The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – My Life as a Doctor: Reflections on Burnout, Calling, and Retirement by Stan Eisele, M.D.

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

My Life as a Doctor: Reflections on Burnout, Calling, and Retirement by Stan Eisele, M.D. Getheartofthedeal.com Authorstanmd.com https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Doctor-Reflections-Retirement/dp/B0H22RBR21 A deeply honest physician memoir about burnout, calling, retirement, faith, and the human side of medicine. After forty years in medicine, Dr. Stan Eisele thought he understood what it meant to serve others. He was wrong. In My Life as a Doctor: Reflections on Burnout, Calling, and Retirement, Dr. Eisele shares a personal and thoughtful journey through the life of a physician. From the childhood loss that first drew him toward the healing professions, to the demands of medical school, residency, patient care, healthcare bureaucracy, career burnout, and the emotional transition into retirement, this memoir offers a clear and moving look at what it means to live a life of service. Dr. Eisele begins with the story of Chippers, his beloved childhood dog, whose illness became the first moment that opened his heart to medicine. What began as a desire to help animals slowly became a calling to care for people. His path led him through medical school at USC, internal medicine training, and decades of practice as a primary care physician. But the dream was not always easy. As the healthcare system changed, Dr. Eisele faced the pressure of insurance restrictions, HMO systems, corporate medicine, overwhelming documentation, emotional exhaustion, depression, and physician burnout. At times, the work that once felt like a calling began to feel like a burden. Then came a turning point. A move from San Diego to Eagle, Idaho, restored his sense of purpose and helped him reconnect with the heart of medicine: compassionate patient care, faith, family, and service. Later, a sudden life-threatening heart attack placed him in the unfamiliar role of patient instead of doctor. That experience changed his understanding of care, vulnerability, gratitude, and healing. In retirement, Dr. Eisele discovers that calling does not end when a career ends. Through community, music, faith, and service, he finds new ways to give back and a deeper understanding of what it means to live with purpose. This book is ideal for readers interested in: Physician memoirs and doctor stories Medical memoirs about burnout and healing Faith-based reflections on calling and purpose Retirement, identity, and life transitions Patient care, compassion, and the human side of healthcare Inspirational nonfiction about perseverance and service My Life as a Doctor is more than a medical memoir. It is a story of purpose, resilience, gratitude, faith, and the quiet strength found in showing up for others with compassion, humility, and grace.

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We're going to be talking about his experience, some of his knowledge, and maybe how we can help keep burnout from happening for the doctors and nurses and all those wonderful people in health care that keep us alive. Without them, we'd be kind of screwed, eh? Because I tried to sew up a balloon once with Nealon and thread, and it didn't work well. And we're going to get into it with you and find out more about. you, your experience and what you've done.

Give us your dot-coms. Where can people find you on the interweb, sir? It's author stanmd.com is a website. And you always desire to be a doctor since you were young after your dog chipper suffered a serious head injury that led to his passing. The experience stayed with you and shaped your entire path into becoming a doctor. You later graduated from the USC School of Medicine, complete your residency at UCLA, and has worked for parent patients for over 40 years.

as an internal medicine physician. His career saw him leave the problems of HMOs in California and start a new life and several fruit for the years in Eagle, Idaho. Welcome the show, Stan again. And yeah, quite a story there, an origin story of what got you into medicine. Yeah, there was a lot going on. And I felt like a lot of times I was on an escalator and it just kept going, going and going

schooling and training and on and on and on. Yeah, you guys go through a lot of training, schooling to become doctors. Yeah, it was, you've got to be young to do that, I'll tell you right now. That's true, those 18-hour days and long hours and...

