How to Transfer Residency Programs | When It’s Time to Leave

Can you actually transfer residency programs? And how do you know when it is time to leave?On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, sits down with psychiatrist Julie Pham, MD, to talk about a part of medical training that remains surprisingly difficult to navigate: transferring residency programs.Julie transferred from one psychiatry residency program to another after a family emergency. As a first-generation physician without a built-in network of doctors or mentors, she had to figure out much of the process herself. She also discovered something important along the way: residency transfers are more common than many trainees realize.Julie walks through several reasons residents may consider leaving or transferring, including realizing they chose the wrong specialty, facing a personal or family crisis, or training in a malignant or abusive environment. She also explains the practical pieces involved, from gathering program verification and letters of recommendation to approaching a program director and identifying potential openings.They also discuss what residents can do if the situation becomes adversarial, including when it may be helpful to consult a union, an attorney familiar with graduate medical education, or a mental health professional.Julie shares what it was like moving from Los Angeles to Oklahoma for residency, building relationships in a new program, and eventually realizing that transferring did not mean her medical career had failed.The conversation then turns to burnout and mental health among physicians and trainees. Julie explains why she sees burnout as more than an individual problem, how she distinguishes occupational burnout from major depressive disorder in her practice, and why the therapeutic relationship matters so much when finding a therapist.In this episode:• How common residency transfers really are• How to know when it may be time to leave• Switching programs versus switching specialties• What documents you need to transfer residency programs• How to approach your program director• Getting letters of recommendation during a transfer• When residents may need an attorney• How resident unions can help• Finding a lawyer familiar with GME and ACGME issues• Adjusting to a completely new residency program• Why changing programs does not mean you failed• Surgeons who switch into psychiatry• Frances Mei’s thoughts on what specialty she might choose differently• Burnout versus major depression• Mental health care for physicians and trainees• How to find a therapist who is actually a good fitTransferring residency can feel isolating because there is no obvious roadmap. Julie’s message is that people do it, people successfully continue their careers afterward, and trainees deserve more transparent information about the options available to them.Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MDGuest: Julie Pham, MDConnect with Julie: https://www.jpconciergepsychiatry.com/Presented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

What if the thing you were told would destroy your credibility actually made your voice more powerful?On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, is joined by Colin to talk about a major new chapter: Frances Mei’s monthly STAT First Opinion column, Chief Complaint.When Frances Mei left clinical medicine, she was repeatedly warned that her career was effectively over. She would lose professional prestige, stop being taken seriously, and give up her ability to create meaningful change. She was also told that if she wanted to change medicine, she had to stay inside the system.That turned out not to be true.Instead, Frances Mei spent the following years developing a distinct voice and point of view. And when conversations about the column began, something unexpected happened: rather than asking her to become more institutional, neutral, or palatable, her editors wanted the opposite. They wanted the perspective and sharp edges that made the work hers in the first place.Frances Mei and Colin discuss why physicians are trained to sand down their opinions, why academic writing can strip the life out of an argument, and why strong writing requires making a claim that some people may actually disagree with.They also talk about creativity in the age of AI. Frances Mei shares what happened when she briefly ran the manuscript of Surgeon on the Edge through Grammarly and watched her writing become technically smoother but increasingly less like her. For writers who want to produce exceptional work rather than merely competent work, optimizing everything toward the average can become its own problem.The conversation then turns to the STAT Summit, social anxiety, networking, and the uncomfortable reality that building a career often means introducing yourself, taking a swing, and accepting that plenty of those interactions will go nowhere.In this episode:• Announcing Frances Mei’s Chief Complaint column at STAT• Why leaving medicine did not end her career• Building your own table when nobody offers you a seat• Why a strong point of view can make you more valuable• The problem with “academicizing” creative writing• Why doctors instinctively soften controversial opinions• Developing a distinctive writing voice in the age of AI• Why Grammarly nearly ruined Frances Mei’s memoir voice• Social anxiety at professional conferences• Networking when you would rather be a wallflower• Why physicians and the broader healthcare world remain siloed• The gap between public perception and the modern physician experience• Pulling back the curtain on medical culture• Why taking more professional swings means accepting more misses• Building thought leadership as a physician• Why artists, writers, and physicians have to keep putting their work out thereThe lesson Frances Mei keeps returning to is simple: if every introduction works, every application succeeds, and every pitch gets a yes, you probably are not taking enough swings.Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MDPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollowing Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

