COVID-19 has provided a steep learning curve for healthcare systems managing their supply chain. In a flash, PPE became as difficult to acquire as a popular child’s toy at the holidays. In this episode of SoundPractice we speak with Dr. Thomas Tsai about his experience and research on supply chains. Dr. Thomas Tsai is a surgeon and health policy researcher in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. How can hospital leaders work with clinicians on safety across the supply chain including delivering care and measuring care?  How to look at human capital as a supply chain factor, investing in the pipeline for a robust workforce?  How can healthcare systems predict short term demands upon the supply chain? What unintended consequences did the suspension of elective procedures trigger? This episode will help your organization prepare for the next unexpected surge in demand for care.Dr. Thomas Tsaihttps://www.hsph.harvard.edu/thomas-tsai/Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org

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Logistics in the Age of Pandemic: Managing Your Health System’s Supply Chain

Dr. Thomas Tsai

Finance

Resource Allocation

Strategy and Innovation

Environmental Influences

Few physicians ever experience healthcare from the perspective of a health plan, but Jacob Asher, MD, is an exception. A former ENT surgeon with Kaiser Permanente, Asher shifted gears in 2008 to pursue a career in commercial health plan management. Over the next 14 years, he served as California Commercial Market Medical Director for Anthem Blue Cross, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare. Today, he shares his expertise by mentoring students in Stanford University's Master’s Program in Medical Informatics.

In this conversation with host Michael Sacopulos, Asher pulls back the curtain on commercial insurance — from how contracts are structured, to who holds pricing power, why behavioral health has been siloed, and what AI might finally be able to fix in a system long defined by friction and misaligned incentives. Asher also shares how serving on Kaiser Permanente’s Medical Group Board of Directors helped prompt his move from surgery into health plan leadership. He also discusses the role of AAPL (then ACPE) in preparing physicians for non-clinical career paths.

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org.


The Circle of Money: What Physicians Need to Know About Health Plan Contracting with Dr. Jacob Asher

Jacob Asher, MD

Payment Models

Economics

Financial Management

What does it take to build a culture of ethics inside a health system — and what happens when leaders lack the courage to defend it? 
In this episode of SoundPractice, host Mike Sacopulos sits down with Arthur Caplan, PhD, one of the world's foremost bioethicists and the founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine's Department of Population Health.

Dr. Caplan traces his path into bioethics from a childhood hospitalization for polio to graduate training at Columbia, where he witnessed firsthand the ethical gaps in medicine's early encounters with IVF, informed consent, and research oversight. That experience shaped a career devoted not just to theorizing about ethics, but to solving real problems in real institutions.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Caplan and Mike Sacopulos explore:

- What an effective ethics infrastructure looks like 
- The defining bioethical challenges of the next decade 
- Compassionate use and unproven therapies 
- Misinformation and informed consent 
- Rationing and equity 
- Bioethics training for the next generation 

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership.


Ethics at the Edge: Bioethics, AI, and the Courage to Lead with Arthur Caplan, PhD

Arthur Caplan, PhD

Professional Capabilities

Integrity

Problem Solving

Critical Appraisal Skills

Quality and Risk

Health Law

In this episode of SoundPractice, host Mike Sacopulos speaks with two physician-researchers whose landmark study is sounding an early warning about the long-term consequences of state abortion restrictions on the U.S. physician workforce. Anisha Ganguly, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Anna Morenz, MD, MPH, assistant clinical professor of internal medicine at the University of Arizona, discuss their study published in JAMA Network Open in March 2026.

Their study analyzed nearly 24.2 million residency applications submitted to more than 4,300 programs across all medical specialties between the 2018–2019 and 2022–2023 application cycles. Using an interrupted time-series causal methodology developed in collaboration with health economist Anirban Basu, PhD, MS, at the University of Washington, the team found that applications to programs in states enacting new abortion restrictions after Dobbs dropped significantly — among both male and female applicants.

Among the conversation’s most striking moments: Ganguly reveals that the decline among men applicants was larger than expected — and larger than they had originally hypothesized. She and Morenz discuss why this makes Dobbs an “all of us” problem, not just a women’s issue, and what it signals about the broader reproductive climate of restricted states. 

The episode also covers the pipeline problem: because more than half of physicians ultimately practice in the state where they trained, sustained declines in application volume could worsen existing physician shortages in primary care and emergency medicine in restricted states for years to come. Morenz shares a timely update: in the most recent March 2026 match cycle, two OB-GYN residency programs — both in Texas — failed to fill all their slots.

