How Medicine Trains You To Be Always On And How I Finally Turned It Off

After nearly a decade in surgery, I finally stepped away — not just from the operating room, but from the version of myself that could only feel safe inside control. This episode of Surgeon, Interrupted is about what happened when I stopped performing productivity and let my nervous system breathe for the first time in years.

For thirty days, I wandered through Europe — Paris, Nice, Lugano, Milan — without a set itinerary or a defined goal. What began as a sabbatical became something deeper: a full-body reset. I learned that healing doesn’t always happen in silence or stillness; sometimes it happens when you let novelty and beauty rewire the way your body experiences safety.

In this episode, I unpack what it means to:

• Let go of rigid timetables and trust spontaneity again
• Disconnect from the endless stimulation of the digital world
• Discover the difference between necessity and desire
• Recalibrate a nervous system shaped by years of hypervigilance and performance
• Reclaim a sense of peace that isn’t conditional on achievement

This is not a travel vlog. It’s an autopsy of being in the wrong career and a love letter to what remains after the unraveling — a reminder that rest can be radical, that stillness can be learned, and that healing sometimes begins not when you return home, but when you allow yourself to get lost.

If you’ve ever wondered what might happen if you stopped trying to control every outcome, or if you’ve felt trapped in the rhythm of “always on,” this story is for you.

Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MD

Presented by: The Hippocratic Collective

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