On/Offcall: 2 ER Doctors React to Season 2 of The Pitt

It's time for Session 2 of our AI Residency Webinar Series: Choosing the Right AI Tools As a Clinician.

Hosted by AI educator and direct primary care pediatrician Dr. Michael Hobbs and Offcall co-founder Dr. Graham Walker, this session is all about cutting through the noise and helping you build an AI toolkit that actually works for you in real clinical practice.

🗓️ May 6th at 5PM PT / 8PM ET

We’ll feature:

👉 A LIVE demo comparing how different AI tools respond to the same case

👉 A simple framework you can use to evaluate any AI tool

👉 How to build your personalized AI toolkit that fits your specific needs

👉 Real-time comparisons of tools across various use cases

A huge thank you to our sponsors for supporting this series: Evidently, leading AI-assisted clinical data intelligence, and Heidi, the AI-powered clinical documentation platform.

SAVE YOUR SPOT FOR MAY 6TH. SEE YOU THERE!

Why The Pitt Is the Show Every Doctor Needs

This week’s How I Doctor guest is none other than Dr. Jeremy Faust, who is one of the most plugged-in voices in all of medicine, an ER doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a huge fan of the hit show The Pitt. In honor of the Season 2 finale of the show, Jeremy joins Graham for a special episode unpacking everything The Pitt gets right about being a doctor today. 🎙️

They discuss:

• What The Pitt captures about the ethos of emergency medicine

• How the show creates space to process the grief that doctors have been trained to move past

• What the public is finally starting to see about our profession

• And for a special treat, they watch and react to key scenes in real time as physicians who’ve lived it

🔥 Listen now

2025 PHYSICIANS AI REPORT

Access the Complete Report

✓Complete quantitative breakdown of what physicians really think about AI

✓Strategic implications for healthcare organizations and AI companies

✓Sentiment analysis of physician attitudes about AI and the future

Download full report

Best Stories From Offcall

When General AI Tools Fall Short in Women’s and Hormone Health — And What Clinicians Can Do About It

Op-ed from Dr. Paulina Cecula: In women's health, and particularly in hormonal and menopausal care, AI tools are not always comprehensive, current, or balanced. Here's why.

Physician Burnout Isn't a Wellness Issue. It's a Transparency Crisis.
Don’t miss Dr. Fatih Mehmet Gul’s podcast interview with Offcall’s co-founders Jake Horowitz and Graham!

40 Years of “Progress” in Doctor Communication, In One Chart
🤯

Offcall Physician Spotlight: Meet Dr. Anahita Dua

6 questions with the top vascular surgeon and associate professor of surgery who is also the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Major Medical Devices (previously nominated by Dr. Mansi Kotwal!)

1. What do you think the public most misunderstands about being a physician in 2026? What’s most misunderstood is the idea that we spend our time heroically saving lives in slow motion… when in reality we spend an inordinate amount of time just being highly trained professional clickers. People think it’s like the show Grey’s Anatomy with dramatic diagnoses, impassioned speeches, maybe a single tear rolling down your cheek as you deliver life-altering news. In reality, it’s more like:

“Hold on, I just need to click through 47 tabs, re-enter the same medication three different ways because the system doesn’t recognize it, fight a prior authorization boss battle, and document that the patient blinked twice—once voluntarily, once for billing purposes.”

Also, there’s this belief that doctors are calmly making brilliant decisions all day. In truth, half the job is: 1) Trying to remember your 17th password of the morning 2) Explaining to a computer why a human needs oxygen 3) Negotiating with an insurance algorithm that has never met a patient but thinks medical care is for the weak and denials are for the strong.

And then there’s the classic: “Why didn’t my doctor spend more time with me?”

Oh, I wanted to. I really did. But I was busy writing a novel-length note to prove to three different entities that yes, the leg attached to you is still part of your body and yes, it does, in fact, need blood flow.

Honestly, modern medicine is less “saving lives with brilliance” and more “saving lives while being audited in real time by a fax machine that thinks it went to med school.”

2. What would you tell a first-year resident that no one told you — but should have? You are not tired. You are entering a new physiological state that science has not yet classified. At some point around hour 22, you will confidently explain a plan that makes perfect sense… and then realize you’ve been holding your pen like a fork and put your pants on backwards. Also, every time you say, “This will be a quick admission,” you have personally angered the universe. That patient will become a 6-hour saga involving three consults, one mysterious lab value, and a family member who “just has one more question” (they do not).

You will spend four years becoming an expert in medicine… and 80% of your emotional growth will come from figuring out how to politely say: “I hear you… but f**k no we aren’t doing that.

And finally: Never ever put anything on hold. This job is all consuming, and if you’re waiting for it to lighten up so you can enjoy your life, you will burnout like a meteorite entering the atmosphere. Medicine needs to integrate into your daily life. It’s okay to be on call and go out to an event – if you get called, you just leave, but don’t not go just because you’re sitting at home waiting to be paged.

