Mastery and Wellness: A Weekly Newsetter For Healthcare Providers

Mastery and Wellness: Thriving in Medicine

A weekly newsletter designed to empower medical professionals to achieve mastery, balance, and well-being in their careers and lives.

It is 7:30 on a Tuesday morning. Someone at home sick, or a pipe burst, or the tire is flat. It doesn't much matter which one it is. Each is one of modern life's inconveniences that cannot be ignored, and they arrive at 7:02 in morning when you have a full clinic ahead of you. You could cancel. Y...

by Ben Reinking — Aug 23, 2026 physician burnout portfolio careers

No one loses summer all at once

I love this time of year. Living in a college town, there's a hum of excitement as students return. On Friday I helped cloak the M1s at the white coat ceremony put their white coats on them. They start medical school on Monday. The garden is mature and cranking out cucumbers, peppers, and zucchin...

by Ben Reinking — Aug 16, 2026 physician life

The question no one asked you in July

Every July, the same question is uttered around the hospital: how are the new residents, fellows, and faculty settling in? It can be heard in hallways, in division meetings, on calls with referring physicians. It is a good question. I ask it myself, constantly, about everyone whose year just star...

by Ben Reinking — Aug 10, 2026 physicians careers

She has started over more than once

The sentence comes up in some form in almost every coaching conversation I have. "I'm too far in to change now." Sometimes it's a senior resident. More often it's someone twelve or fifteen years into a career. They are very good at what they do, and they feel stuck on a treadmill with no stop ...

by Ben Reinking — Aug 02, 2026 medical careers

Competence has a very short memory

Every July, the hospital fills up with people who are terrified and (mostly) hiding it well. The new fellows started at the beginning of the month, and our cardiology fellows are in the echo lab. After a gradual introduction, they're now doing complete normal echocardiograms on their own. I revie...

by Ben Reinking — Jul 25, 2026 career development medical careers physician coaching

The decisions with no wrong answer

The hardest decisions aren't the ones with a clear answer. Those sort themselves out once you have the information. The hard ones are where you're choosing between several things you value and you don't want to compromise, give any of them up, or lose something in the trade. Most of the bigges...

Jul 19, 2026 career advising medical careers medical students premed values based decision making

Ready for a change. Now what?

Every few weeks I hear the same story. A physician — usually mid-career, usually very good at their job — writes to tell me they're ready for a change. The first sentence has energy in it. The second one is always the same: "I just don't know where to start." I do. Not because I'm smarter than...

by Ben Reinking — Jul 11, 2026 career transition

The freedom you have, and the room to use it

Happy Fourth. Freedom is the word of the week. Fireworks, flags, barbecue, family. We are fortunate in more ways than we usually stop to count. So here is the question I keep sitting with. Why do so many of the physicians I talk to not feel as free as they look on paper? Here is what I think...

by Ben Reinking — Jul 04, 2026 freedom medical careers

What a milestone taught me

The grandkids are 4 and 7 months old now. I'm still getting used to being called Grandpa Ben. This weekend my partner and I traveled to Texas to watch my bonus son graduate from his emergency medicine residency. He and his partner have the seven-month-old. She's a year ahead of him, working locum...

Jun 20, 2026 coaching legacy

The Question I Get Most: "How Can You Help Me?"

And the honest answer — especially for physicians. It usually comes a few minutes into a first conversation, sometimes with a slightly raised eyebrow: "So — how exactly can you help me?" It's a fair question. Honestly, it's my favorite one, because physicians ask it differently than most people d...

by Ben Reinking — Jun 13, 2026 coaching

The Cottonwood

When I’m visit my hometown, I like to go for walks with my parents They live on the eastern edge of South Dakota, where the Big Sioux runs down to meet the Missouri. There’s a wooded peninsula between the two rivers. A quiet area full of cottonwoods. We see deer, Baltimore orioles, and the occas...

Jun 06, 2026 legacy

The Hibachi

Last week was full at every edge. Clinic was overbooked. The medical students had finals, with extra duties in the learning community on top of the clinical load. And we are in the middle of launching a clinical expansion that is the kind of project that does not follow you home in your car ...

by Ben Reinking — May 30, 2026 energy audit physician careers

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Mastery and Wellness: Thriving in Medicine

A weekly newsletter designed to empower medical professionals to achieve mastery, balance, and well-being in their careers and lives.

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