Dr. Karen Dorn

I couldn't have imagined launching this podcast with anyone other than Dr. Karen Dorn. We've been friends for over 30 years, all the way back to our first year at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and having her here for the first episode felt exactly right. Karen is an adult hospitalist in suburban Minneapolis who went through the pandemic differently than I did, she was in the ICU watching critically ill patients die in waves, with a 70% mortality rate in a single week. What I didn't expect her to say is that the exhaustion wasn't what finally broke her. It was patient distrust. When people started coming to her sick, refusing vaccines, demanding ivermectin, and doubting everything she had to offer, that's when burnout reached beyond work and into the rest of her life entirely. I also share more of my own story in this episode than I have anywhere else, including the loss of my brother Bill, whose murder happened not long before we recorded. This one is more person…