Very, very long, but it's good when you're young. Yeah, that's why... It's kind of like the military. They're like, Chris, would you ever go into the draft? I'm like, I can't see one eye, I got one bad back and walking the limp, and I'm stupid. So it probably wouldn't work for me because I just,

I anytime I play call of duty, hard mode, I end up killing friendly fire, killing everyone. Oh no. You're just showing those stats and they won't let me in. In fact, becoming a physician,

a medical doctor originally was very militaristic, or shall I say, it was very much being in the service. Because in the old days, the doctors were basically in the, in the wars and things. Yeah. And they even,

even to this day, they'll have terms like, are you the house officer tonight? Really? Yeah, and the attending is a senior officer and so forth, even if you're not in the military. So they still, it kind of was run at one point, a lot like training. Imagine a lot of doctors. I know for a long time going to the VA and, of course, for the military, as a doctor,

was a great way to get your doctor ship degrees and all that stuff. I did that myself. After medical school, I was at the VA for a short time and then moved on to the hospitals in the community that I was training in Los Angeles. Most people have, I think, that have been physicians, have at some point worked at a VA. And also the pharmacists and the nurses, the VAs are big. Yeah. For all the people I killed in Call of Duty with Friendly Fire, I don't think they're going to

let me in a hospital or the military. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your book? It does start, like you said, from my beginnings where I had these interests actually in becoming a veterinarian because of the dog story, but it turned into becoming a doctor of humans. And that's a fun story how that happened. And then I just started, like I said, very early on in high school, I knew already that I was going to go to medical school. So I went just I was always learning what I needed to know for the next level. which would have been then college undergraduate and then medical school and then training.

And finally, it's mentioned in the book how I decided, am I going to keep going because you can keep doing more and more subspecialty training? And for internal medicine, subspecialists after what I did would be things like cardiologists, kidney specialists, GI, all the different parts of the body other than surgeons would be an internal medicine first. And I decided to get off the treadmill, I call it, meaning I want to go start. in patients and practicing. So it was general internal medicine, which means adults, basically.

Adults is kind of a loose word to use today in most folks, I think you'd be. Other than OBGYN, pediatrics, adults. And it really has shifted more to geriatrics as time went on because of the aging population and so forth. But the thing about internal medicine is we don't do surgery. That's the big thing. Huh.

I should get into that because I can't. do the blood part. I can't do the surgery part. I'm probably, I could probably recommend some pills you should take. Not sure if they be illegal or not. But anyway. Yeah, I, I, I, if it involves blood, I have a doctor to send you to. Do you? Do you? I don't feel so bad now because I'm like, God, I can never be a doctor. I can't. If there's even too much blood in a movie, and I know the movie's fake, right? I'll still have to get up and leave. You learn these things when you're training is the surgery spout rotations in medical schools. No, I don't. think so. Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's hope for me. Maybe I should go be a doctor after all. I don't know if I, at 58, you think I can speed run the course.

You mentioned there's a, you teased out there's a kind of interesting story about where you switch from being a veterinary to a doctor. And I don't think you can get away with that. So let's hear that story. So I'll tell you what happened is I was 10 years old and Chippers was a Brittany Spaniel that was just so attached to. And then, the way that the dog got sick was he ran into the sliding glass window. And it actually caused brain damage where the pituitary gland was severed, which led to a form of diabetes insipitous, which means that you can't keep your water. So they tried putting him on drugs and the veterinarian, but he could not stay hydrated.

After a few months, they said, your dog's not going to make it. I was so attached, and my parents said, let's take him to the veterinary school, which was the only one in California was at UC Davis. So they drove me and the dog up there

and we turned them over to the veterinary professor and I told my parents, I said, I want to be a veterinarian so I can help dogs. That's how it started and actually my dad suggested, why don't you talk to the VA, I rather a veterinary professor who's going to take

our dog and euthanize the dog and then use the brain and everything. And I felt good at least about that it was going to help other animals, because it's a rare condition. And the veterinarian says to me, Stan, I'm just a kid in the fifth grade, right? He goes, have you ever thought about maybe becoming a doctor, a medical doctor? Because then you can help people and animals. And I'll never forget him saying that because I thought to myself, wait a minute, I'm a little kid. What am I talking about

universities and things? Come on. I just wanted to help animals. You're like, I'm five, man. I'm just still trying to figure out food and poop and stuff. But you want me to be a doctor? It stuck with me. And my parents were not doctors, but in the medical field. Mom's a nurse and dad. That's good. It was in the medical supply industry.

