Surgeon, Interrupted

What happens when you do everything “right” in medical school and still don’t match into residency?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, sits down with Dr. Sijia Zhang, a PGY-2 psychiatry resident at UCSF, to talk about one of the most painful and stigmatized experiences in medical training: going unmatched.

Sijia entered the Match with strong clinical grades, extensive research experience, and reassurance from advisors that the question was not whether she would match, but where. Then Match Week arrived, and she received the email telling her she had not matched into any position.

She shares what happened next, from the shame and shock of Match Day to navigating SOAP, institutional pressure to secure any available residency position, and the mentor who gave her a completely different piece of advice: if she had been selective about college and medical school, why should she suddenly stop being selective about residency?

Instead, Sijia took additional time, rebuilt her application around psychiatry, pursued research and away rotations, found mentors who believed in her, and gradually rebuilt the confidence she thought she had lost forever. She ultimately matched into psychiatry at UCSF.

Frances Mei also shares her own experience of not matching and SOAPing into ENT, and together they discuss failure, shame, mentorship, the hidden curriculum of medicine, and why a professional setback does not necessarily mean what we immediately assume it means about us.

In this episode:

• What it feels like to go unmatched in residency

• Why strong medical students still sometimes do not match

• The emotional aftermath of Match Day

• How SOAP works and why medical schools may encourage it

• Deciding not to SOAP into a program just to move forward

• Rebuilding a residency application after going unmatched

• Changing specialties from dermatology to psychiatry

• The importance of mentors after professional failure

• How to increase your “surface area for luck”

• Being highly productive while privately struggling

• Why failure can fundamentally change your relationship with risk

• Rebuilding confidence after rejection

• Matching at UCSF after an unsuccessful first cycle

• Sijia’s future in women’s mental health and consultation-liaison psychiatry

A conversation for anyone who has ever received an email, score, rejection, or result that made them wonder whether the future they imagined for themselves had disappeared.

It hadn’t.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Sijia Zhang, MD

Connect with Sijia: @sijialater

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What happens after you leave the path you spent your entire life building toward?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, is joined by Colin for a reflective birthday episode after officially turning 35.

Frances Mei talks about what it has felt like to step off medicine’s conveyor belt and build a career without a clear blueprint, including the uncertainty, fear, and freedom that come with losing sight of the shore for a while. She shares one of the questions that has become central to this season of life: is it really a risk if what you are risking is a life you do not want?

They also talk about the criticism Frances Mei still gets for leaving surgical practice, why “you could have just done locums” misses the point, and why working harder now feels completely different from working hard at a job she did not want.

The conversation moves into entrepreneurship, ambition, birthdays, gratitude, and the tradeoffs involved in building work that actually matters to you. Frances Mei reflects on why she no longer expects a perfect separation between work and life, and why meaningful work can feel life affirming even when it is demanding.

And yes, Stardew Valley makes an appearance. Frances Mei realizes that even in a video game, she loses interest once the farm is fully optimized and profitable, raising a bigger question about whether the real reward is sometimes the act of building itself.

In this episode:

• Turning 35 after leaving surgical practice

• Getting off medicine’s conveyor belt

• Becoming more comfortable with uncertainty

• Why leaving surgery was not about working less

• The criticism physicians face when they change careers

• Building a portfolio career without a blueprint

• Risk, ambition, and trusting yourself

• Why meaningful work feels different from burnout

• Entrepreneurship and the “love of the game”

• Gratitude without suppressing frustration

• What Stardew Valley can teach us about ambition

• Why how your life feels matters more than how it looks

Frances Mei ends with the mantra that may best summarize this new chapter:

“How my life feels is a lot more important than how my life looks.”

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Following Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What happens when a successful surgeon starts having panic attacks in the operating room?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, sits down with fellowship-trained rhinologist, Hippocratic Collective co-founder, surgeon coach, and author Mel Thacker, MD, to talk about her debut memoir, Scrubbing In, out October 6, 2026.

Mel shares the story behind the book, from growing up with housing instability and becoming financially independent as a teenager to building a successful career in ENT. For years, medicine represented an escape and an arrival point. Becoming a physician, she thought, would mean she had finally made it.

But seven years into a successful surgical practice, Mel began experiencing panic attacks in the operating room. She talks candidly about the shame, fear, and uncertainty that followed, including the worry that patients or hospital leadership might see her differently if they knew.

