Cut & Tell

Residency Interview Advice: Mind Games, Board Games, and Managing the Vibes

What do interviewers actually remember about you? It isn’t your answers. In this episode, plastic surgeon Dr. Liz Malphrus goes past the standard “be yourself” advice and

You can sue your doctor, but not your insurer?

What if doctors ran medicine the way lawyers run law? Lawyers, accountants and dentists have kept control of their professions, while physicians have lost control of both

Coaching, panic, and the arrival fallacy: a surgery chat with Mel Thacker, MD

What happens when you become the surgeon, pay off the loans, and still feel empty? On Cut & Tell’s first guest episode, Dr. Mel Thacker (ENT, surgeon coach, and host of

Financialization of Healthcare: How Money Became the Mission

Administrative bloat, skyrocketing CEO pay, hospital mergers, rural closures. These aren't separate problems. They're symptoms of one syndrome: financialization. In this

Healthcare's Obsession with Metrics, and Why it keeps Backfiring

What happens when a well-intentioned healthcare metric gets turned into a target? Nothing good — and Liz has the receipts. Before medical school, she spent two and a half

Private equity is eating healthcare alive

Would you send someone you love to a hospital owned by private equity? Dr. Liz Malphrus breaks down exactly how private equity works, why it's poured billions into health

Prior auths, step therapy, and AI: how doctors lose their professional sovreignty

Every week, doctors spend 13 hours fighting insurance companies just for permission to treat their patients — and now, under a new Medicare pilot, some of those decisions

CPT codes in the news: everything you need to know

CMS is proposing a rule that could cut your pay in half just for treating more than one problem per visit — and the comment period closes September 14th. Liz breaks down

How Do Doctors ACTUALLY Get Paid? What Doctors and Residents Need to Know

How does a doctor's visit actually turn into a paycheck? It's more convoluted than how a bill becomes a law — and almost nobody, including most doctors, understands it.

A Noble Profession Tries to Get Paid: The Historical Roots of a Modern Healthcare Crisis

This is Episode 2 of our series on health policy and economics for doctors! This episode is about laying the historical groundwork for the rest of this season, because so

Doctors Don't Know How Healthcare Works. Here's Why.

What if doctors understood how the healthcare system actually works? In the first episode of Season 2 of Cut & Tell, Dr. Liz Malphrus kicks off a new series designed to

How to Choose the Right Medical Specialty | My Journey to Plastic Surgery

Choosing a medical specialty is one of the biggest and most stressful decisions in medicine. In this season finale of Cut & Tell, newly graduated plastic surgeon Dr. Liz

My First Day as an Attending Plastic Surgeon | Life After Residency

What does the first day as an attending surgeon actually look like? After years of medical school and plastic surgery residency, Dr. Liz Malphrus officially begins her c

Starting My First Job as a Plastic Surgeon (What I Had to Buy)

Starting your first attending job means more than just showing up on day one. It means building an entire practice from the ground up. In this episode of Cut & Tell, I t

How to Find Your First Doctor Job (What Nobody Teaches You)

No one teaches physicians how to find their first job. After years of medical school and residency, new attendings are suddenly expected to navigate networking, intervie

Confessions of a Former People-Pleasing Plastic Surgeon | Cut & Tell

After six years of surgical residency, I expected to leave with better technical skills. I didn't expect to leave without one of my defining personality traits. In this

Chief Resident Advice No One Teaches You | How to Lead a Residency Team

What actually makes a great chief resident? After finishing plastic surgery residency, Dr. Liz Malphrus reflects on one of the most important leadership roles in medical

How to Survive (and Thrive) During Intern Year | Advice From a Graduating Resident

Starting residency can feel overwhelming. New city, new hospital, new responsibilities, and suddenly everyone expects you to know what you're doing. In this episode of C

Why Residency Feels Financially Impossible Today | "Back in My Day", Part 2 | Cut & Tell

Residents today earn roughly the same inflation-adjusted salary as residents did decades ago. So why does training feel so much more financially difficult? In this episo

"Back In My Day" - Why Today’s Residents Feel Less Prepared Than Ever | Cut & Tell

Attendings often tell stories about residency "back in the day" - more autonomy, more responsibility, more independence. But was training really better, or has the entire