The Mind Full Medic Podcast

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S 7 E 4 I am delighted to welcome Dr Michael Bonning to the podcast.
 Dr Bonning is a Sydney GP, with two decades of leadership across the AMA, AMSA, the RACGP and doctors' health. His clinical career has included Indigenous health, a career as a medical officer in the Royal Australian Navy, general practice ownership and management and COVID responses. He has made doctors' health a career-long focus, including as an inaugural director of the National Doctors' Health Service, six years on the board of Beyond Blue and as a director of hand n hand peer support. Michael is now running for Federal President of the AMA, on a platform to protect the value of doctors and the undermining of expertise, the importance of Medicare as a true safety net, the need to protect clinical independence and give doctors one clear, unified voice.
In this episode, we talk about:
•       Michael's two decades of leadership across the AMA, AMSA and RACGP, and his campaign for Federal AMA President
•       Communicating under pressure in healthcare from the media spotlight to earning public trust
•       The fight against mis- and disinformation in healthcare
•       Public health and prevention the upstream social and commercial determinants of health, and the core pillars of prevention.
Doctors' Health Advocacy as a strategic imperative not nice to have, optional extra.
Key Takeaways — Communicating with Media:
•       Prepare - know your material before you say yes to an interview
•       Find out what matters - understand what the journalist or audience actually needs
•       Be measured, and ground your conversation in the science and the evidence
•       Phone a friend - check in with a trusted colleague before high-stakes media
•       Determine if you're the best person to give the advice
•       Don't become the story - keep the focus on the issue, not on yourself
Thank you Michael your skilled and purpose driven leadership and support for your colleagues and patients and our healthcare system at large is the consistent thread running through this conversation. 
Links:
Michael's LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/michaelbonning
Creative Careers in Medicine Conference 2026 (CCIM), Gold Coast QT, 4–5 September: https://events.humanitix.com/ccim2026
The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not  necessarily reflect those of  our employers or other official organisations.

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In S7 E3 is a full circle moment for me as I get to welcome Dr Andrew Davies to the show. Andrew is my podcast mentor and has been instrumental in helping me get started and as an ongoing source of support and wise council. I could not think of a better guest given this season's theme of communication in medicine. 
Andrew has been an intensive care medicine specialist for  over three decades.  He experienced a period of severe depletion and burnout mid-life, mid-career  at a time of overcommitment to his research career. He describes the personal and professional growth that followed and now recounts this as an experience that reshaped his entire approach to medicine and life. Today he works at Peninsula University Hospital, where he is passionate about delivering compassionate, human-centred intensive care while actively supporting the wellbeing and development of fellow clinicians. Andrew hosts his own very successful podcast, Mastering Intensive Care  which recently reached 100 episodes. Here he faciliates deeply reflective conversations with his colleagues in critical care. It's a fantastic series and I heave learned a lot from Andrew and his guests to date. 
In this episode, we talk about:
 •       Listening as a skill  and why it matters as much in medicine as anywhere else. 
•       Our own experiences of mid-career and mid-life burnout, and re-learning how we approach self-care and regulation as an  intentional practice and ever evolving skillset.
•       The core pillars of wellbeing -movement, food, sleep, stress regulation and connection. Mindfulness as a muscle and the skill of making and protecting space for what matters. 
•       Individual versus systemic approaches to wellbeing in healthcare, and why both matter.
•       Running, ultra endurance feats and what these teach us about community, connection, and capacity for joy. 
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”
— Howard Thurman
Links:
Andrew's podcast, Mastering Intensive Care: https://masteringintensivecare.libsyn.com
Upcoming Community Events:
Dr Dominique Lee — Book Launch, hosted by Dr Cheryl Martin. Melbourne, 15 August 2026, 3pm, Langham Hotel. https://events.humanitix.com/what-s-been-broken-is-all-the-more-sharp-or-book-tour-in-melbourne
CCIM Conference — Gold Coast, QT, 4–5 September 2026. https://events.humanitix.com/ccim2026
The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not  necessarily reflect those of  our employers or other official organisations.