Rather than hiding that experience, Mel chose to write about it.

Together, Mel and Frances Mei discuss why surgeons are so often expected to perform as if they are immune to normal human experiences, why silence can be more dangerous than vulnerability, and what it means to stay in surgery while redesigning the profession around a life you actually want to live.

They also talk about the craft of memoir, learning to see yourself as a character rather than always the hero of your own story, and why storytelling may be one of the most important skills physicians never learn.

In this episode:

• Mel’s childhood and path into medicine

• Why becoming a doctor felt like an escape

• The arrival fallacy in medicine

• Learning to write a memoir as a surgeon

• Panic attacks in the operating room

• Shame and vulnerability in surgical culture

• Why talking about struggle can improve patient safety

• Redesigning a surgical career instead of leaving it

• Moving from private practice to locums and part-time surgery

• Storytelling as a leadership skill for physicians

• Why surgeons need permission to be human

• Who Mel wrote Scrubbing In for

Mel ultimately wrote Scrubbing In for the surgeon who feels too sensitive, too different, or too far outside the traditional mold of what a surgeon is supposed to look and act like.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Mel Thacker, MD

Connect with Mel: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/mel-thacker-md

Scrubbing In available now: https://a.co/d/03CPHRRm

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What can Get Out, Kafka, surrealist art, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and contemporary film teach us about medicine?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, and Colin sit down with clinical psychologist Sacha McBain, PhD, to talk about Pathologizing Pop Culture, her long-running Hippocratic Collective column exploring healthcare, illness, disability, trauma, and recovery through movies, television, literature, music, and art.

Sacha explains why art can give language to experiences long before medicine does, and how engaging with stories can expand perspective, empathy, compassion, and even our own capacity for emotional processing.

The conversation moves through some of the column’s most memorable pieces, including Get Out and its relationship to medical racism, trust, and the history of harm within healthcare. They also discuss Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, surrealist art, disability, grief, and how abstraction can sometimes help us understand experiences that are difficult to put into words.

In this episode:

• Why pop culture belongs in conversations about healthcare

• How art can build empathy and perspective

• Get Out, medical racism, and trust in healthcare

• Trauma, illness, disability, and recovery in art

• Why horror and science fiction can make difficult ideas more accessible

• The role of storytelling in emotional processing

• What clinicians can learn from patients’ favorite music, movies, and art

• How creativity can make healthcare professionals more human

• Why art sometimes understands suffering before medicine does

A conversation about what happens when we stop treating art as separate from medicine and start asking what stories can teach us about the people we care for.

Pathologizing Pop Culture: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/pathologizing-pop-culture

Articles mentioned:

1 Year Anniversary: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/the-benefits-of-pathologizing-your-pop-culture

Get Out: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/get-out-a-horror-story-of-medicine

RuPauls' Drag Race: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/chronic-illness-and-disability-on-rupauls-drag-race

Matt Sesow: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/matt-sesows-choice-life-and-art-after-amputation

The Metamorphosis: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/the-metamorphosis

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Sacha McBain, PhD

Connect with Sacha: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/sacha-mcbain-phd

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What does it take for a relationship to survive surgical residency, career changes, financial risk, and ten years of becoming very different people?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, is joined by her husband Colin to celebrate ten years together and look back at what actually made their relationship work.

They met just months before Frances Mei matched into a five-year surgical residency, meaning much of the early relationship unfolded under what they jokingly call “wartime conditions”: sleep deprivation, brutal hours, emotional reactivity, uncertainty about medicine, and very little bandwidth for anything outside the hospital.

They talk about attraction, choosing a partner you genuinely enjoy, learning to let each other fail, and why loving someone does not mean trying to control or fix them. Colin shares what it was like supporting Frances Mei through residency when he could sometimes see a bad decision coming, but knew she needed to arrive at the lesson herself.

They also revisit one of the rules that helped protect their relationship during residency: a “work talk moratorium.” Frances Mei could unload about the hospital during the drive home, but once she walked through the door, work did not get to consume the rest of their night.

And they finally address a recurring assumption Frances Mei hears online: that she was only able to leave surgical practice because she had a “rich husband.” They talk candidly about their actual finances, the tradeoffs they made, living with limited savings during residency, choosing rural medicine intentionally, and taking real financial risk when Frances Mei ultimately changed careers.

