Offcall Physician Spotlight: Meet Dr. Michael Hobbs

Have a response for Dr. Hobbs? Reply to this post directly, he'll personally read every message. Also, be sure to check out Michael's AI 101 Guide for Clinicians, an exceptional free resource for clinicians. Michael and Dr. Graham Walker are also currently hosting a 4-part AI residency webinar series. In case you missed it, see the first session replay here.

1. Michael, what do you think the public most misunderstands about being a physician in 2026? That we are humans too that get stressed, get tired, and are struggling to balance patient demands with system demands that the patients don't see. It's hard to walk into a room with a goal of empathy when it's not given in return.

2. What’s one thing you’d tell a first-year resident that no one told you? You're a learner, and you do work as part of your learning. You're not a worker first who then learns. I think this perspective resets everyone's expectations.

3. What’s one boundary you wish you set earlier? Not feeling like I have to meet others' expectations of how I do my job. I've found my own way despite institutionalized and antiquated ways of thinking.

4. Forget pizza parties — what’s one way you’ve coped with burnout that’s actually made a difference? Honestly, I tried to take care of the other clinicians around me who were also burning out. it didn't necessarily fix my own burnout, but it made me feel like I could do something to counter it for others. I was hoping that by modeling it, we would all work together to solve it, but that wasn't how it went.

5. Tell us your biggest workflow hack with AI? Building my own tools with AI agents, like Claude Code. I struggled with AI scribes, so I just built what I needed.

6. What’s the hardest part about being a physician that you think should be talked about more openly? Humans are so adaptable to stress and physicians do it to such an extreme that we don't even realize how much we need to take care of ourselves, rest, and recharge. Physicians, model this for others!

7. What's the thing that you love most about The Pitt and feel that is captures best about medicine? The intensity. I can't watch more than one episode at a time. I'm not even an ER doc and it triggers me!

8. What's one under the radar AI tool that has made the most impact on your practice and why? I think Claude Code is under the radar for most clinicians still and more should be building one off solutions for themselves. I susect for your readers (listeners) it's not so unknown. For them, I'd check out Warp.dev, it makes the terminal less scary.