What happens when doing everything “right” still leaves you feeling stuck, exhausted, and disconnected from the work you once loved?

In this honest and deeply human conversation, Dr. Ben Reinking - a pediatric cardiologist, educator, and founder of "The Developing Doctor", a physician coaching practice - shares a story many clinicians may recognize. From the outside, his career was thriving. But beneath the surface, the strategy that had always worked when things were tough - keeping his head down and working harder - was no longer sustainable.

Dr. Reinking describes his realization that something wasn’t right, the burnout he didn’t initially recognize, and the cultural conditioning in medicine that keeps clinicians pushing forward instead of pausing. Through coaching, he began to look inward - and what he found changed not just how he worked, but how he led and lived.

From learning to say no, to asking better questions, to embracing vulnerability, Dr. Reinking shows how small, often resisted shifts can create meaningful change. More than anything, this conversation offers permission - to question, to recalibrate, and to believe there are more options than we’ve been trained to see.

This episode is a powerful reminder that continuing to develop ourselves as humans, not just clinicians, is essential.

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The transition from practicing physician to system leader looks smooth from the outside. Internally, it’s often much more complicated.

In this episode, Ashley Wendel talks with Dr. Rob Nordgren, Divisional Chief Medical Officer at Sutter Health, about what physicians have to learn as they move from bedside expertise into broader organizational leadership. They discuss the identity shift that comes with leadership, the role of trust and emotional intelligence, how to navigate resistance and change, and why courageous conversations matter so much in complex systems.

This is a grounded, honest conversation about what leadership really asks of physicians now - not just expertise, but influence, self-awareness, and the ability to bring people with you.

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Episode Summary (succinct, with key highlights)

In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dr. Erica Kreismann - emergency medicine physician turned executive coach - to explore what it means to be a woman and clinician leader in today’s healthcare landscape. Erica shares her own formative journey, from training in New York City during 9/11 to making a radical “pattern interrupt” move to Tasmania, and how those experiences reshaped her understanding of purpose, contribution, and sustainable leadership.

Together, they unpack why so many high-performing women in healthcare feel hollow or stuck - not because they’re failing, but because they’ve outgrown the unspoken rules they were taught: be nice, be liked, don’t disappoint, and “if not me, who?” Erica names the invisible weight of emotional labor, the mental load, and the structural realities of medical training that still aren’t designed for women’s lives. The conversation reframes resilience as a shared responsibility - part individual self-awareness and compassion, and part organizational systems that reduce moral injury and create conditions where clinicians can thrive.

Key highlights include practical pathways for change:

• Using curiosity (especially self-curiosity) to identify the narratives we’ve carried
• Recognizing how old stories once protected us but now hold us back
• Building a mindfulness practice that supports presence over performance.

This conversation is a powerful invitation for women leaders - and those who care about women leaders - to give yourself permission to disappoint others, take up space, and lead from a more authentic, sustainable truth.

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