Same applies to eating and sleeping both in and out of the hospital. Because the one thing no one prepares you for is this: The hospital somehow knows the exact moment you sit down… and immediately needs you everywhere else.

3. What’s the hardest part about being a physician that you think should be talked about more openly? There is an inherent misalignment between corporate hospital goals and the reason we entered medicine. Committed, extended care of a patient inclusive of the time it takes to communicate, think of a plan and execute it to help the patient is at universal odds with RVU generation naturally. This odd paradigm and the inability for doctors to simultaneously serve both opposing Gods is not discussed nearly enough. And makes doctors feel inadequate when they are in fact doing everything perfectly.

A 12-hour surgery to save a patient's life and the hours of communication in the ICU, family meetings, and consult services to ensure the patient has a good outcome are not typically quantified or acknowledged. But the operative note not being completed within 24 hours of this case is acknowledged violently with a red notice, “deficiency letter” and even threats of suspension. Which God do you serve when you have 15 minutes to write an operative note or 15 minutes to update the family about the patient’s care?

4. What’s the biggest workflow hack that’s saved you time in your specialty? Weirdly, it’s kindergarten rules. Be nice to everyone and build that relationship. As much as the administration has attempted to protocolize and reduce medicine to clicks, the actual successful practice of medicine is still very much contingent on relationship building. Relationships with the patient and their family but also relationships with other doctors, secretaries, the janitor, the transfer center staff, the IRB officers, the cafeteria staff and so on. Because people help those who help them. I have made a concerted effort to use every interaction to build a one on one relationship. Know people's names, know their lives and when the going gets very tough — I need to add a case on and theirs no space or I need to have something reviewed by the IRB quickly for a deadline or I need to get a test for a patient and there are no appointments – my “connections” built through friendship and kindness through everyday interactions suddenly seem to come through for me. That’s the only way to survive this game. It’s a human game and it demands human interactions.

5. What is something you are currently working that you hope will have a big impact on the practice of medicine? Two big things: (1) First my lab is working aggressively on personalizing blood thinners. After surgery to restore blood flow to the leg, all patients are put on the same blood thinner to maintain it and for some it works, but for others, they bleed and for others they clot. My lab is redefining how to manage patients by testing their blood objectively and personalizing their blood thinner regimen so they do not clot or do not bleed. We call it the “goldilocks solution” because their blood is “just right.”

(2) Another major thing I am working on is the creation of a stent graft that comes from the arm to fix abdominal aortic aneurysms. We have developed a stent that is very thin and tiny that is 40% smaller than the smaller stent on the market so it can come from the arm artery to fix the aneurysm. This is especially beneficial for women and Asian patients who have smaller vessels to begin with and will significantly expand the therapy of stent placement for abdominal aneurysm to millions of people who are currently denied because of their access vessel size.

6. Finally, who do you want to nominate next to get the next Physician Spotlight??

I nominate Dr. Trisha Roy from Houston Methodist.

3 Things to Read This Week

The Value of Innovation and Venture Exposure During Early Training (NEJM Catalyst)
From Dr. Andrew Parambath, Korlekuor Akiti, Dr. Sherman Leung, Dr. Kevin Volpp, and Dr. Brenton Fargnoli: “More than 25% of the 105 health care companies that achieved valuations of more than US$1 billion between 2015 and 2024 had at least one founder who is a clinician.”

Women ER Physicians Earn $21,000 Less Than Men (KevinMD)
Dr. Resa Lewiss and Offcall co-founder Jake Horowitz’s podcast interview with Dr. Kevin Pho about the gender pay gap in emergency medicine.

The renaissance of physician-owned practices (Becker’s ASC Review)
Featuring Dr. Matt Mazurek: For the next generation of physicians, the real opportunity may lie in building something new.

Highlights From Our Community

Watch the interview, Mendel Erlenwein
CareCo CEO and Founder Mendel Erlenwein interviewed Dr. Oz and Amy Gleason for the Healthcare Trailblazers podcast. Watch it here.

Great conversation, Robert Wachter
Dr. Bob Wachter appeared on KevinMD’s podcast to discuss his new book about AI in healthcare. Listen to it here.

Great to see, Ali Rahimi
Dr. Ali Rahimi, founder of ALYKA Health has been selected as a participant in the Medicare ACCESS Model. Read more here.

Well said, Huzaifah Salat
Dr. Huzaifah Salat shared his reflections about building in healthtech and why it’s important to have clinicians meaningfully at the table. Read it here.

Check out these stats, Jordan Frey
Dr. Jordan Frey posted 25 stats that explain a doctor’s real finances. Check them out here.

Well done, Allison Collins
Dr. Allison Collins received an award for outstanding accomplishment from her Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara colleagues for creating and leading the Kaiser Santa Clara Lifestyle Medicine initiative. Learn more here.

Well done, Joel Bervell!
Dr. Joel Bervell won a Webby Award in the health and wellness creator category! Celebrate with him here.

Congratulations, Pradeep Natarajan
Dr. Pradeep Natarajan has been promoted to Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Congratulate him here.