Can becoming an artist make you a better doctor, or simply help you become more of a person again?On this episode of Surgeon, Interrupted, Frances Mei Hardin, MD, sits down with dermatologist and artist Rachel Lee, MD, whose oil paintings are now being exhibited for the first time.Rachel did not grow up thinking of herself as an artist. Creativity entered her life near the end of residency, after years spent almost entirely inside science and medicine. What began as a creative outlet eventually became an important way to process the grief, stress, and accumulated experiences of medical training while discovering who she was outside of being a physician.Together, Rachel and Frances Mei talk about why medicine teaches physicians to think of their careers as their entire identities, and why pursuing something outside of medicine can initially feel almost transgressive. They discuss the strange difficulty physicians have calling themselves writers, artists, entrepreneurs, or anything else without first earning another degree or credential.Rachel also shares exactly how she started. No art degree. No childhood spent painting. She signed up for a weekend workshop, then enrolled in a class literally called “Drawing for the Absolute Beginner.” From there, she kept taking classes, eventually found oil painting, and years later exhibited and sold her work.They discuss why trying something new as an adult can require real courage, how investing money can create useful accountability, and why physicians already possess many of the skills necessary to become beginners again.Rachel also shares the story behind one of her paintings, Sad but on Vacation, which began as a painting inspired by tulips in Amsterdam and eventually became an exploration of sadness, dissociation, and the strange reality that beautiful things can be happening around us while something inside still does not feel right.In this episode:• Why physicians need identities outside medicine• Art as a way to process medical training• Becoming creative later in life• Why doctors struggle to call themselves artists or writers• Starting with “Drawing for the Absolute Beginner”• Learning to tolerate being bad at something new• Why creative work can be deeply healing• The difference between medical education and art education• How financial investment can create accountability• Why oil painting taught Rachel patience• Letting go of linear timelines• Creating Sad but on Vacation• Why life is often more interesting when you take the exitRachel leaves us with advice she now gives aspiring medical students: life is much more about the exits than the highway. The exits are where we take the scenic route, try something unexpected, and discover parts of ourselves we never would have found by staying on the prescribed path.Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MDGuest: Rachel Lee, MDPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.

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 psychiatryA 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, MDGuest: Sijia Zhang, MD Connect with Sijia: @sijialaterPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd 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 looksFrances 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, MDPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollowing Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd 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 forMel 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, MDGuest: Mel Thacker, MDConnect with Mel: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/mel-thacker-mdScrubbing In available now: https://a.co/d/03CPHRRmPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd 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 doesA 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-cultureArticles mentioned: 1 Year Anniversary: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/the-benefits-of-pathologizing-your-pop-cultureGet Out: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/get-out-a-horror-story-of-medicineRuPauls' Drag Race: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/chronic-illness-and-disability-on-rupauls-drag-raceMatt Sesow: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/matt-sesows-choice-life-and-art-after-amputationThe Metamorphosis: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/post/the-metamorphosisHost: Frances Mei Hardin, MDGuest: Sacha McBain, PhDConnect with Sacha: https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/sacha-mcbain-phdPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd 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, MDPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollowing Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd 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 areA 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, MDGuest: Jessica Geida, DOConnect with Jessica: @smilesandscrubsPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollow Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd 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 dayFor physicians, creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone trying to build a life where work matters without allowing it to consume everything else.Host: Frances Mei Hardin, MDPresented by: The Hippocratic CollectiveFollowing Frances Mei on Instagram & Tiktok @francesmeimdAnd subscribe to ⁨@HippocraticCollective⁩ on Youtube for all of the other shows the Hippocratic Collective has to offer.