But I mean, it was, like I heard a lot about it, but I didn't have a direct link to doctors. Hmm. So you decided to become a doctor as you grow up then. You get, you decide. I went, I went in school, and then I learned about all this physiology and organic chemistry and human anatomy and on and on and it was just it was fascinating and i i was thrilled by it i had teachers in high school and college that were so cool and then i just went ahead with it and then i applied and and it wasn't easy getting in i'll tell you that was that was that was tough it still

is tough yeah it's it's it's hard work i've tried dating a few nurses and boy they're always on call and lots of canceled dates for being on call and but so that or they didn't like me one of the two But their schedules, I'll talk to them about the schedules because you try and line up dates. And man, they're just, they're working 18 hour days and stuff. And it's crazy. Well, it's not just the hours seeing patients. In fact, that used to be the hard part was spending time, but you were working with people. Now the burnout is caused by all of the bureaucracy that is required, meaning entering data and filling out forms.

We all know that when you go to a doctor yourself. Why am I still filling out all these forms? Oh, yeah. That's just the tip of the iceberg. In the back office, we're constantly documentation, electronic health records, paper, still, lots of paperwork. And it's really been proven that more than 50% of the time of not just the doctor, but the nurses, the staff, everybody, more than half of the time has nothing to do with seeing a patient. It has to do with bureaucracy, more than half. Yeah. I haven't had to see really the doctor going for surgeries or hospitals for most of my life. I think 22 was the last time I was in for a vasectomy.

And at 57 I would have been last year, I had my two hernias. And that's the first time I had been in a hospital. First time I've had a real doctor sort of experience other than you just get the flu every now and then. I'm probably just going to wake up one day and they're going to be like, you're 98% cancer. You're dead. You just haven't administered. did it yet and then I'll just fall over. But I seem to have a good run so far. Knock on wood. And when I got my two bills and documentation for my surgery from the hospital in last January or last September and December, I saw the play by play that my doctor had to fill out on what he did to me during, I don't know, an hour of surgery, half an hour of surgery or something.

And it was the most insane, minute, I don't know, I can't think of many words describe it, But it was, it was literally play by play. First I picked up my right hand. Then I took a breath. Then I inserted the needle. And then I, it was literally almost that minute of detail. And he wrote this huge, what was a small book of what happened during that half an hour surgery.

And I'm like, my God, we asked his fan to go to school and do all this crap. And he's got to perform miracles on my dumb ass who got hernia's lifting weights. And then he's got a run. right. This made, I've seen police reports and stuff, and this makes police reports look like, you know, Dr. Seuss rhyming books. And that's, I just felt so bad for him. That is actually only the tip of the iceberg, too. I hate to say it, but. I understand the legal part of it, and I'm like, this is clearly for the attorneys to prevent for being sued for malpractice, and what did you do wrong? But it was, it was staggering the detail and the most, and the

moment by moment, second by second play. It's like my heartbeat five times before I inserted the needle. Just about. But that's called a burnout happening. Now, it's also because of the billing and the insurance. That's another side of it. There's tremendous because if the insurance company can deny the service, that's their job, really. And so all they can do is say you didn't dot your eye and cross the tea. And that's the kind of thing that has become out of control. Oh, yeah. I just can't. I just can't. The level that it would take to, to, I don't even know how he does it. I'd have to have a tape recorder going, I am now breathing and moving my right hand. I would have to be recording all. The fact that he remembered all the minute details that he did play by play. Is there, is there a trick to that? They're actually, they're actually using AI now.

Oh. Yeah. It's, it's happening right in the room with the patient. And it just keeps track of of everything. And then it spits it out when you're done. That's probably better than the other. So you did this for 40 years. When did you start getting burnt out? When did you start getting frustrated with the stuff? To where it reached a point of, I don't want to do this anymore. What happened is I started right at the time when these HMOs and things became

the 1980 about there. That's when this all started. Before that, it was all fee for service, private practice. Everyone had their own shingles. So I thought of doctoring as a different entity. Yeah. So after about 10 years, I saw all this happening. It was about the insurance saving money, and they called me a gatekeeper, as they call it.

