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On Becoming a HealerAuthor: Saul J. Weiner and Stefan Kertesz
Doctors and other health care professionals are too often socialized and pressured to become "efficient task completers" rather than healers, which leads to unengaged and unimaginative medical practice, burnout, and diminished quality of care. It doesn't have to be that way. With a range of thoughtful guests, co-hosts Saul Weiner MD and Stefan Kertesz MD MS, interrogate the culture and context in which clinicians are trained and practice for their implications for patient care and clinician well-being. The podcast builds on Dr. Weiner's 2020 book, On Becoming a Healer: The Journey from Patient Care to Caring about Your Patients (Johns Hopkins University Press). Language: en Genres: Health & Fitness, Medicine, Relationships, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Moral Injury, Moral Courage, and the Business of Medicine
Episode 78
Tuesday, 15 September, 2026
What happens when a healthcare system organized around profit repeatedly gets in the way of doing what is right for patients? Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) calls one consequence moral injury: the distress physicians experience when the system prevents them from providing the care they believe patients need. PNHP president Diljeet Singh, MD, DrPH, joins Stefan and Saul to discuss the organization's recent report on moral injury and the financialization of American medicine. Saul strongly shares PNHP's commitment to universal health care—but challenges whether the language of moral injury puts too much emphasis on what the system does to physicians and too little on physicians' own agency and responsibility within that system. What follows is a candid and provocative exchange that begins with substantial agreement about what is wrong with American health care and the need for universal coverage, but moves into harder questions about moral distress, physician complicity, professional responsibility—and how much courage we should expect from doctors when doing the right thing comes at a personal cost.