In this episode:

• Why attraction matters in a long-term relationship

• Dating and marriage during surgical residency

• Supporting a partner without trying to control them

• Sleep deprivation, emotional regulation, and residency

• The “work talk moratorium” that protected their relationship

• Knowing when medicine is taking over your entire life

• Why difficult seasons can reveal compatibility

• The truth about Frances Mei leaving surgery and the “rich husband” assumption

• Financial tradeoffs behind a major career change

• Why you want a partner who works in both peacetime and “wartime”

A candid conversation about love, partnership, medicine, money, and what ten years together can teach you about building a life with another person.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Following Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What happens when you spend years becoming excellent at medicine while constantly masking who you are?

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, sits down with OB-GYN, physician educator, and creator Jessica Geida, DO, for a candid conversation about neurodivergence in medicine, adult ADHD diagnosis, burnout, masking, people pleasing, and the complicated relationship between physician identity and personal identity.

Jessica shares what it was like to move through medical school and residency with undiagnosed ADHD, why she often felt like she “fit in everywhere but belonged nowhere,” and how becoming a mother eventually helped her recognize her own neurodivergence.

Together, they explore the strengths neurodivergent physicians can bring to medicine—including empathy, creativity, pattern recognition, and unconventional thinking—as well as the cost of repeatedly shrinking yourself to fit systems that may conflict with your values.

They also discuss toxic teaching environments in surgical training, why leaving clinical medicine does not automatically untangle your identity from your work, and a different way to think about burnout: not simply as exceeding your capacity, but as the exhaustion that can come from constantly forcing yourself to fit into a system that does not fit you.

In this episode:

• ADHD and neurodivergence in physicians

• Adult ADHD diagnosis in women

• Masking and people pleasing during medical training

• Feeling like an outsider in medicine

• Strengths of neurodivergent physicians

• Burnout and values misalignment

• Toxic surgical training environments

• Physician identity outside of clinical medicine

• Learning to ask, “If I say yes, what will it cost me?”

• Unmasking and building a career that fits who you actually are

A thoughtful conversation about what happens when the same traits that can help someone excel in medicine also make traditional medical culture especially difficult to navigate.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Jessica Geida, DO

Connect with Jessica: @smilesandscrubs

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What if burnout doesn’t look like hating your job, but like losing your creativity?

In this solo-style episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, is joined by her husband Colin after returning from more than two weeks of solo travel through Denmark and Norway.

They talk about how Frances’ relationship with travel has changed since leaving clinical medicine, why stepping away from work often seems to create more opportunity rather than less, and the habits she is trying to unlearn after years of surgical training—including opening email the moment she wakes up.

Frances also shares what she learned from filling an entire journal while traveling, why physicians can become overly precious about creative work, and the importance of practicing before the “perfect” opportunity arrives.

In this episode:

• How burnout can show up as a loss of creativity

• Why Frances stopped checking email first thing in the morning

• Solo travel after leaving clinical medicine

• Journaling and developing your own voice in the age of AI

• Why waiting for inspiration can keep you stuck

• Practicing before the big opportunity arrives

• The surprising relationship between taking time off and getting new work

• Moving beyond travel as escapism

• Creating a healthier relationship with ambition and productivity

• Why your inbox does not deserve to control your day

For physicians, creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone trying to build a life where work matters without allowing it to consume everything else.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Following Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What if you didn't get on the wrong train? What if you simply became a different person along the way?

In this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei sits down with Dr. Wai-Jia Tam, a Singaporean humanitarian doctor whose career has spanned public health, humanitarian medicine, COVID response, and global health leadership.

Dr. Wai-Jia Tam shares an extraordinary story of following a path that looked successful on paper while gradually losing touch with the person she wanted to be. From becoming a physician after growing up dreaming of being a wildlife documentary host, to humanitarian work, moving her family to Tanzania, and now finding her way toward conservation, her story is ultimately about something bigger than career change.

It's about reclaiming yourself.