Like, I'm keeping people, the gate, and I'm keeping the gate closed, essentially, and letting only certain people get through so that they can get their service, which cost me for the insurance. I didn't like that being a gatekeeper. I wanted to be a caregiver. Yeah. And so I felt like my hands were tied behind my back. There's all sorts of stories I can tell you about things that would happen. Oh, yeah.

And all I'm trying to do is just help the person that I, that I'm seeing. Yeah. Your doctor, you got your hypocrite oath. I think you they pronounce it right? I tell you, it was absolutely. So I actually came to the end of my rope and said, San Diego is guard. which is where I was working and living and but my my good friends said Stan maybe you need to find a different place to work because this town is so full and

saturated with the HMO. I remember watching shows back then on TV and stuff 60 minutes to 2020 whatever about people it was always about people that were denied service for their cancer for this or for that by their HM and so I was like yep that's San Diego and so that's when I moved to Boy, Arizona, which is Eagle, a subdivision or a community there. And it was a wonderful move because not nearly as much of the advances that were going on in the Southern California were up here. And so did you like it better? Oh, yeah, much better. And the hospital I worked for, I was there for 24 years before the medical group that I was with, I never changed. It was like fabulous. You know,

the insurance industry did catch up and became a problem meaning a bureaucracy taking over here too yeah but i felt like i had made my power move i called it in the book meaning i moved my family from the finest city in the world what they called san diego up to where i didn't even know where it was boise idaho and but it was because my my job allowed me to be a doctor my hands were free i could I could do what I've been dreaming of and training for and studying and learning and practicing for so long I got to do it again and that's what saved me. Otherwise, I was going to just quit or get so burned out and depressed. Who knows what I would have done.

Yeah. And I imagine, I think doctors or nurses might have a high suicide rate. I know that physicians, or not physicians, psychiatrists do. Yes. And you know what's interesting? I found out, and this is very surprising to me, veterinarians actually. Oh, yeah. And I didn't.

I'm like, I think it's just anything where you're just really there for these people and these animals, and everyone is so concerned about their health. And if you can't do it, it'd be like the ship's captain and the ship sank, and you've got to feel bad about it. Yeah. And you get in this business because you care about people. You don't want to deal with the headaches. I remember one of the girls they dated when I was, I think I was like 21 or 22.

And she, and this is still 30 years ago, so I'm sure it's 10 times worse. But she would tell me about, she ran the bill's office for her local dentist. And she would tell me about just what a nightmare it was just to get the bills paid. And 50% would always be outstanding usually of all the bills that were supposed to be paid by the insurance company. And she would constantly have to get on the phone with them. And now a lot of the doctors that we have on, insurance professionals and other people, they're telling us that these lawyers now that work for the insurance companies, they're building into every contract and out.

They have a five million outs of a way to get out of anything that they've done a contract for insurance. And so a lot of these people, they're paying into their insurance, and they believe that their insurance is going to honor the contract when something happens as it inevitably does, especially as we age. and they're finding out that these guys have just these guys built in backdoor exits of where they're like if the sun is up and it's 12 o'clock

we don't cover your policy I'll tell you that is so true you've heard it right I've even come up with this term for it back in the whatever President Eisenhower he called it the military industrial complex he said watch out meaning now that we've learned how to build

all these weapons and war stuff Now, we'll be careful that we don't find words just to use the products that these companies are making, right? For the money. I call it the healthcare industrial complex because it's almost like that's where our system is driven from, is from the corporate side of it, not the doctors and nurses and caregivers who tend to be more altruistic and taking advantage of. And so that's in the book. Oh, wow. That sounds like it's good stuff.

So what do you hope people come away with your book? Not only it's a memoir, but also a story of caution. And maybe advice on how to avoid burnout, or how would you frame it? I put the so-called three antidotes, is what I put. And it's just basically based on what I did. And the very first one, again, was what is your reason to do it? What's your calling? And I had, again, that wanting to care for people and animals, and I'll tell you, that's what most people have to begin with.

But if you go in thinking, I'm going to make a lot of money, you better just turn around and leave because that's not yet. That used to be one of the tradeoffs, right? It was. That was the trade-off. You go grind and you go learn and you educate and you get rewarded. All the doctors, he lived on Pill Hill. Remember the term Pill Hill?

