☕ Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Alexia Gillen

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Alexia Gillen — board-certified family physician, functional medicine practitioner, and founder of Mosaic Medicine in the Black Hills.

Alexia shares her nonlinear career path: from traditional primary care and urgent care leadership to medical information officer roles (including implementing EPIC), multiple rounds of burnout, and ultimately deciding she could no longer stay in a system that didn’t allow her to care for the whole person. After nearly three years away from direct patient care, she took a leap of faith and opened Mosaic Medicine, a functional and integrative clinic focused on weight, hormone, gut, and autoimmune health.

We talk about:

• The hardest identity shift when leaving traditional medicine
• Why real relationships with patients matter more than pure autonomy
• The financial and emotional reality of the first year in private practice
• Learning to delegate and stop being the “rate-limiting step”
• Simple boundary practices
• The book that helped her believe she was enough to put herself out into the world (Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima)
• Practical advice for physicians thinking about starting their own practice

This is an honest, grounded conversation about burnout, reinvention, and building a practice that finally feels aligned.

00:25 – Welcome + coffee talk ☕
03:13 – Alexia’s background & Mosaic Medicine
06:09 – How the idea for Mosaic was born
10:29 – The fear of leaving a steady paycheck
12:31 – The mindset shift that kept her going
13:31 – Biggest challenges & learning to delegate
16:23 – Boundary tip: leaving the laptop at the clinic
17:49 – Would she do her career differently?
20:36 – Advice for physicians starting out
23:37 – Navigating social media & medical truth
24:41 – Book recommendation: Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima
26:14 – Where to find Alexia

Want to learn more about Dr. Alexia Gillen?

• Mosaic Medicine → https://www.mymosaicmedicine.com/
• Instagram → @alexia_gillen
• Facebook → Mosaic Medicine

🔗 WATCH + LISTEN

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🎧 Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music , iHeartRadio

🎥 YouTube

🎥 Instagram @coacholgamd

💬Subscribe & Share! If Alexia’s story inspired you, hit subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, or Deezer and share it with a friend who’s dreaming of more flexibility in life. One intentional step at a time

✨ — Dr. Olga Deengar, Coach Olga MD © 2026 Coach Olga MD. All rights reserved.

☕ Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Jessica Mendelsohn

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Jessica Mendelsohn — family physician, Direct Primary Care pioneer, real estate owner, and founder of multiple businesses in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Jessica shares her journey from a high-volume hospital system and leadership roles to burning out, pivoting into hospice medicine, and then boldly launching a solo DPC practice in 2019 while raising young children. What started with her scrubbing floors and answering phones has grown into a thriving practice, a medspa, real estate ownership, and a team of nearly 30 people.

We dig into:

• Why Direct Primary Care is a true win-win-win for patients, physicians, and communities
• The mindset shifts required to go from clinician to intentional business owner
• Why failure, grit, and humility are essential parts of the entrepreneurial path
• The power of coaching and surrounding yourself with people further ahead
• Why she wishes she had implemented Traction (EOS) earlier

This conversation is honest, grounded, and full of hard-won wisdom for any doctor thinking about ownership and autonomy.

Timelines / Chapters

00:25 – Welcome + coffee talk ☕

00:43 – Rapid Fire questions

02:33 – hospital system → hospice → launching DPC

05:55 – How Direct Primary Care differs from traditional models

07:55 – Mindset shifts required

10:58 – Challenges, failure, and the real work of growth

12:52 – The personal investment with the biggest ripple effect (coaching)

14:37 – Advice for physicians just starting out

16:49 – Solo vs partnership: lessons

18:35 – Book recommendation: Traction by Gino Wickman

20:09 – Closing thoughts

Want to learn more about Dr. Jessica Mendelsohn?

• New South Family Medicine and MedSpa → http://www.newsouthfamilymedicine.com
• Echelon Contrast Suites → https://www.echelonfortmill.com
• Independent Physician Launchpad → https://www.independentphysicianlaunchpad.com

🔗 WATCH + LISTEN

🎥🎧 Spotify

🎧 Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music , iHeartRadio

🎥 YouTube

🎥 Instagram @coacholgamd

💬Subscribe & Share! If Jessica's story inspired you, hit subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, or Deezer and share it with a friend who’s dreaming of more flexibility in life. One intentional step at a time

✨ — Dr. Olga Deengar, Coach Olga MD © 2026 Coach Olga MD. All rights reserved.

☕ Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Tod Stillson

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Tod Stillson — rural family physician, bestselling author of Doctor Incorporated, founder of the Physician Entrepreneur Academy, and creator of ChatRx.

We talk about what it really looks like to stop being an employee and start thinking (and operating) like an owner. Tod shares how 30 years of rural medicine shaped his engineering mindset, why he built an AI-powered asynchronous urgent care platform that answers the two questions patients ask him everywhere he goes, and the simple mindset shift that changes everything: ownership over employment.

You’ll hear practical wisdom on:

• Why most doctors never realize they can ask for a 1099 contract
• How to design a medical career that fits your life instead of the other way around
• The power of creating value first (instead of extracting it)
• Why identity work comes before business strategy
• Advice he would whisper to his younger self

This conversation is equal parts practical and freeing — especially if you’re a physician who wants more autonomy without burning out or walking away from medicine entirely.

Timelines / Chapters

00:25 – Welcome + coffee talk

02:56 – Rapid Fire questions

03:34 – Take a Sip game

05:02 – Tod’s journey: rural family medicine to independent contractor

06:47 – The origin story of ChatRx

12:09 – Why AI triage matters (and why most chatbots fail at it)

16:25 – Designing your life on your own terms

20:35 – The ownership mindset shift every doctor needs

26:38 – Biggest challenges physicians face when starting a business

29:56 – Advice to younger Tod

33:24 – Book recommendation: The Go-Giver

35:08 – Closing thoughts + gratitude

Want to learn more about Dr. Tod Stillson?

Check out his AI-powered on-demand urgent care platform ChatRx at https://www.chatrx.md/ and the Physician Entrepreneur Academy at https://www.simplimd.com/. His book Doctor Incorporated is available on Amazon.
🔗 WATCH + LISTEN

🎥🎧 Spotify

🎧 Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music , iHeartRadio

🎥 YouTube

🎥 Instagram @coacholgamd

💬Subscribe & Share! If Tod's story inspired you, hit subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, or Deezer and share it with a friend who’s dreaming of more flexibility in life. One intentional step at a time

✨ — Dr. Olga Deengar, Coach Olga MD © 2026 Coach Olga MD. All rights reserved.