The conversation explores:

• What happens when the career you've built no longer feels like the right destination
• Why physicians can struggle to recognize their own definition of success
• The pressure to prove yourself in medicine and high-achieving cultures
• Reconnecting with the dreams you had as a child
• Why changing direction doesn't mean your past was a mistake
• The difference between reinventing yourself and reclaiming yourself
• How a major health setback forced Dr. Wai-Jia Tam to reconsider her identity
• Finding purpose outside of credentials, titles, and professional achievement
• How one cold DM led to an unexpected opportunity in wildlife conservation
• Why the work you do quietly for years may eventually open an unexpected door
• Giving yourself permission to get off the “wrong train”

Dr. Wai-Jia Tam also shares the remarkable story of creating a children's book as a teenager to raise money for a home for girls she met in Nepal. Despite being told she couldn't do it—and being told her paintings were terrible—she taught herself to paint, published the book, and ultimately raised $100,000 to build the home.

For physicians and other high achievers who have ever wondered “Is this really what I want?”, this is a conversation about permission: permission to change, to pause, to choose differently, and to become more fully yourself.

And Dr. Wai-Jia Tam leaves us with a beautiful definition of healing:

Healing isn't about returning to who you were before the pain. It's about giving yourself permission to be who you were always meant to be.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Dr. Wai-Jia Tam

Connect with Wai Jia: @drwaijiatam

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What if changing your mind isn't failure, but actually a sign that you're paying attention?

In this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei sits down with Rachel Gerber Kule, a communications strategist, entrepreneur, and self-described Renaissance woman who has built a career by repeatedly pivoting toward what fits her better.

Rachel shares how she went from wanting to be a news anchor, to realizing that path wasn't right for her, to building a successful career in communications and PR—and eventually launching a new venture supporting people going through IVF and fertility challenges.

The conversation goes much deeper than career changes. Frances Mei and Rachel explore what it means to let go of a chapter without feeling ashamed, understand your own values, build confidence, set boundaries, and create a life that actually reflects who you are.

They talk about:

• Why changing direction isn't the same as failing
• How to recognize when a path no longer fits
• Letting go of shame and unmet expectations
• Why knowing your values makes decision-making easier
• How self-confidence gives you the courage to make your own choices
• Setting boundaries at work and in relationships
• Why crying and emotional expression aren't signs of weakness
• How difficult experiences can shape who we become
• Learning to trust yourself when you no longer have someone else to call
• Why uncertainty can actually create freedom and possibility
• Building a life around your own values instead of inherited expectations

For physicians especially, this conversation offers a powerful reminder: you don't have to spend your entire life following the path you originally chose. Frances Mei reflects on what it meant to leave clinical surgery and build a portfolio career—and why becoming clear about your values and boundaries is essential to creating a life that feels like your own.

Rachel's favorite advice comes from Henry David Thoreau: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” The question is whether you've taken the time to figure out what those dreams actually are.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Rachel Gerber Kule

Connect with Rachel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelkule

Founder of Pursuit PR, a C-suite communications advisory firm, and Fertilyfe, a community focused on supporting people navigating IVF and fertility challenges.

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

In this follow-up episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei and Colin continue their conversation about Frances Mei's transition from clinical medicine into consulting, and get much more practical about what happened once she actually made the leap.

Frances Mei explains how her first consulting opportunity started as a loose, low-commitment engagement and evolved into a formal role, why physicians should consider “dating before they get married” when evaluating new jobs, and how she learned to create a role around her skills instead of waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

From there, she went on to a director-level physician engagement and strategy role, built a network that generated new consulting opportunities, and eventually became a chief medical officer at a healthcare tech startup.

The big lesson? The best opportunities for physicians leaving medicine often aren't posted on LinkedIn.

In this episode:

• How to get your first consulting opportunity after medicine
• Why small projects can be better than committing to a new career immediately
• How to create a job that doesn't exist yet
• The skills physicians can translate into consulting
• Why clinical expertise alone isn't enough
• How networking and referrals create a consulting “flywheel”
• How to prove your value before asking for a bigger role
• How Frances Mei went from leaving medicine to a director-level role within a year
• How she ultimately became a chief medical officer at a healthcare tech startup
• Why physicians need to stop asking, “What jobs can I get as a doctor?”
• How to figure out what you're actually good at and what you actually want to do

For physicians considering leaving clinical medicine, consulting, healthcare startups, marketing, strategy, or other careers outside medicine, this episode offers a candid look at what the transition actually looks like.

The conversation also gets into something physicians don't hear enough: you don't necessarily have to follow another prescribed career ladder after leaving medicine.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

Follow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimd

And subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.