Pill Hill. Now it's the pharmaceutical executives all live on Pill Hill. Yeah. I had a mortgage company for about 20 years. And I remember when we started doing doctors and stuff. And I remember the first one we did was just, he was just a pharmacist and he worked

at a major company, I think it was like Target or something, but he was a pharmacist had his own pharmacy and I remember we did the loan for him and he was basically, and he'd been out of school for quite some time and establish himself, but after he paid his student loans

for becoming a doctor and he just became a pharmacist, to my understanding there's a lot more schooling for where you were at. and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to get, I don't want to get calls from pharmacists. I need to fill my prescriptions anyway.

Oh, I'll chat now. Yeah, don't piss off your pharmacists, folks, or your doctor. But by the time he paid off his student loans and was trying to live, he could barely afford a $60,000 house back then. And he was basically minimum wage

between his schooling and costs and he had a family with kids and stuff. I was like, geez, this guy went to school for all this stuff. It's true. for the healthcare professions, including, like you said, pharmacist, nurse, doctor, everybody. But so the second thing is, first make sure your calling is for the right reason. And then the second tip for burnout is what happened to me, and that is listen to advice if someone says you need to leave and look for a different place to practice.

And you might need to do something that's really unthinkable. I was third generation in Southern California and loved to live by the beach. and it was like, this isn't working. So I called it the power move, not because you make a move against somebody, but just because you have to do something. Yeah. My third advice is do not skip counseling because it is so important to get, I feel like I'm kind of giving counsel right now,

but you know, professional counseling. Because this is something that people who are known and trained, how to help you with. And that's why I'm saying is so many people get so depressed and even suicide, like you said. So start early with the counseling because it is fantastic. So I'm talking about doctors, nurses, and health care providers sometimes don't take care of themselves. Yeah, yeah. So these are my three suggested antidotes so that you don't end up in a real, real bad way.

We've had so many people on the show that talk about that, how the importance of caregiver. Whether you're an official doctor, whether you're just taking care of, in my case, your sister, who has MS and dementia, she's in a care center. Maybe you're taking care of parents at home. One of the big things we have now is what they call the sandwich generation. I just became aware of this term in the last three or four months. We had a guy on the show and he explained that there's this new term called the sandwich generation. And it's basically people in their 30s or so, they're raising kids, but they're also taking care of elderly parents that are either. disabled, dementia, etc.

And sometimes they're moving them in with them. So you've got these young kids they're trying to raise and get out the door. And then you've got these old parents you're trying to raise. You're doing diaper sessions on both ends of the spectrum really. Yeah. So they call them the sandwich. Yeah. Yeah.

Even though you love your people that you're working for or helping, the stress is tremendous. And so that's a very good point. There's so much help that can be given for caregivers that are that are stressed out, burned out or whatever. Yeah. And I don't know how it is for doctors, but for caregivers, the stats are horrible. If you're taking care of someone who has dementia and you're basically being a caregiver to someone who's older, they do tend to not put on their oxygen mask first and they burn

themselves out like you mentioned. Yes, yes. And they actually have six times higher as a caregiver of developing also dementia and Alzheimer's and different things because the wear and tear of that just destroys them. I imagine maybe doctors might be going through the same thing with that, maybe, because they're caregivers. I'll tell you, it's definitely not good for your brain unless you can find out ways to help. That's actually the topic of my retirement is what's good for your brain is music. And I was going to just bring that up briefly because in retirement, I started at Eagle Jazz Festival, which is in my community.

And it's basically about young musicians and local professionals that we put on a once a year, shows, concerts. And I'll tell you, the joy that that gives people to come together and listen to music and play music. And I've just noticed that it is the most

therapeutic thing that you can do. So probably my next book will be RX, listen to the music. Listen to the music. I like that. And is that up in Idaho, I think? Yes. Jazz Festival? Jazz is such a wonderful thing. And I love jazz. But

The thing I found, and I don't know if this is maybe because I'm getting older, or I'm just taking better care of myself because they're trying to get some mileage out of the old jalopy here. Just give me another mile, bud. Come on, man, you got it. You got it one more year. I just wake up every day. But the one thing I found is I have to take better care of myself and take downtime. So we used to do this show three to four times a day every day for every day of the week.

