In this episode of Learning to Lead, Dr. Gita Pensa, MD, an emergency medicine physician, educator, and host of the podcast Doctors and Litigation: The L Word, shares her personal journey through medical malpractice litigation. She reflects on how the experience reshaped her confidence, career, and understanding of leadership in medicine, while highlighting the culture of silence and shame that often surrounds litigation.

She also discusses how she transformed adversity into purpose by returning to academic medicine and creating educational resources to support physicians facing litigation. This episode offers an honest conversation about resilience, self-worth, and changing the narrative around one of medicine’s most feared experiences.