Dr. Red Hoffman is a surgeon, hospice physician, and writer whose career has never followed a straight line—and whose life was radically reshaped by grief, chronic illness, and unexpected loss. In this episode, we talk about starting over more than once, entering medicine later in life, and what happens when your body forces you to renegotiate your identity as a physician.

Red shares her journey through trauma, long COVID, POTS, and partial clinical practice—and how diversification, honesty, and courage helped her build a career that still includes surgery, but on her own terms. We discuss the myth of the “wasted spot,” false equivalencies in medical training, why unpaid work sometimes matters, and how culture actually changes: slowly, one person at a time.

This conversation is for anyone questioning alignment, resisting change, living with chronic illness, or wondering if it’s too late—or too risky—to choose differently.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Dr. Red Hoffman

Connect with Dr. Red:

https://redhoffmanmd.com/

@redmdnd

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 when a doctor decides she doesn’t need more money - she needs more peace?

In this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei sits down with psychiatrist Dr. Claire Oduwo to talk about choosing a “soft life” after medical training—and why that phrase is wildly misunderstood in medicine. Claire shares her path from Kenya to Nebraska to the Pacific Northwest, how her immigrant upbringing shaped her relationship with work and money, and why working part-time as a psychiatrist was a deliberate, values-driven choice—not a failure.

Together, they unpack:

1. Why physicians are conditioned to operate at 500% (and why anything less feels uncomfortable)
2. How money becomes a stand-in for validation after years of sacrifice
3. The stigma doctors face when they step outside the expected hierarchy
4. Why surgeons struggle so deeply with emotional regulation—and what psychiatry does differently
5. How chaos can feel “normal” to our nervous systems, even when it’s harming us

This is a conversation about identity, shame, creativity, and the courage it takes to choose a life that actually fits—especially when other people don’t understand it.

If you’ve ever thought, I worked this hard—shouldn’t I want more?

This episode might help you ask a better question.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Dr. Claire

Connect with Dr. Claire:

IG: @drclaireomd

Tiktok: @drclaireo

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.

On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD is joined by Alan Chien, MD, a pediatrics resident and lifelong magician practicing in Los Angeles.

What begins as a conversation about magic quickly opens into something more expansive: identity formation in medical training, the quiet pressure to abandon creativity, and what it means to remain in relation—to patients, to others, and to oneself—inside a system that often rewards self-erasure.

Alan reflects on growing up as an only child, discovering magic as a grounding force, and carrying that creative identity through medical school and residency. He shares how performing magic—whether for hospitalized children, co-residents, or strangers in a bar—has shaped his understanding of connection, wellness, and presence. Together, they explore mentorship that protects wholeness rather than performance, the guilt trainees feel around non-medical passions, and why tolerating both the highs and lows of residency—not constant happiness—is the real work of staying well.

This episode is a meditation on refusing to flatten oneself in training, on staying three-dimensional inside medicine, and on the radical act of not giving up the thing that made you human in the first place.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Guest: Alan Chien, MD

Connect with Alan: alanchien.com

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.