And so it was like 20 shows. I think it was. That's sweet. much work. And it's a lot to do a show. It's a lot to be funny. It's a lot to put on all that energy and to be interesting and write jokes and produces. You're doing a show live. And so I experienced some serious burnout. And I said, okay, we're cutting this down to three shows a day. And that seemed to be a little more easier. And I was still just having the worst time where I would go into Saturday. And by the time I really felt like I was having a weekend, it would be like Sunday night. I'm like, it's over. And so I came up with a thing where I said, you know what, I'm going to stop doing work, at least work with clients on Friday. I'll still be in the office, piddling about, poking at things.

I'm an entrepreneur, so, you know, it's 24-7. Yeah. But I'm not going to, we're not going to do shows, and I'm not going to deal with clients. You might, I'll answer some emails, but, you know, we're going to try and that's a day, that's the beginning of the weekend. So from here on out, Thursday night is Friday night for me. And that has been the most productive thing that I have ever done. And I know how it sounds counterintuitive.

You're like, productive. You just cut a whole eight-hour day out of your schedule. Yeah, but without your sabbatical and so-called, you can't keep it going. Yeah. And I have to make it a point on Sundays, I don't do any dates. Fridays and Saturdays are dates with the chicks. I don't know this from Heffner. Sunday is my day.

day. And that's gratitude for gratefulness, the day that I have peace, that I ponder. I usually go someplace really nice. There's a beautiful skytop restaurant I go to in downtown Salt Lake where you can watch the thing. I go do photography on Saturday and I just

wander. There's no agenda. You just wander. There's freedom. And just peace and relaxation. Yes. And at night, you can pull out your jazz vinals. Yeah, you put on some Nina Simone and I wish she's my favorites. I know, did she,

She's technically jazz, right? Yeah. I've got a great jazz vinyl album collection because of my interest. And she's in, she's right there. Oh, yeah. Give me some cinnamon. I love her. She's just so great.

And then by Sunday, I kind of feel good. So Friday night, Friday I'm just kind of decompressing. And then by Friday night, I kind of feel, okay, we're in the weekend. It's the weekend. And then by Saturday, I've got a full, healthy weekend day. And same with Sunday. And then Sunday, like I said, there's another lake house that I go to that sits on the lake that they're a great restaurant and I'll go there. But I try and incorporate a lot of peace and solitude sometimes into my, in that workflow.

And I'm very protective of it. You did the right thing. I'm so happy. And I'm more productive and making more money than I ever had before by not working a day. That's right. And I'm just so much better at what I do during the week, Monday through Thursday. I'm on point, I'm rocking and rolling. I'm ready to take the fucker on.

But by Friday, I'm Thursday night, and I'm like, yeah, I don't know. That's why they have red line on the car. You don't just keep the engine going or you're going to burn it up. Yeah. You got to, you got to do some tuning sometimes. So, yeah, I love what you're doing with jazz, and music is such a great way to detune. Whatever your thing is, man. For me, I like, I like wandering with the camera because it makes me present because I'm looking

for, I'm looking to capture human moments, right? So not everything's a human moment. Some people are just boring walking around town or something. But I'll go out on the streets and do street photography and I'm usually looking for that human moment, a couple holding hands. It's something that really stands out and it captures kind of humanity as it were. And so because I'm constantly seeking for that moment and trying to get it in the in the lens, I'm very present and I really enjoy that experience of being present. So that's, I'd love to see some of those shots. Yeah.

I have that same hobby. Oh, do you? Some of my shots, I'll never forget. I've got this one of a widow sitting on the bench with her dog sitting in front of her. Oh, man. Wow. Wow. It's beautiful.

Yeah. You can see him at Chris Foss. Stop Photo if you guys go. Oh, okay. Great. You set me up for a plug. Thank you. I don't think I've ever plugged that on the show.

