Empowering Women Physicians

About Empowering Women Physicians

Medicine is truly the most noble profession. It is an honor and a privilege to be responsible for the health and well being of our society. As physicians, we aim to relieve human suffering. Then why are so many of us unhappy, stressed, and even considering leaving medicine? Characteristics of self sacrifice and delayed gratification allowed women physicians to get through medical school and residency. Yet these very same traits can cause increasing distress and may no longer be serving us. This podcast encourages women physicians to reflect on the wise words of the Hippocratic Oath and consider what more they could be doing to maintain the utmost respect for their OWN human life and its quality. Women physicians are strong, intelligent, resilient, hard working, insightful, and live their lives in service of others. Through this podcast, Dr Sunny Smith reminds them that they must first care for themselves so that they may care for others. As a practicing physician and certified coach, she offers tools that can be used to help them take a closer look at their life right now, what they love and what they'd like to change. She helps physicians set goals and empowers them to take steps toward creating their best lives starting today.

Publisher

Sunny Smith MD

Category

health & fitness · health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Oct 2018

Latest episode

10 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

6 of 37 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   10 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Episode # 37 - Perfectionism

   Host Dr. Jane Smith and guest Dr. John Doe explore how medicine cultivates perfectionism and offer strategies for embracing imperfect action to achieve progress.

2. 

   22 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Episode # 36 - Fierce Self Compassion with Dr. Kristen Neff

   This episode included clips from a workshop inside the Empowering Women Physicians coaching program with Dr. Kristen Neff on self-compassion.  We discuss the difference between tender self-compassion and fierce self-compassion.  Dr. Neff speaks up about the need for women to advocate for themselves and how that is indeed an act of self-compassion. We discussed that self-compassion can be measured using the Clinical Self-Valuation Scale and that it can be significantly improved in just a short period of time, as documented by a change from 18% to 64% of women physicians inside EWP meeting criteria for a self-compassionate perspective in just 8 weeks. Links for resources mentioned in this episode. EWP Newsletter: https://empoweringwomenphysicians.com/newsletter EWP Published data: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38840137/ Study on self-valuation being the largest mediator in the difference in burnout between male and female physicians: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2846632

3. 

   12 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Episode # 35 - Jill Bolte Taylor (the neuroanatomy of psychology)

   Host Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard neuroanatomist, shares her unique neuroanatomical perspective on psychology to help physicians cultivate more peaceful lives.

Inside a recent episode

Episode # 37 - Perfectionism

Published 10 Sept 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] By definition, it's just math. You can't outwork, out study, or out perfect the knowledge for exams. It's literally impossible to learn everything about every disease from every textbook that we are required to read before an exam. We are drinking from a fire hose and we all know that. So we have to learn to adjust to live with not being perfect, but still always trying. And that can become kind of painful from the time you are in medical school. And that's when our mental health starts going down, when we start seeing more depression, when we start seeing more anxiety, because it peaks right before step one, because we're trying to be perfect and get the right grade, because we know that we have to then get clinical honors and want to match into our specialty, want to match into our residency, our top residency, on and on and on. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

242 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

14 ratings

Contact Empowering Women Physicians

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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