11/05/2025
Last week, I walked out of my last full-time shift in the emergency department.
Twenty years ago, I fell in love with emergency medicine and dedicated countless hours to becoming an emergency physician. I learned from mentors, colleagues, and, most of all, patients.
Two years ago, I wrote about how disconnected and confusing healthcare has become for patients and doctors alike. In the emergency department, it often felt like I was living inside a giant magnifying glass, showing me every detail of how our system was failing us. But that same magnifying glass also illuminated potential solutions, even if they didn’t exist yet.
Buoyant started as my attempt to be the change.
What began as a mission-driven project between shifts has grown beyond what I initially thought possible. We’re now licensed in all 50 states and D.C., helping patients across the country, and preparing to launch a national partnership to bring the best healthcare anywhere, to everyone.
As my side gig becomes my every day, it’s time to step back from the first version of what made me want to become a doctor.
It’s time to lean into the next chapter.
Luckily, my emergency medicine colleagues are kind enough to let me keep working a few shifts a month, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave the emergency department entirely. I’m endlessly grateful for the group of physicians who gave me my first job out of residency, and even created a new Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine role so I could help build something new at our shop. I’ll always be thankful for that, and hope they’ll still send me fun ECGs and tricky peds cases from time to time.
To my EM friends and mentors: thank you.
To our team at Buoyant, and to everyone who’s believed in this mission from the start, you’re going to love what’s next.
The dream was to make better care the new normal. Two years in, we’re definitely making a dent.