But, no, and so my, I think what I'm trying to say is, no matter what it is, if it helps you be present, go into the park with your dogs in the weekend and just focus on them and try and get away from these phones and the bings and the dings and the notifications and stuff. It's really helpful. But I am more productive cutting off Fridays than I've probably ever been in my life. I'm so happy for you. And you get to see the birds? Yeah, you get to see everything.

Yeah, you go on and you take photographs and I do portrait photography. I do pretty much everything. Like, I just love exploring. But the biggest part of it is, is I take my camera and there's no agenda. It's just, okay, what am I going to do? I'm going to go downtown and do some street shooting. I'm going to go to the mountains and shoot the lake. I don't know where I'm going to go.

I don't know. I'm going to find. There's no agenda. There's no time. There's no, it's just me wandering. And so if you can find an activity like that, mowing your lawn, playing with your dog, reading books, listening to jazz, whatever it is, that thing that can help you kind of be present where you're not feeling like you're in the throes of your brain that's just

punching the shit at you all the time going, you need to this, you need to do that, you need to do this. I think that's good and healthy. That's probably why you like jazz too is because of spontaneity and improvisation. You never know what's coming sometimes. That's right. And then that's a great thing about jazz, that when they do that improv and swing and you're just like, yeah. So tell us what else have we covered in here that maybe we should tease out to people or how people

get to know you better. Let's just say now that I'm retired, there's been this transition. I've only retired for five months, but the biggest transition is obviously the book project, and that's what we're doing right now. But it's interesting because now I feel like I can give back by doing the jazz festival in town, and now I'm looking to help with the civic auditorium in this town because it's really growing. Allowing more people to get together and do stuff together. It's about the people. It's like what I used to say, you'd hear people say, I love my job, I just don't like the people.

Guess what? My story of my career was the opposite. I love my job because of the people. I just hate the bureaucracy, the paperwork. Yeah. And so it's like I've been spending more time out in the city, kind of like you said, the street shots and stuff. I don't do that, but I'm in the Chamber of Commerce.

I never used to do that. because everyone just came to the doctor. I sat in my office. He come to me. I am now going out, you know, and meeting with people and meeting with all the different city leaders. And I've got to know, I never thought I can get to know the mayor of my city. And it's just wonderful doing it the other way. I'm going out and I want to do something now for you guys.

Yeah. Now, I see here, I Googled Eagle, Idaho, where you're at, if I understand correctly. Yes. Very small population, 33,000 people. I'm seeing pictures here that are just extraordinarily beautiful, both in snow and sunsets and a beautiful distance. Rivers, fishing, lakes. You know, this is God's country, they call it, because it's just gorgeous up here. Yeah.

And you, I think you need to get away. I try and get away in the weekends, like to go up to the canyon, like driving through the canyon and finding little spots to photograph. And just always looking for the shot. And maybe that's what more people need to do. Go to go to this. I think it was Nikki Six from Motley Crew. Those guys have toured all over. They grew up in L.A.

And he was talking about a place I think he has in Wyoming or Idaho. I can't remember which. Okay. I just saw a video of his the other day. And he just refills my bucket. Yeah. It could be Idaho, Wyoming, Montana. Yeah.

There's so much up here that's, it takes me 30 minutes and I'm basically away from everything. Yeah. And that in L.A. take you three hours. And you guys are ways away from everything. Yes. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But it looks beautiful from the photos I'm seeing. It is and there's great people moving up here from all over.

Just to do that very thing you just said, get away. Not the reason I did because of medicine, but just in general. Maybe more doctors need to do that. Get a second place up in the countryside somewhere. Yes, that's a great idea. There is something, one of my, My favorite place to go is there's a reservoir up close to me about 30 minutes away,

and I can drive up to it, and they've got this beautiful restaurant at Sears Fine Food, and the deck patio goes out onto the lake. Yeah. And so you're literally sitting on the patio, and the sun goes down over the beautiful Timpanogas Mountain, which was on the highest points, I think here in Utah, Kings Peak, or the UNS might be. But it's a beautiful vista, and you watch the sun go down and the water, and it's just, I don't know, It's just something about the water refills your bucket. That's why I enjoy California.

