What happens when burnout, trauma, and “just getting through the week” collide with alcohol culture in medicine?

In this episode of Social Rounds, Frances Mei Hardin and Tony Chin-Quee sit down with writer, comedian, and sobriety facilitator Joel Walkowski to unpack a question most physicians never ask out loud: Do we all need an intervention?

From “forgetting juice” in residency to the normalization of heavy drinking, this conversation dives into how environment shapes behavior—and how easy it is to rationalize habits that might be quietly costing more than they give.

Joel shares a candid look at addiction, recovery, and the psychology behind behavior change, including why high-performing professionals are especially good at talking themselves out of a problem.

This episode covers:

• Why drinking is so normalized in medical training
• The line between “recreational” and problematic use
• How environment accelerates addiction patterns
• The concept of a personal “cost-benefit analysis”
• Why physicians struggle to recognize their own red flags
• Actionable ways to reassess habits without blowing up your life

If you’ve ever thought, “This is just what everyone does”—this one’s for you.

Hosted by:

Tony Chin-Quee: @wheyouat

Frances Mei Hardin: @francesmeimd

Guest: Joel Walkowski

Connect with Joel: @joelwalkowski

Find his book, Honolulu Blues, available for pre-order now: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Honolulu-Blues/Joel-Walkowski/9781637749043

Produced by: The Hippocratic Collective

This week on Social Rounds, we’re joined by returning fan favorite Dr. Kate Buhrke—rogue agent of chaos and resident philosopher—to answer a deceptively simple question: can philosophy actually make the pain of medicine make sense?

What starts as required reading quickly spirals into a full-blown debate on utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and whether the system of medical training is justified simply because it “works” for most people. Along the way, we try (and struggle) to define what a hedon unit is, question whether residency is ethically defensible, and confront the uncomfortable reality that medicine may be built on competing moral frameworks with no clear answer.

We also get into:

• Why philosophy feels both clarifying and completely useless
• The ethics behind the Match and graduate medical education
• Whether outcomes alone justify suffering in training
• Aristotle’s “middle path” and what it means for modern physicians
• The Ship of Theseus and what it says about identity, change, and who we become in medicine

Equal parts thoughtful and unhinged, this episode lives in the tension between wanting answers and realizing there might not be any.

Subscribe, rate, and follow Social Rounds for more conversations at the intersection of medicine, culture, and everything we weren’t taught—but should’ve been.

Hosted by:

Tony Chin-Quee: @wheyouat

Frances Mei Hardin: @francesmeimd

Guest: Kate Burhke, DO

Connect with Kate:

https://www.hippocratic-collective.com/members/kate-buhrke-do

Produced by: The Hippocratic Collective

No Frances Mei this week, so Tony brought in reinforcements.

Dr. Janet McMordie (now appearing on network medical drama Doc) and Friend-of-the-Pod, Dr. Ryan Montoya join Social Rounds for a wild, behind-the-scenes look at where medicine and entertainment collide.

This episode starts chaotic and somehow escalates:

Tony casually reveals he won $25,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire… Janet breaks down what it’s actually like being a real physician on a TV set… and Ryan brings stories from the edges of Hollywood that prove actors are, in fact, just as unhinged as the rest of us.

Janet shares how she transitioned from medicine into acting and what it’s actually like working on a major TV production. Along the way, the group unpacks the reality of medical storytelling, the limits of authenticity, and why even the most experienced actors still struggle with the basics of medicine.

In this episode:

– The truth about acting on medical shows (from an actual doctor)

– Why even veteran actors still struggle with medical jargon

– Tony’s game show past and the question that cost him more money

– Behind-the-scenes stories from TV sets (including when things go very wrong)

– Fame, ego, and the weird overlap between medicine and Hollywood

Hosted by:

Tony Chin-Quee: @wheyouat

Ryan Montoya: @ryan_montoya_art

Janet McMordie: @janetmcmordie

Produced by: The Hippocratic Collective