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S7 E2 Some conversations on this podcast carry more weight than others. This is one of them.
Dr Yoo Young (Dominique) Lee is a radiation oncologist, educator, researcher, and the author of What's Been Broken Is All the More Sharp,  a memoir that breaks a decade of silence about sexual assault within the medical profession, and examines what survivorship can look like inside a system that still struggles to acknowledge the harm it permits.
When Dominique reached out to come on the podcast in the lead-up to her book's release it was an unequivocal yes from me. What followed was a conversation that took a deeply human direction.
This is not a story of personal triumph. It is, as Dominique herself frames it, a relocation of shame from those who have been wrongly carrying it, onto the people and systems that should have been carrying it all along. It is also a love letter to the colleagues and friends who held her, and a call to every listener to consider whether they can be that person for someone else.
Among the threads we explore:
The arc from a decade of silence to a tweet, a Guardian interview, and now a book and an active campaign for independent reporting of workplace misconduct in medicine
Dominique's team of avengers and empathy warriors, the people she credits with her being alive today, and what their actions tell us about what it means to be an upstander and critical supporter.
The culture of medicine more broadly and how we measure a "good" clinician
Her presentation and advocacy work on how the system fails victims of abuse in medicine
The work of HeyBoss! her physician wellbeing initiative, dedicated to helping doctors thrive through connection, purpose, and personal growth
Why so few survivors of medical mistreatment remain, and what the profession owes those who did not stay
The mission to support the people in medicine who feel like misfits. Something I now consider closer to the norm than the exception.
This is a conversation about what medicine has refused to address. It is, also, a conversation about the people who refused to look away. Thank you Dominique for reminding me why this podcast exists.
Content note
This episode discusses sexual assault, harassment and abuse in medicine, and suicide. Please take care of yourself as you listen. If you need to step away, the conversation will be here when you're ready.
Resources
If you need support right now
Australia · 1800RESPECT · 1800 737 732 · 24/7 — https://www.1800respect.org.au
UK · Rape Crisis England & Wales · 0808 500 2222 — https://rapecrisis.org.uk
USA · RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline · 1-800-656-4673 — https://www.rainn.org
New Zealand · Safe to Talk · 0800 044 334 — https://safetotalk.nz
Canada · Ending Violence Association of Canada — https://endingviolencecanada.org
If you're a doctor seeking confidential support
Australia · Drs4Drs — https://www.drs4drs.com.au - call 1300-374-377 for assistance
USA · Physician Support Line · 1-888-409-0141 — https://www.physiciansupportline.com
UK · Doctors in Distress — https://doctors-in-distress.org.uk
Dominique's work
Dr Dominique Lee · website — https://drdominiquelee.com/
HeyBoss! — https://heyboss.org/
What's Been Broken Is All the More Sharp · Simon & Schuster Australia — https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Whats-Been-Broken-Is-All-the-More-Sharp/Dominique-(Yoo-Young)-Lee/9781764372336
Further reading on culture and safety in medicine
Sexual Harassment Between Doctors: Healing Medical Cultures Around the World · edited by Prof Louise Stone (Cambridge University Press) · with foreword by Dr Dominique Lee — https://www.cambridge.org/au/universitypress/subjects/law/medico-legal-bioethics-and-health-law/sexual-harassment-between-doctors-healing-medical-cultures-around-world?format=PB&isbn=9781009673068
SafeDr · Prof Leanne Rowe · empowering doctors to uphold human rights in healthcare under WHS laws — https://safedr.org
The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not  necessarily reflect those of  our employers or other official organisations.

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Welcome to Season 7 Episode 1 in conversation with Professor Tait Shanafelt, Chief Wellness Officer, Associate Dean, and the Jeanie & Stewart Ritchie Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford WellMD & WellPhD Center.
Across more than two decades and several hundred peer-reviewed papers, Tait’s work has fundamentally reshaped how medicine understands itself,  shifting the conversation from “fix the doctor” to “fix the system.” His papers have been referenced in more episodes of this podcast, and more generally, than any other voice in the field. 
We begin with the conceptual shift that transitioned physician wellbeing from a personal and individual problem to an organisational responsibility referencing 2017 Nine Organizational Strategies paper. Post-pandemic The Wellbeing 2.0 paper reflected on where we have been, where we are and where we are headed.
With this frame in mind we discuss the update in research, thinking and practice through the published 2025 Ten Principles to Advance Occupational Well-being paper, This article provides an organisation-facing guidebook for leaders that concentrates decades of evidence into ten foundational principles. There is a deliberate language shift from physician wellbeing to occupational wellbeing across the whole healthcare workforce. We zoom in from the strategic-systems lens to the practical work of unit-level leadership, evidence-informed tactics, and the day-to-day realities of work-life integration.
We close on the  five-part Career Life Cycle series, published this year, that charts the influences on wellbeing across the arc of a career, from residency and fellowship through early, mid, and late career into retirement. There are unique challenges at each stage but across the whole arc, the fundamental drivers of wellbeing are similar: autonomy, meaning, community, connection. 
Along the way, we discuss the iteration and evolution of the Chief Wellness Officer and Wellbeing Director courses out of Stanford WellMD  pathways into this work that have shaped and continue to advance a generation of leaders globally. 
References
The 2025 paper at the centre of the conversation
Shanafelt T, Trockel M, Stolz S, Murphy D, Bohman B. Ten Principles to Advance Occupational Well-being in Health Care Organizations. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2025;100(6):995–1004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.03.026
Landmark papers
Shanafelt TD, Noseworthy JH. Executive Leadership and Physician Well-being: Nine Organizational Strategies. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2017;92(1):129–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2016.10.004
Shanafelt TD. Physician Well-being 2.0: Where Are We and Where Are We Going? Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2021;96(10):2682–2693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2021.06.005
The five-part Career Life Cycle series (2025–2026)
Thomas LR, Brigham T, Shanafelt T. Residency and Fellowship: Fostering Physician Well-being Over the Career Life Cycle. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2025;100(9):1649–1659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.05.024
Rotenstein L, Harry E, Shanafelt T. The Early Career Phase: Fostering Physician Well-being Over the Career Life Cycle.Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2025;100(10):1836–1845. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.05.025
Ligibel JA, Awad K, Shanafelt T. Mid-Career: Fostering Physician Well-being Over the Career Life Cycle. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2025;100(11):2007–2016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.05.026
Frey K, Arata M, Shanafelt T. Late Career: Fostering Physician Well-being Over the Career Life Cycle. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2025;100(12):2255–2261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.05.028
Brower KJ, Litt IF, Shanafelt TD. Retirement: Fostering Physician Well-being Over the Career Life Cycle. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2026;101(1):179–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.05.027
Stanford WellMD course and education information discussed in the episode
•      Stanford WellMD & WellPhD Center  —  https://wellmd.stanford.edu
•      Stanford Chief Wellness Officer Course  —https://wellmd.stanford.edu/knowledge-hub/courses-conferences/cwo-course.html
•      Stanford Wellbeing Director Course  —  https://wellmd.stanford.edu/knowledge-hub/courses-conferences/directorcourse.html
The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not  necessarily reflect those of  our employers or other official organisations.

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After a deliberate pause it's great to be back with Season 7.  This trailer episode introduces and sets the scene for the season and what you can expect. Thanks for listening. 
The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au

Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not  necessarily reflect those of  our employers or other official organisations.