And the boating. The boating. It's like Bear Lake is up there too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, doing stuff to take care of yourself. There's an analogy that someone said on the show years ago. You've got to put on your, when the plane goes into auction mode and drops the mask,

you've got to put your mask on first before you put on other people's. You can't take care of other people if you can't take care of yourself. And I think a lot of maybe people in the medical industry and caregiver industry, you need to do that. And you've got to take that time. Yes, indeed. That's exactly the point of my book. And it's something that I got to experience. And so it's a short book.

It's just, you know, prescriptions are short and they save lives. So it doesn't have to be long. And it's pretty easy to read. And I just really am glad that it came out the way it did. Yeah. I'm an idea guy. They pay me three bucks a day. to be a idea guy. So this is how I make my money. And I'm pretty rich until taxes kick in on the

$3. But I think that I don't make enough at $3 a day to incur too many taxes. I guess I don't know. I'm just fun of it. But maybe you should do their treat for doctors. Do they do those? Somebody might be doing those. But maybe you could do a treat up in your area there because it's so beautiful and vistas and you could have a getaway for doctors. They've been doing that actually quite a bit. I attended a lot of those myself. And it was one of my ways of keeping the burnout from killing me, which it basically almost did because I had a heart attack eight years ago that was completely out of the blue, struck by lightning, they call it, no reason for a thunderbolt to come down. And it was the stress, I'm sure, because I have absolutely

no other risk factors. But I healed completely. And so again, I'm just so grateful to that's the other big thing about my story is how gratitude I have, even with all the troubles. I'm just so grateful. I live in a beautiful place. I'm beautiful family, good health, lots of good friends, and I get to now go out and make more new friends. Yeah. And you can build it around your jazz festival. Yeah, good idea. Oh, man. I like that. You tie the two together, and you got all the pieces. See, this is $3 a day right here, man. It's big money.

I like it. Wonderful. As we wrap the show, give people a final pitch out on where to pick up your book and how to pick up your book and dot coms, et cetera, et cetera. best thing is just to go on Amazon and there it is my life is a doctor you don't even have to remember how to spell my name because it's it's just my life is a doctor your life is a doctor thank you very much stan for coming the show and then give us your website do we get your website i might have been yeah it's author stan md he left out the isily because it's too hard author stanmd dot com and get the book on amazon and it's it's a good read because it's not

too long and it just makes you feel good. And I've had a lot of people to get the book and say, oh, I know these doctors or these young people that are going into medical health care nurses stuff and I'm going to give them one. And I said, perfect. That's what I want. I want them to have it. Yeah.

Yeah. Take care of your doctors and your health care, folks. Thank these people because we're running into, not only is it is bad with a lot of people leaving the business from burnout, but there's not a lot of people going into it. This is true. And so we have a real. problem coming where there's not all the people that are wanting to go into it. I guess all the young people wanted to be TikToks and Instagram. My book doesn't discourage people from going into healthcare.

In fact, there's one chapter called patient stories and it's the most, that's what people love the most because they read about how these connections between people, the patient and the doctor, patient stories meaning the relationship. That's the best chapter. And so everyone that wants to go into healthcare reads that and says, that's what I love. So it's not about don't. going to healthcare. It's just about watch out. Don't let these other things happen to you and get those to the early

younger guys and gals. Get help earlier. I can see how therapy would be good, especially at approaching some of the different issues that you have because if you don't, sometimes you just feel alone and you just feel like you're just being persecuted. And so this is

important why books and stories like yours are because they share your journey and give people blueprints on how to maybe skip some of the challenges that you went through and survive. So, I hope so. Thank you very much, Dr. Stan, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure, and it's really been exciting to be on your show.

It's been exciting to have you and great stories, and hopefully we can make the world a better place, especially for doctors and patients. And I don't know what we're going to do with insurance companies, but we'll talk about that on another show. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Stan.

Thanks for us for tuning. Order up his book, wherever fine books are sold. My Life is a Doctor. Reflections on burnout, calling and retirement out April 20, April 14th, 2026. Thanks for minds for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4thus, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortressuschus, Chris Foss, 1 on the TikTok, and you know, it'd be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next.

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