Join us inside Empowered Surgeons Group here.

Dr. Tali Lando is a pediatric otolaryngologist, storyteller, speaker, breast cancer survivor, mother of 3 girls, and self-proclaimed worker bee.

She has held the same job since finishing fellowship. Sixteen years in one place. In the beginning, she describes running around like a chicken with her head cut off, but the work felt worth doing. Over time, the system became more rigid, and the space to practice medicine on her own terms seemed to shrink. She hadn't changed. The environment around her had. And she is still grappling with what that means for her as an academic surgeon.

Dr. Lando first ventured onto social media ten or eleven years ago to promote a book about her own breast cancer experience, written as a girlfriend's guide. She started with rules: case-based, de-identified, educational content. No dancing. No singing. Eventually, she found her voice and discovered she actually enjoyed bringing humor and fun into her work online. Then came a complaint. After she posted a video dancing with a nurse anesthetist well after hours, someone recognized the room and reported her. The experience gutted her. It also left her looking over her shoulder, wondering who was watching and what might happen next. That fear has come in waves ever since, growing alongside an ever-expanding list of rules about what physicians can say, share, and do.

We spend much of this conversation talking about what happens to physicians after a complication or lawsuit. Dr. Lando walks us through the choreography of second victim syndrome: the adrenaline-fueled calls to risk management and legal, the conversation with a trusted friend or colleague, the self-blame and shame, and eventually the deposition. You ask for an early start so you can get back to work, then spend an hour answering questions from a lawyer who seems to have already decided who you are and why you did what you did. Your intention throughout was to help a patient. The institutional response may be to remind you that therapy is available. Then you get back on the horse, because the patients keep coming. You drive to clinic and see people with the very condition you're being sued over.

There's also the court of public opinion, where physicians have almost no ability to defend themselves. Dr. Lando shares the story of a colleague who was publicly condemned over a case in which he had done nothing wrong, while his own institution prohibited him from explaining what happened. The damage to a physician's reputation can be profound, and there may be very little recourse.

Recently, Dr. Lando was asked to write a chapter on resilience, even as she was struggling to find some of her own. We talk about how familiar that tension is for so many physicians, and about the difference between sharing from a wound and sharing from a scar. Vulnerability has its own timing. Sometimes we can help others most when we've made enough of our way through the experience to become the sherpas guiding someone else up the mountain.

This is a conversation about broken systems, institutional scrutiny, physician autonomy, and second victim system.

Learn more about Dr. Lando on we website here.

Find Dr. Lando on Instagram here.

Get her most recent book, Breathless: Surgical Tales from the Brink here.

If you're in litigation right now: the Physician Support Line (1-888-409-0141) is free, confidential, and staffed by volunteer psychiatrists for physicians and trainees, 8am–1am ET daily.