S1E22 Why Four Doctors Quit the Machine — And What It Actually Cost Them.

After months of conversations with physicians building independent practices — a concierge doctor who makes house calls, a DPC physician who traded a 2,000-patient panel for one capped at 300, an internal medicine doctor in Bend offering 60-minute first visits, and a cancer survivor running a holistic practice out of a converted space — Dr. Adama Diarra noticed the same four themes surfacing again and again. In this solo recap episode, Dr. Diarra pulls those threads together into one conversation: autonomy as a deliberate trade-off rather than an escape fantasy, AI as a tool to sharpen clinical judgment rather than replace it, the patient relationship as the actual product of medicine, and the constant temptation to let your brand outrun your care. Along the way: how an extra 45 minutes of autonomy helped one doctor catch a missed aortic aneurysm, why "physically ill" is how one physician described her old inbox, and why none of the doctors featured on this show built a following before they built trustworthy care. A practical, story-driven episode for any physician, NP, or PA weighing what independence actually costs — and what it's actually for.