity When You Are Busy
12:23 Leaving Work At Work
14:42 The Superiority Complex
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Medicine trains you for a decade and never once teaches you what to do with the money at the end of it. There is no class on how much you will earn, how to spend it, or where it actually makes a difference. So most physicians end up at one of two extremes, either driving a new BMW off the lot in first year or still carrying a broken phone ten years into practice.
This episode covers the five categories where I have found spending actually pays off: health and wellness, buying back your time, technology and anything that reduces friction, one purchase that makes no rational sense but means everything to you, and charity. It is aimed at residents, new attendings, and anyone about to start earning a physician income for the first time.
0:00 Why Nobody Teaches Doctors About Money
1:54 The Boring Stuff You Still Have To Do
2:52 Spending On Your Health And Wellness
6:15 Buying Your Time Back
9:59 Technology And Anything That Buys You Ease
12:55 Buy Yourself Something Dumb
17:53 Why Charity Matters
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Nobody teaches you how to run a day. Medicine teaches you how to run a list, a differential, and a code, then leaves the architecture of your actual twenty-four hours entirely up to you. In this episode I break down the system I use as a locum hospitalist and urgent care physician: how to account for the parts of your day you cannot control, why the hardest task belongs at the front of your morning, and why every important area of your life needs to sit on the calendar with the same weight as your shift.
I also get into the trap most doctors fall into at some point, the belief that being stressed and miserable makes you better at the job. It does not. It makes you a worse physician the next day and it manufactures burnout out of nothing. This one is aimed mostly at attendings, but med students and residents will find plenty that applies, particularly the parts about protecting the rest of your life during the phases when training tries to take all of it.
0:00 Why Your Day Needs Structure
2:08 Start With Your Uncontrollables
3:55 Front-Load the Hard Stuff
6:04 Stop Playing Productivity
7:36 Put Every Area of Your Life on the Calendar
11:20 Be Fully Present
12:58 There Is No Honour in Misery
16:48 Leave Room for Randomness
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Every physician deals with bad outcomes. A patient codes, deteriorates, suffers a complication from a treatment you started, ends up in the ICU, or dies. It happens in every specialty and in every practice setting, and almost nobody is formally taught how to handle it. In this episode I break down the actual framework: stabilizing what can still be stabilized, asking for help without letting ego get in the way, telling the patient and family the truth directly and without jargon, doing a real post-mortem on the case, and documenting it properly.
I also get into the part that damages careers quietly, which is what you do with the outcome afterward. There is a difference between taking accurate ownership and endlessly guilting yourself for things you had no control over, and there is a difference between learning a lesson and letting one bad case rewrite how you practice for the next decade. This is for medical students, residents, and practicing physicians who want a rational approach to the worst days of the job.
0:00 Why Every Physician Deals With This
0:59 A Bad Outcome Is Not Always Bad Care
3:42 The Patient In Front Of You Comes First
4:27 Asking For Help And Setting Ego Aside
6:47 Telling The Patient And Family The Truth
8:50 Asking Why It Happened And Documenting It
14:46 Applying The Lesson Without Overcorrecting
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
Nobody sits you down in medical school or residency and teaches you how to tell a patient that the scan came back with metastatic disease, or how to tell a family that their mother is at the end of her life. You are expected to learn one of the hardest conversations in medicine by watching someone else do it and hoping it sinks in. This episode is the framework I wish somebody had given me as a resident, built from the hospitalist and walk-in side of the job.
We go through the whole conversation start to finish. How to prepare before you walk in, how to control the setting, how to summarize the hospital course, the exact words I use to deliver the news, why the silence afterward matters more than anything you say next, how to lead the plan while handing control back to the patient, and how to carry the emotional weight of it without letting it follow you into the next room. If you are a premed, med student, resident, or newly independent attending, this is the part of the job that clinical knowledge alone will not cover.
0:00 The Patient I Couldn't Talk To
1:27 Why You Can't Make Bad News Painless
3:02 What Patients Actually Hear
5:16 How To Prepare Before The Conversation
8:09 Delivering The News, Word For Word
14:25 Next Steps And Giving Back Control
19:59 How To Carry It Afterward
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
MD versus DO versus Caribbean and international medical schools. Not match rates, not statistics, not the comparison charts you can find anywhere. This episode is about the part nobody says out loud: whether the stigma is real, why it exists, and what you should actually do about it. I got into an MD program locally on my first try, and I still think the selection system is deeply flawed and driven as much by gamesmanship and luck as by anything that predicts a good physician.
If you are a premed who did not get in on the first try, a DO or international student carrying that quiet insecurity, or a resident tired of explaining your path to people who are asking in bad faith, this one is for you. We get into why prestige works as a sorting shortcut for program directors, why medicine attracts comparison culture, the two physicians who permanently changed how I think about this, and why what happens at three in the morning has nothing to do with the paper on your wall.
0:00 The MD vs DO Debate
0:26 Why the System Itself Is Flawed
1:16 Yes, the Stigma Is Real
4:19 Prestige Is the Product
4:59 Stop Caring and Outwork It
7:08 The Job at 3 AM
10:42 Stop Explaining Yourself and Be Undeniable
Follow Along:
💌 Website/Newsletter: https://www.pathofadoctor.com
🎙YouTube: https://youtu.be/VaYcoo7epNk
🤝 Community - https://www.skool.com/path-of-a-doctor-community-2383/about?ref=5155176e9b914782b3983a512f24b00a
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pathofadoctor
🐦 Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/pathofadoctor
🎵 Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@pathofadoctor
👔 LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/path-of-a-doctor-725238191
Personal
💌 Website: https://www.thezeja.com
📸 Instagram - / thezeja
🐦 Twitter - / thezeja
🎵 Tiktok - / thezeja
🎙Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xJGTFWMNcMxzQsN4Be0Aj
📽️ YouTube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIedEQ6vWfjkcvYLeTXSaw
👔 LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-ja-672028285/
🤝Community: https://www.skool.com/the-second-pursuit-6189
About Me
I am a physician (M.D.) practicing a mix of hospitalist medicine, and urgent care. I learned a lot in my journey to becoming a physician and about more than just medicine. Follow along as I reflect and teach what I wish I knew, which for the most part, is the stuff you don’t learn in school.
Get In Touch:Happy to chat, reach out via above options.
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