Study Reference:
Ganguly AP, Basu A, Morenz AM. State-Level Disparities in Residency Applications After Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. JAMA Netw Open. 2026;9(3):e260286. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.0286

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org.


Where Will Doctors Train? Residency Applications, Abortion Restrictions, and the Coming Workforce Crisis with Dr. Anisha Ganguly & Dr. Anna Morenz

Anisha Ganguly, MD, MPH

Anna Morenz, MD, MPH

Quality Improvement

Influence

What does commanding troops in combat have to do with leading a hospital? More than you might think. In this episode of SoundPractice, host Mike Sacopulos sits down with Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, U.S. Army (Ret) — former commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe, CNN military analyst — to explore the surprising parallels between military and medical leadership. Soldiers and physicians share more in common than most realize. Both are defined by their profession first, and both operate in life-and-death environments where leadership is not optional.

Hertling shares how he came to spend nearly a decade at AdventHealth developing physician leadership programs, what his doctoral research revealed about inter-professional training, and why getting doctors, nurses, and administrators in the same room may be the single most important thing hospitals can do. Inter-professional leadership training produces measurably better outcomes than siloed programs.

He also discusses his newly released memoir, If I Don't Return: A Father's Wartime Journal, drawn from a handwritten journal he kept during Operation Desert Storm.

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org.


From Battlefield to Bedside: Physician Leadership Lessons from Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling

Mark Hertling, DBA

Accountability

Motivations and Thinking Style

Comfort with Visibility

What does it mean to truly flourish at work — and why are physician leaders especially vulnerable to losing that?

In this episode of SoundPractice, host Mike Sacopulos sits down with MaryCay Durrant, a nationally recognized expert on human fulfillment whose 30-year career has taken her inside transformation efforts at Deloitte, Pepsi, Johnson & Johnson, Hyatt, and — increasingly — the world of healthcare and physician leadership. MaryCay brings a perspective that is part organizational science, part nature wisdom, and entirely focused on helping leaders rediscover what fuels them. Her approach helps human beings flourish at work. 

The conversation moves from the personal — MaryCay's father was a pediatrician and president of the American College of Physician Executives — to the deeply practical, as she walks through her WORK model, a framework for combating burnout through small, consistent adjustments rather than wholesale system overhaul.  As she describes in two compelling case studies, meaningful change happens through small communities of practice — not top-down mandates.

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org.


How Physician Leaders Can Rediscover Their Human Spirit with MaryCay Durrant

MaryCay Durrant

Self-Management

Resilience

Self-Awareness

Humility

Pamela Sullivan, MD, MBA, CPE, is the author of the new book, Career Prescription Guide: A Physician's Guide for Career Transformation or Advancement. She is a national medical director, High-Risk Programs at P3 Health Partners and founder of National Healthcare Solutions LLC. Dr. Pamela Sullivan brings a career as varied as it is distinguished — from physical therapist to emergency medicine physician, urgent care pioneer, and now national leader in value-based care. In this episode, Dr. Sullivan shares her unconventional path through medicine, her hard-won perspective on patient-centered leadership, and her vision for what healthcare can and should be. 

Episode Highlights:

- Why Value-Based Care Works: When you do the right things for the patient, the financial outcomes follow. 
- What Emergency Medicine Taught Her About People: Years in a trauma center shaped Dr. Sullivan's view of compassion and human dignity. She reflects on shedding early biases, treating every patient — from hospital CEOs to the unhoused — with equal respect. 
- The Public's Eroding Trust in Healthcare: Dr. Sullivan speaks candidly about experiencing healthcare inequities firsthand. She advocates strongly for universal access to healthcare and its core components, and acknowledges the complex, multi-layered challenges. 
- Reasons for Hope: Dr. Sullivan highlights home-based care models as a meaningful step forward. 
- Advice for Early-Career Physicians: Medicine is just one piece of what new physicians need to master. Dr. Sullivan urges young physicians to give themselves grace, invest in mentors, treat every member of the care team with dignity, and immerse themselves in their organization's culture.

Packed with wisdom for early-career physicians and insights into compassion-centered leadership, this episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about creating a better healthcare future.

Learn more about the American Association for Physician Leadership at www.physicianleaders.org.


Driving Value-Based Care by Putting Patients First with Dr. Pamela Sullivan

Pamela C. Sullivan, MD, MBA, CPE, FACP, FCUCM, PT

Action Orientation

Logistics in the Age of Pandemic: Managing Your Health System’s Supply Chain

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